Tendulkar was born at Nirmal Nursing Home, Dadar, Mumbai, on 24 April 1973. to Ramesh Tendulkar (a reputed Marathi novelist) and Rajni who worked in the insurance industry. Tendulkar has three elder siblings: two half-brothers Nitin and Ajit, and a half-sister Savita. They were Ramesh's children from his first marriage.
His father named Sachin after his favourite music director, Sachin Dev Burman. He spent his childhood in the Sahitya Sahawas Cooperative Housing Society, Bandra (East). As a child, Tendulkar was considered a bully, and often picked up fights with new children in his school. To help curb his mischievous tendencies, Ajit introduced him to cricket in 1984. He introduced the young Sachin to Ramakant Achrekar, a club cricketer of repute, at Shivaji Park, Dadar. Sachin also showed an interest in tennis and worshipped John McEnroe
Impressed with Tendulkar's talent, Ramakant Achrekar advised him to shift his schooling to Sharadashram Vidyamandir (English) High School, a school at Dadar which had a good cricket team and had produced many great cricketers. Earlier, Tendulkar had attended the Indian Education Society's New English School in Bandra (East).
Sachin was also coached under the guidance of Achrekar at Shivaji Park in the mornings and evenings. He would practice for hours in the nets. If he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a one-rupee coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who dismissed Tendulkar would get the coin. But if Tendulkar passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Tendulkar still owns the 13 coins he won then and considered them as some of his most prized possessions. Later, he moved in with his aunt and uncle, who lived near Shivaji Park, during this period, due to his hectic schedule.
Meanwhile at school, he had developed a reputation as a child prodigy. In the local cricketing circles there were suggestions already that he would become one of the greats. Sachin consistently featured in his school team in Matunga Gujarati Seva Mandal. Besides school cricket, he also played club cricket, initially representing John Bright Cricket Club in Mumbai's premier club cricket tournament, the Kanga League, and later went on to play for the Cricket Club of India.
This would sound shocking but at the age of 14, Sachin attended the MRF Pace Foundation in Madras to train as a fast bowler. There, Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee, who took a world record 355 Test wickets, was unimpressed by him and suggested that Tendulkar focus on his batting instead. On January 20, 1987, he also turned out as substitute for Imran Khan's side in an exhibition game at Brabourne Statdium in Mumbai,to mark the golden jubilee of Cricket Club of India. Some months later, when he did not get the Mumbai Cricket Association's "Best junior cricket award"(He was 14 years that time), former Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his own ultra light pads and consoled him to not get disheartened and continue practising. "It was the greatest source of encouragement for me," Tendulkar said nearly 20 years later after surpassing Gavaskar's world record of 34 Test centuries. His season in 1988 was extraordinary, with Tendulkar scoring a century in every innings he played. He was involved in an unbroken 664-run partnership in a Lord Harris Shield inter-school game against St. Xavier's High School in 1988 with his friend and team-mate Vinod Kambli, who would also go on to represent India. The destructive pair reduced one bowler to tears and made the rest of the opposition unwilling to continue the game. Tendulkar scored 326 (not out) in this innings and scored over a thousand runs in the tournament. This was a record partnership in any form of cricket until 2006, when it was broken by two under-13 batsmen in a match held at Hyderabad in India.
On 24 May 1995, at the age of 22, Tendulkar married Anjali, a paediatrician and daughter of Gujarati industrialist Anand Mehta and British social worker Annabel Mehta. Anjali is six years senior to him. Anand Mehta, is a seven-time national bridge champion. Sachin has two children, Sara (born 12 October 1997) and Arjun (born 24 September 1999) with Anjali. Arjun, a left handed batsman, has recently been included in under-14 probables list of Mumbai Cricket Association for off-season training camp. In January 2013 he was selected in Mumbai under-14 team for the west zone league.
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