Club sandwiches with the Tiger
By Indu Balachandran
Less than a month ago, I met Romi Chopra at a great reunion of old HTA-Delhi advertising buddies. Among the stories we recalled of our own desi Mad Men era of the early 80’s: an unforgettable tryst with Nawab of Pataudi.
I was then a mere sub-junior copywriter of sorts, thrilled to bits for being given a chance to write for the Wills Limited Overs series. As Romi’s circle of friends included Pataudi himself – (we would often hear Romi’s booming voice saying Hello Pat! into his phone)—he’d got our biggest cricketing hero to give us a quote or two about the thrill of the daring concept of One Day Cricket, to include in our ad campaign.
It fell upon my excited, nervous self to draft these ‘possible quotes’.
I must have written about a 100 variations, before my shortlist of 10. Romi must’ve flung them all away to make me write some more. Anyway, Romi was just setting off to meet the Tiger for lunch at the Gymkhana, and get approval on ‘the lines’. In a sudden act of bravado, I squeaked: Romi, may I come along too?
And so it was that I was sitting at a posh Delhi club, at a lunch table with Romi and Pataudi. I doubt if the Nawab was even remotely aware of my goggle-eyed presence throughout, as Romi and he chatted away over the audacious Kerry Packer. Some sandwiches came in. They ate. I don’t think I did, due to a lock-jaw condition brought on by utter awe.
Somewhere at the end, Romi pushed across my neat, Remington-typed sheet of one-liners, with ‘MAK Pataudi’ below each. His aristocratic eye glanced over them, as my heart stopped altogether. “Hmmm” he said, and asked Romi to choose what he thought appropriate. And soon we were back at the office. I became an insufferable person for the next few days, recounting my unexpected treat with cricketing royalty.
30 years later…Romi was sharing with me some fabulous pictures on his IPad, of Pataudi’s 70th Birthday celebration that he’d attended earlier this year. How dashing the Tiger still looked, we said, as we laughed over that old story.
Today, I’m glad I gave into that reckless impulse, gate-crashing an unforgettable lunch. It connects me in a very special way to a true sports hero of my time. Not to mention, to be able to tell my Cricinfo -journalist son today: hey, I wrote some snappy cricket one-liners for the King of Indian Cricket himself…
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