A Gift Out of the Blue

One’s passions sometimes lead to strange happenings. This post is about one such strange but wonderful experience that I had a couple of weeks ago. It can be called the kindness of strangers or the generosity of the accomplished. But whatever it is, I experienced something of that sort.

I am not much into cricket. I only watch the occasional game on TV and that’s it. However, I know the names of some popular Indian players and know just enough to understand who does what- bowling or batting. Once, I had the kind of experience many cricket fans would have given their right hands for. A long time back I was flying home from Tirupati with my parents. It was my first ride in a plane and I was excited.

En route to Hyderabad, the plane landed at Vijayawada. I was surprised to see that almost the entire Indian cricket team got into the plane. They were returning to Hyderabad after playing a match at Vijayawada. I don’t remember the exact year but it was sometime in the eighties. I remember the names of some of the players who were in the plane that day - Ravi Shastry, Vengsarkar, Kiran More, Kirti Azad, Mohinder Amarnath and Maninder Singh. I was wondering what to do about it. I was beside myself with excitement. One of my younger brothers is a cricket freak so I thought I’d collect the autographs of all those players for him.

After the plane landed at Begumpet I managed somehow to get hold of a piece of paper to get their autographs on. I don’t remember where it is now but I had all their signatures at one place. That was the only cricket related highlight in my entire life. However, there is another cricket angle to my life. Hari, who represented the Hyderabad Ranji team and was also part of the team that brought the Ranji Trophy back to the state a long time ago, happens to be a close friend. But it wasn’t cricket that brought us together. It was writing that sparked the friendship. ‘The Men Within’ is his first book that was published two years ago and became a bestseller. Being a popular cricketer it is no surprise that his other friends happen to be players and also commentators. One such friend of his is Rajan Bala.

Some of the few names of people who write (or wrote) for newspapers and magazines that I remember are of GK Reddy, Malini Parthasarathy, Arun Shourie, Harinder Baweja, Raj Chengappa, Anita Pratap, Nirmal Shekar and Rajan Bala. Rajan Bala lives in Bangalore where Hari had been recently sometime last month. One day he (Hari) called me up from Bangalore and told me Rajan Bala had offered me a fountain pen as a gift. I wondered why Rajan Bala would do that since I had never met him before or know him in anyway. And I don’t think he reads this blog. But Hari explained that after he told Rajan Bala that he wasn’t much of a fountain pen freak and had told him about me after Rajan Bala asked him if he knew anyone who fancied fountain pens. Naturally, I was the only friend he knew who was nuts about fountain pens and promptly mentioned it to Rajan Bala who it seems, unhesitatingly gave a beautiful fountain pen to Hari to pass it on to me.

When I got the pen sometime last week I was dumbfounded. It was such a beautiful pen it took my breath away. Needless to say, I was also taken back by the generosity of Rajan Bala. Only someone who is passionate about fountain pens can entrust them to others similarly inclined. That way, being crazy about fountain pens has resulted in a beautiful gift from someone who was only a name for me till date but is a friend now. Next time I’m in Bangalore I am going to look him up.

Thanks, Rajan Bala.