One line of Sanju Samson on his Instagram wall told a thousand tales.
Hours after the selectors picked him, he posted a greyscale photograph of himself staring into the distance, his eyes still and solemn, and beneath it wrote: “Viyarppu thunniyitta kuppayam”. Literally translated as a shirt spun with sweat. The inference is as clear as sun-light, and situationally apt, that he had to shed considerable sweat to earn his place in the side.
View this post on Instagram
But the line tells you more than just about Sanju’s cricketing graph, but his organic yet carefully-woven cult-persona on social media platforms that extends beyond those that love him just for his cricketing gifts, the identity he has carved as a boy-next-door cricketer-celebrity in the Insta-scape, his proximity to the prevailing pop culture of the state, his love for music and movies.
He is delivering a cricketing statement; yet it conveys more than that. To understand further, listen to the background score that goes with the picture and the line.
The one-liner is the opening line of a hip-hop chart-busting song Kuthanthram (literally means deceit), a collaboration of composer Sushin Shyam with rapper Vedan, for the blockbuster survival drama Manjummal Boys.
The song is a cluster of one-liners. Every line is relatable to Sanju. The second line: Athinte nirangal mayukila kattayam (the colours wouldn’t fade), or the third and fourth lines: “Kinavu kanda kottaram, athile mantri nammal thanne raajav (A castle made of dreams, wherein I am the king).
The original video of the fun song depicts a group of drunken men dancing at a friend’s reception. But the meaning resonates beyond when it appears on Sanju’s wall, the line already liked by 20,47,974 and commented upon by 1,33,435. The numbers soar as you watch; so does the band of followers, which has hit 9.6 million. Among them are fellow cricketers, actors, singers, politicians, and a multitude of fans.
Jaipur: Rajasthan Royals’ captain Sanju Samson plays a shot during the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 cricket match between Rajasthan Royals and Gujarat Titans at Sawai Mansingh Stadium, in Jaipur, Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (PTI Photo)
It’s normal for men of fame and fortune to gather fandom. But only a few, other than reel-masters by profession, keep their followers engaged, or make them wait anxiously for the next reel. One of them is Muhammed Shafeek, a script-writer and vlogger.
“It happened three-four years ago when Rajasthan Royals began to aggressively churn out Sanju-centric staff. It could have been to tap in on the massive Malayali presence on social media. They produced quirky, hilarious stuff, and Sanju pulled those off with his natural charm,” he says.
Scroll down his crowded yet elegant wall, you get acquainted with off-field virtues of Sanju. His screen-presence, his knack of humour, and his cajoling of people to perform whacky acts. Like he coaxes Yuzvendra Chahal to reprise the role of a caricature-rowdy from a 90s movie; or when he makes Mohammed Shami shriek “Shammi hero aada” ala Fahad Fazil from the movie Kumblangi Nights.
In another recent reel that went viral, a snatch from an ad by the host broadcasters of the IPL, he does his version of Ranga don from the recent chart-topper, Aavesham. A bundle of gold chains decks his chest, with sharp, brisk movements, he picks the receiver of an old dial phone and spouts the signature two-worder from the movie with a sinister chuckle: “Eda moyne”.
The likes, comments, and shares soared through the invisible ceiling of the social-media-galaxy. There are non-movie posts and reels too, with his wife and parents, his friends and teammates. There is the couplet, posted after he was not picked for the World Cup at home last year, that brought him criticism too “It is what it is. I choose to keep moving forward.” He was brutally trolled, but he took it in the spirit. “I should have explained in a bracket what it actually meant. But you have to take criticisms on your chin too,” he says in a television show.
But movie references dominate. Sanju had explained at a film awards show in Dubai: “In India, the two most popular things are cricket and movies. So they are inter-related naturally.”
Among Sanju’s friends are actors, singers and directors. He is spotted with the glitterati of movie-dom, with Mohanlal, Mammootty and Rajinikanth, whose one-liner in the movie Baasha – oru tadavu sonna, nooru tadavu sonna mathiri– which means once I tell you, it’s like I have told you a hundred times, is his favourite.
When he was picked for the T20 World Cup earlier this week, almost every other actor in the Malayalam industry posted an old photograph with him; almost every other politician tried to establish a nonexistent connection, with a BJP leader even claiming that his “influential” friend sealed the deal.
India’s Sanju Samson celebrates his century against South Africa. REUTERS/Esa Alexander
In a sense, Sanju is the lone bridge between sport and film-dom in Kerala. His predecessor S Sreesanth has indeed dabbled in acting, but he has seldom looked this organic. The biggest sporting hero of the state, footballer IM Vijayan, has acted in movies, one of them, Santham won critical acclaim too, but those were after his playing days.
