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As a cricketer, however, Gavaskar emerges unique. To Indian cricket, he added steel and spine, apart from the runs and hundreds, of which he made plentiful and everywhere in all kinds of conditions and situations. In his tribute in Gavaskar: Portrait Of A Hero, Peter Roebuck writes, "…such were his powers that he'd have been productive 50 years earlier or 50 years later; even in this hurrying world, some things do not change, the principles of batsmanship not least amongst them."

But in the Indian context, Gavaskar meant more than just runs and hundreds. His very presence in the middle provided emotional and psychological security beyond the cricket field. Like Tendulkar, he was not just another player, but a metaphor of the country's aspirations and hopes.

It intrigues me still that not till his magnificent 221 in the heart-breaking run-chase at The Oval in 1979, which compelled Sir Len Hutton to call him the best opening batsman in the game, was Gavaskar's genius acknowledged worldwide, and he was rated alongside Viv Richards and Greg Chappell. By then, he had been playing for eight years and had scored more than 5,000 runs!

There are several other tributes that I can cite from, but an anecdote involving another great player of the 1980s, Javed Miandad, and a couple of his colleagues, perhaps, puts Gavaskar's cricketing calibre in the best perspective. We were at Miandad's house in Lahore in 1989, celebrating his 100th Test match. In between the partying, I asked the Pakistani maestro his opinion about Gavaskar.

"Many have played this game brilliantly, but few have understood it as well as this man," said Miandad, pointing in Gavaskar's direction. "Did you see his innings against us at Bangalore two years back?" I had, and consider it perhaps the most skilful and poignant knock in Indian cricket history.

Only one batsman in three innings of that Test match had crossed the 50-run mark as the ball turned square from day one. India were to bat fourth chasing a little over 200 for victory, which was like climbing Mount Everest in a snowstorm. But Gavaskar, with sublime technique and dogged determination, mastered the adverse conditions to keep his team in the hunt even as wickets fell around him like ninepins.

On the rest day of the Test, I went to interview Tauseef Ahmed, the off-spinner, and his roommate Iqbal Qasim, the left-arm spinner. The spin twins had reduced the Indian innings to rubble. Now only one man stood between them and victory: Gavaskar, unbeaten on 50-something. Usually chirpy souls, on this day Tauseef and Qasim were so high-strung that they wouldn't even talk to each other.

"Woh Baba Adam ab tak khel raha hai [that old man is still batting]," said Qasim, finally breaking the silence. "Bat hai ya deewar? (does he have a bat or a wall?)" Tauseef chipped in. "We haven’t been able to sleep because of the tension," they chimed in unison.

Next day, just when it appeared that Gavaskar would win the match single-handedly, he fell heartachingly for 96. Imran Khan called it the best innings he had seen. India eventually lost that Test match by a small margin of 16 runs, and Gavaskar bowed out of Test cricket, a forlorn but never-to-be-forgotten hero.

It's almost 22 years since he retired, but as he turns 60 today, memories of Gavaskar's exploits come flooding back. He arrived with a bang in 1970-71, scoring 774 runs in his debut Test series (still a record), notched up 10,122 runs and 34 hundreds, and finished with a flourish, making 96 in his last Test innings, a century at Lord's in his last first-class match, and a maiden hundred in his penultimate one-day game — all in 1987, at age 38. He quit as he always said he would: when people asked why, not why not.

At this point one must go back to the original question raised by the curious twenty-something at the CCI. But comparisons, I'm afraid, are odious and lead nowhere. Perhaps the answer lies in a counter-query: Had there been no Gavaskar, would there have been a Tendulkar?