No ordinary handshake! When Tendulkar met hockey greats Dhanraj Pillay, MM Somaya

Sachin Tendulkar, surrounded by minders and fans, started to leave the lawns of a Mumbai hotel after an event last week. Standing nearby — sans hangers-on — was a group of Indian hockey luminaries, including former captains and Olympians Dhanraj Pillay and MM Somaya. Tendulkar saw them and postponed his exit by a couple of minutes to exchange pleasantries.

The handshakes were not ordinary ones, but those involving men who together scripted some glittering chapters in Indian sports history.

The conversation may not have gone much beyond “Hello, what’s happening?”, but it was a moment of mutual acknowledgement between peers of the sporting sort. Understandably, the cameras clicked away.