Everyone knows Sachin Tendulkar, the cricket legend. Within the cricket community, he is renowned for his remarkable accomplishments. Although Sachin has never disclosed details about his personal life, his wife and children are frequently seen with him or at games.
Sachin is wed to Anjali Tendulkar, a stunning woman. They dated for five years before marrying on May 24, 1995, while still in love. Together, they are parents to two lovely children: son Arjun Tendulkar and daughter Sara Tendulkar. It was love at first sight for Sachin and his wife Anjali; their love tale is fascinating. Given the six-year age difference between Sachin and Anjali, how did Anjali’s parents feel about their relationship?
It was Sachin who discussed marriage with Anjali’s parents:
Sachin, 19, proposed to Anjali’s parents, asking to wed their only child. Annabel Mehta, his mother-in-law, talked about how she felt about Sachin Tendulkar’s proposal and what it’s like to be his mother-in-law.
Who is Annabel Mehta, the mother of Anjali Tendulkar?
1940 saw the birth of Annabel Mehta in Solihull, England. She was the youngest of her siblings’ three children. While pursuing her social work degree at the Royal College of Music, she met Anand Mehta, her current husband. Later, in 1966, Annabel and Anand were married in Bombay. Since then, she has made that place her home.
In Mumbai, India, Annabel established Apnalaya, a nonprofit agency that helps impoverished kids. The Queen has also bestowed upon her the title of MBE, or Member of the Order of the British Empire. Currently, Annabel Mehta is writing a captivating memoir called “My Passage to India.”
She co-wrote a novel with Georgina Brown, which Westland Books released. “My Passage to India: A Memoir” includes a mention of her son-in-law Sachin Tendulkar.
This is what she had to say about the Master Blaster:
My brother Richard’s home in Bayswater was waiting for me, along with Anjali, Sachin, and Muffi. I requested that they leave Sachin and me. I was struck by how adorable and youthful he appeared as we took our seats on benches on either side of the big kitchen table, and I had to force myself to remember why we were there.
I informed him that Anjali was our only kid and that she was much more important now that we had lost our second daughter. I also asked him what his plans were for Anjali. In the past, this would have been the father’s responsibility in England. However, one of the reasons I married Anand was because he is not at all like a typical British male.
He detests conflicts. Furthermore, he might not have been entirely objective regarding Sachin’s eligibility as his intended daughter because he could have won Mastermind on the topic of the nineteen-year-old Master Blaster’s career thus far.
By that point, I recognised Sachin was the brightest light in the Indian cricket scene, but I was worried he would end up like so many other cricketers—a playboy. It’s a part of the territory. In the 1990s, Sachin in India was comparable to David Beckham in England. I needed to ask him directly how he felt about my kid.
‘We want to get married’ were his precise words, sweeping the rug from beneath my feet. I was astounded. I had always imagined Anjali marrying a tall, dark and handsome man. Dark and handsome, Sachin was. But at nineteen, he was still a boy. And so small. Barely taller than Anjali, who is five-foot-five and a half. Sachin’s bouncy hair possibly gives him another inch, but not enough for Anjali to wear the high heels she had always loved.
Later, Anjali told me that Sachin had made it obvious he was serious about her right from their first date. She was his first romantic partner, and he thought she was the one. I could see they were genuinely, madly, terribly in love. And happiness for Anjali was all I wanted. Later on, I would be concerned that his prolonged absences would put them to the test in a variety of ways, but for now, all I could see was his youthful, innocent, hopeful, and joyful face.
In regards to it, what did Anjali’s parents say?
They had thought for a time about running away to Gretna Green but had prudently decided against it. At nineteen years old, he was not yet married to Anjali, who had not finished her postgraduate medical degree. In India, men are not legally allowed to marry until they are twenty-one (a law that is flagrantly disregarded). After two more years of waiting, they will get married in Mumbai. I told him we would be pleased to preserve their secret in the interim.
On one level, things carried on as usual. I kept working with my organisation, Apnalaya, and kept Sachin a secret, even though he started coming to our Warden Road home regularly. Not that he was well known to all. Once, my sister-in-law Tulsi thought he was our Gurkha watchman’s son. However, the street vendor of Chana and the guards at the US Consulate on the other side of the street would have undoubtedly recognised his face, and none of them ever informed the media about it.
If they accepted, the engagement might take place as soon as he got back home—as long as Anand and I gave our approval, of course. We didn’t hesitate at all. To put it mildly, everything was a little out of the ordinary. Ajit, Sachin’s older brother, set up the meeting between Anjali’s parents and himself. Sachin’s parents were not introduced to us until just before the engagement. We had a great relationship even though our social circles were different. They were pious Hindus and well-off middle-class Maharashtrians. Likewise, Sachin is. Ramesh, his father, taught Marathi literature at Kirti College and was himself a well-known poet. Rajni, his mother, was employed by the Life Insurance Company. While Sachin’s father speaks English, Sachin’s mother has only ever spoken her native tongue.
On April 24, 1994, Sachin’s twenty-first birthday, the engagement was announced formally to the media and celebrated with a lunch for twenty-five relatives at our home. Sachin had given me and Anjali instructions to visit our friend Sanjeev, a jeweller so that Anjali could select a ring while he was away in Dubai. When Sachin returned, Sanjeev allowed her to bring home a modest diamond ring that she thought fit for a medical student employed by the government. He has never allowed the public to see the beautiful picture of Sachin kissing her and placing the ring on her finger. He is a highly personal individual.
The media erupted. No one knew the identity of this Anjali Mehta. The only photo they could locate was a mugshot from when she was sixteen and enrolled at St. Xavier’s College; it didn’t look anything like the stunning young woman she had grown into. Millions of Indian girls were said to have gone into grief as it was revealed that Sachin was now spoken for. Sachin’s age of twenty-one and her lack of romantic involvement in the sport drew a lot of attention. Anjali did too, especially considering that she was almost five years older.
I am grateful to have married into a family full of loving people, who have led a virtuous life and inspired so many others. Sachin, who was nineteen years old, was a quiet, gentle, and soft-spoken boy. Anjali said to me, “You should meet the rest of his family; they’re completely silent,” after I mentioned to her how quiet he was. They both understood how different their origins were, just like Anand and I did, and neither undervalued how important that was.
