Close encounters with the denizens of Page 3

According to P G Wodehouse, young men of the world can be divided into two groups - those who can stop a dogfight and those who cannot. While this referred to the England of almost a century ago, in today's world, similarly, people can be categorised into two - those who spot celebrities and those who do not. I am quite happy to say that I fall unabashedly in the second category. In all my sixty five years, I can think of only a handful of instances where I rubbed shoulders with celebs or at least saw them close up. Almost all of these encounters happened when I was travelling.

Many many years ago, I was travelling on work from Chennai to Coimbatore by the overnight train. In the old four berth first class coupe walked in a fairly ordinary looking gent in a white veshti and a cotton shirt open almost to the navel. I realised immediately that the idea was to highlight a thick gold chain hanging from his neck. Slightly aghast at the exhibition, I did not pay much attention to the conversation another of my co-passengers had with him but gathered that he was one of the leading comic actors in the Tamil films of that era. One of the reasons I didn't recognise him was that he was almost totally bald in person while he always had a thick mop of hair on screen! All of us went to sleep immediately, once the train started. The comedian was missing when we chugged into our destination early next morning - he must have obviously disembarked at an earlier station. 

Funnily enough, on the return journey of this same trip, I spotted another celeb, though accidentally. I was returning by the day train and when walking at the station, towards my chair car , was jostled and almost pushed down by two young men in a hurry. Was about to yell at them when I noticed them rushing to a fairly nondescript person walking ahead, tapping him on the shoulder and giggling in achievement. Even I realised that this man was K Bhagyaraj, the director and main actor of the Tamil hit film, Mundhanai Mudichu. Later, when going to the washroom of the train, found him holding court on the way with a handful of fans and basking in their adulation. The only contact I had with the man was that he gave me passage courteously so that I could make it to the loo!

Over the next few years, I did have brief sightings of a few more celebs. Saw K P Ummer, the Malayalam character actor of yesteryear once during a short railway journey - found him to be a slightly crotchety elderly uncle with commonplace problems. At a marriage reception, my late mum-in-law spotted the young Vineeth Sreenivasan, singer, actor and screenplay writer of the Malayalam film world and embarrassed him by asking my wife and I whether we recognised him - we didn't! About a year back, while my wife and I were checking in to a flight at Chennai, noticed a bit of commotion. Looked around and found Jackie Shroff, the Hindi actor, racing to the security check area with a bevy of airline employees in tow. He was obviously strategically late. We were not particularly disappointed that he was not on the same flight as us.

The latest encounter was with the singer K J Yesudas. While waiting for our bags at Chennai airport after a flight, we recognised that he and his wife were standing close to us. We not only greeted him, we had a small conversation with him too and requested a passing airport employee to take a photograph. When we came home, the gallery of the phone was blank - the guy had aimed the camera but had forgotten to click, maybe in excitement.Thus went my chance of getting instant popularity on Facebook as I had no photograph to post ! 

As Sahir Ludhiyanvi says in the old Hindi song 'Aasman pe hai khuda aur zameen pe hum ...' (Loosely translated: God's in his Heaven and we are in our world ...). Celebs are not quite Gods, but they do inhabit a world different from mine. They are hopefully happy in their orbit while I am definitely so in mine. As and when our orbits intersect, I will take the encounters as entertainment value. That's all !

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Biscuit bandits and biscuit mamas - yin and yang

About two decades ago, the papers in Chennai used to be full of news of biscuit bandits and their raids. This was the generic name given to robbers who used to travel in trains, befriend co-passengers, offer them biscuits or snacks laced with sedatives and get off at intermediate stations with the luggage of the sedated passengers. Almost every day there would be news of such dastardly attacks on innocent people. An immediate consequence was that the good old Indian attributes of socialising with strangers and hospitality went for a six, at least on Indian Railways. Today, of course, the ubiquitous smart phone has taken on this role - of killing socialisation!

It hit closer home one day when we heard at that time that a colleague had become a victim. The first reaction was amazement, because he was a well educated and self aware person. He had gone to Vishakhapatnam for a conference and on the return journey, had taken a train. This city is roughly halfway on the Chennai Kolkata rail line and my colleague's train was reaching Vizag at about two in the morning. While he was looking for a cup of coffee to keep himself awake, he was joined by a well dressed gentleman. That's the last he knew for some time. He not only missed his train but when he came to, he found he was lying on the railway platform heavy headed and with his pockets cleaned out too. A Good Samaritan police constable at the station bought him a ticket and put him on the next train to Chennai. My colleague did not remember reaching Chennai station or taking the auto rickshaw home. He was surprised at how he reached home as his house was quite a distance from the main road and there were many turns on the way. Apparently he gave proper directions to the driver but did not recollect one bit - that was what worried him. It worried us too.

 A few months later, he received a telephone call from the railway police at Vishakhapatnam saying that they had recovered some of his luggage. He went, largely in the hope that he would get his laptop. He got only the laptop bag and some of his clothes. So, in case, gentle reader, if you thought that biscuit bandits were not that such a big deal, this would probably make you change your views. My colleague was lucky - there were even a couple of cases where victims died. Eventually, the police got their act together and with the advent of more technology, most of these bandits did get caught. So much so that today one hardly hears of this genre of banditry.

In retirement, my association with biscuits is less spectacular and totally altruistic. On my morning walk, I frequently come across this elderly gentleman who always carries a small plastic bag. Wherever he goes, he is surrounded by all the dogs in the vicinity - stray  or even pets. He throws a couple of biscuits to each of the dogs he meets, making sure every one gets a share. Most of the dogs get a rub or a caress too. I do admire him for his tenacity in doing this daily.

The humble biscuit thus becomes a symbol of villainy as well as kindheartedness, perfidy and niceness, badness and goodness. But isn't that exactly what life is all about - an interplay of yin and yang with one blending into the other and at times, man not knowing what is good and what is evil?

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