The fast bowler and footballer lived at a time when the on-field hero was the moustache-twirling, mundu flipping alpha-male heroes, but Sanju lives in an era of everyman heroes on the screen. “The problem with Sreesanth was that his hyper-aggressive image and antics did not sit well with the audience, at a time when there were bigger celebrities such as Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. Also, social media was not such a big thing back then,” Shafeeq explains.
It’s the soul of Sanju’s deification in home state. Explains his ex-teammate, captain and elder-brother-like Raiphi Vincent Gomez: “He is a grounded person, who can make you feel at ease and warm from the moment you meet him. He is the boy next door, who can be your friend, younger or elder brother, son. He is someone everyone could relate, no hang-ups, no pretenses, a simple boy even after all these exploits on the field.”
No jaada
Or as the Mayalalis say one without jaada (one without pretenses, or hook-ups, or one who smoothly blends with the crowd). “I think he is the most popular sportsperson to have come from the state. He is someone who I can say is the exact person as you see on the screen, or on his social media wall,” adds Gomez.
Unlike most celebrities, he does not hide behind tinted glasses of a car and reclines to the anonymity of face-mask. In Thiruvananthapuram, his hometown, if you are lucky, you could spot him in a coffee shop, or on a walk along the beach. Some time ago, there was a post of him casually walking into a mobile phone shop and buying a screen guard for his phone.
His coach Biju George often talks about Sanju joining random groups of teenagers and playing tennis-ball cricket with them even after he had become a professional cricketer. “He is a relatable, accessible person,” the coach says.
On the field, a thousand cameras and eyes converging, he is unflappably composed in the most vexing situations. Whether he has to defend two runs off the last ball, or hit 15 off the last over, he remains unperturbed.
“Watching him bat brings a certain kind of peace, that everything is in control,” says Gomez. He saw that in his eyes when they toured South Africa a decade ago. “He was just 16 or 17, the ball was seaming and bouncing wildly, we were four-five down and he came and scored a hundred, against a provincial side with mean fast bowlers. That’s when I realised his potential.”
India’s Sanju Samson celebrates his century against South Africa with India teammate Rinku Singh. (PHOTO: REUTERS)
He breathes the same serenity when he defuses wily questions of guileful television anchors. Like he expertly dealt with John Brittas, whose interviews often turn out to be confessional pulpits, who could be as nuanced as Karan Thapar and as cringeworthy as Karan Johar.
Answering tough questions
In an interview with Sanju and his wife Charulatha he probes their love-story, even asks his wife “whether she felt Sanju’s was a shallow love at some points?” or “whether it was instant attraction”, excavating every lurid detail, and slips them to the uneasy terrain of their different faiths.
Sanju neither dead bats nor hit him over the fence, but deals with it as it should be, on the merit of the question and narrates the full story, from the day he first saw her in the college canteen to how they sustained their “fire” during their courtship and how they conveyed their decisions to their parents.
At no point does Sanju show unease, or frets and fumes, as several interviewees had in the past. With a disarming smile, he would narrate his tale as it is, and dwell on their different faiths, neither over-indulge him nor showing any visible signs of displeasure. It’s a familiar trait of his on the playing field too.
Sanju Samson plays a shot. (Sportzpics)
On the screen, he exudes charm and poise. He is both entertaining and engaging, expressive and articulate.
The sequence when he explains the conversation between him and Sandeep Sharma during a tense last-over finish against Chennai Super Kings in a television show is such a laugh riot that the subtitles do little justice. He explains his dilemma when running to console Sandeep Sharma, who MS Dhoni had hit for a brace of sixes. “So what do I tell him? I cannot go and ask him “tu ok hain? I cannot even run frantically towards him.”
Tactics exchanged, he finally asked him: “You are okay na. Whatever you want to bowl, do it with all your heart and energy.”
He self-deprecates: “I used to tell people I wanted to become an IPS officer, then later I realised it’s for intelligent people.”
Amidst a dragging discussion with a group of doctors, he suddenly asks one: “You told he scored 200 in 56 balls. Was he playing a video game?”, and broke the monotony.
All these embellish his aura as a new-age hero of the masses. There were sporting heroes in Kerala, like Vijayan and volleyball star Jimmy George, track and field queens PT Usha and Anju Bobby George. That Samson, like them, has become the darling of the masses, is evidence of his popularity.
He owes it as much to his willow and keepers’ gloves as the Insta wall. And the one-liners that tell a thousand tales.
