A sign of the times

Ashish Nehra’s batting average is lower than the number of times Samidh Thakur has been to jail. Of his five journeys to the lock-up so far, Tendulkar was unknowingly responsible for two. Once in 1998 and another time in 2004, when Thakur found himself in police custody. After spending about 14 hours each time, he was released but the punishment would hardly wear off his carefully-built 32-year-old devotion.In fact, it only strengthened his desire to pursue the God of cricket with the same weapon that he has chased so many cricket legends in the past — the pen. Lately, however, the physiotherapist , who has more than 6000 autographs of many global cricketers except Sachin, seems to be smarting from the fresh assault of black cats, terror threats and metal detectors. He is only one of the many deviant cricket lovers in the Autograph Club of India who are afraid they may have to soon retire hurt.
This autograph club is a registered organization composed of over 500 members across the country who, unlike Team India, are good chasers. Bound by their undying passion to collect not just famous signatures but anything handwritten by a celebrity, these members revel in being privy to such unique moments as receiving words of encouragement from Vijay Hazare, having a chat with Sachin Tendulkar’s mother or feeling dwarfed by the handshake of Vivian Richards. Once they could park themselves in the lobby of five-star hotels or camp outside stadiums but now, Kasab and other anti-social events have ruled out that possibility of innocent trespassing .
Shivaji Park’s 68-year-old Vijay Deshpande, who once made Kapil Dev smile by asking him if he had “signed more autographs than bowled balls” , misses the days when all he had to do to meet a cricketer in person was camp outside the Brabourne stadium during a test match. “Autograph hunting was a joy then,” says Deshpande, who would bank on the third day of the test match — the rest day — to catch glimpses of players like Vijay Hazare and Vinay Mankad and then approach them. The CCI silver jubilee, where Hazare, Mankad, Pankaj Roy and Chandu Borke would arrive, was another opportunity. “The trick was to avoid the watchman’s gaze,” says Deshpande , a former Air India employee , who by virtue of his credentials once stood between two jumbo aircraft with a pen and his book in 1984. The Australia-bound West Indies team was changing flights at Mumbai and during the two hour halt “I got the entire team’s signatures .”
Deshpande also remembers slipping in through the back gates of hotels like Taj and Oberoi where visiting players would stay.
Kolkata’s Gopaldas Agrawal, who has 2600 cricket autographs and over 48 signed bats, feels, “the players want to oblige you but can’t as the security stops them from doing so.”
Ahmedabad’s 72-year-old Praful Thakkar, an ex-IAS officer who boasts a website that has over 300 autographs of cricketers from Hazare to Rahul Dravid, can understand . Once, standing outside stadiums earned him pats on the back by legends who would ask what he would do with their autograph but now “it’s very difficult,” admits Thakkar, who recently attended a book launch to get Sehwag’s autograph.
Kolkata’s Nishant Singhal, who has collected all his autographs personally, seems to have lost his earlier passion. Among his priceless collection which he auctioned off recently “as I didn’t know if my son would take care of it” , was a piece of linen measuring two feet by six feet that bore the definition of cricket bought from a souvenir shop. It boasted signatures of 97 Test cricketers.
The fact that “nobody values these old players anymore ” is what irks Thane’s Satish Chaphekar the most. “The new players do not have nature of the old ones. As their popularity grows, the signature becomes less legible ,” says Chaphekar, who adds that the prospect of getting an autograph from a batsman depends on his score in the match in question “as this affects his mood,” says the tuition teacher who has figured out some creative ways of getting autographs. When Dileep Vengsarkar, for instance, got three centuries at Lords, Chaphekar got three autographs on a single bat. Chaphekar, who once answered West Indian fast bowler Joel Garner’s question “What is Mumbai?” because “He only knew it as Bombay,” says he stood near a tree outside Wankhede stadium and waved his book at Bal Thackeray’s car which was passing. “He called me inside his car and signed my book.”
Such creativity pays off, say members, who now rely on rare downloaded pictures, book launches and the Indian postal system to work around the heavy barricade of security. Gopaldas Agrawal , who has spent Rs 30,000 to attend the after parties of IPL even as his wife questions his sanity, advises befriending security guards. The die-hard Kapil fan once even donated blood just to get a certificate signed by the World Cup legend . Thakkar cites the example of the late Elizabeth Taylor who would devote one hour daily to respond to fan mail. “Even if the players reserve one hour every day to sign autographs, we would be obliged,” he says.
If they listen, Vijay Deshpande has hope. When he heard that India was hosting the World Cup this year, the 68-year-old wrote to all the venues seeking autographs of team captains. He has yet to receive a reply from even one.