During this IPL season, Virat Kohli caught up with some old friends from his under-19 days. He had a reunion with UP opener Tanmay Srivastava and Baroda pacer Ajitesh Argal. Both are IPL match officials now but when in teens they all were in the same victory frame as their skipper Kohli when India won the under-19 World Cup in Malaysia. They spoke warmly, shared a meal, relived the old times but there was something missing. It wasn’t really like old times.
Spoiler alert this is not a ‘good home’ tour about flashy chandeliers and cushy carpets. This is a discomfiting peek into the glitzy world that often gets lonely and where friends and extended family feel intimidated. And as Kohli says, despite the millions of fans, thousands of hangers-on and the many impersonal business meetings, he yearns for his comfort zone, his private place – the hotel bed where he loves to sit alone with only his “pack of makhanas” for company.
Long back, India’s former coach Greg Chappell, in his book Fierce Focus, narrated a chat with Sachin Tendulkar where the Aussies too got one tiny glimpse into the elusive inner world of the Master. Tendulkar, the original resident of the rarified level, would have a string of visitors all day. Piqued, Chappell got inquisitive. “Once we were talking … and I said, ‘You must have so many friends, it must be hard finding time to keep in touch with all of them’. He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Greg, you would have more friends in India than I’ve got’,” Chappell writes.
Like Chappell thought about Tendulkar, Kohli too gives the impression that he too would have an army of friends. He is always seen in reels and talk shows regaling the world with stories of bonhomie and the fun times he and his buddies have been having. Social media has clips of Kohli playing pranks, mimicking colleagues and being the life of the dressing room. He is one among the boys, the popular locker room star.
In reality, Kohli says he has just one real friend, someone he has known since both were 7. He doesn’t name him, but appreciates how he treats him exactly the way he used to. Content with his life, the ‘true friend’ never asks for favours or tickets and if offered, he refuses. Kohli, for him, is still the West Delhi kid he met years back and not cricket’s biggest brand and a global celebrity.
It’s here he mentions that one word that most of his other friends and distant relatives use and he can’t process why they do so. ‘Aap’ – the tiny three-letter word is used to address elders or those who need to be respected. In Kohli’s case, these days, he gets called ‘Aap’ by some of his peers and even those in whose laps he has played as a toddler. So when he met his under-19 team mates there was an initial period of awkwardness when the dreaded ‘Aap’ hit the air.
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“There was a bit of hesitation and they called me ‘aap’. They sense I would have changed but they are pleasantly surprised as I ask them not to be formal,” he says.
Kohli was first hit by the ‘aap bomb’ back in 2012 after he returned home after his breakthrough innings of 183 against Pakistan in the Asia Cup. That was the time the Kohlis in Delhi were meeting for a big family function. “I was very young, everything changed after that. I didn’t understand the impact of an India-Pakistan game. For me it was a game of cricket. The next day you wake up and you go to breakfast with your teammates and everything is the same. But the dynamics and perception changed quickly and it was very difficult to process,” he said.
He was in for a shock at the family get-together. “You see people who you have grown up with call you ‘aap’ .. even those in whose laps I have played start calling you ‘aap’ …. It was weird, so I told my mom I needed to leave. After an hour I left. I couldn’t take it, it was too much for me to handle,” he said.
MS Dhoni’s bio-pic beautifully captures one such moment of parting. It’s when Dhoni’s old mate from Kharagpur, Satya bhaiya, comes to meet him at the five-star hotel where the Indian team is put up. Elder to him, the small-time cricketer who recommended Dhoni for the Railways job looks at the Indian captain with a sense of pride. Dhoni is on an important call with selectors.
Satya bhaiya sits on the sofa staring at the friend with whom, and three others, he shared a Railway quarter years back. When Dhoni finishes the call, Satya bhaiya shakes his head in pride: “Kitna achha English bolne laga hai, kitna badaa aadmi ban gayaa hai tu (How well you speak English, what a big man you have become),” he says. He doesn’t say ‘aap’ like Kohli’s friends but the emotion isn’t too different.
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Within minutes of ‘How are you?’ and ‘How is everybody?” formalities, Satya bhaiya figures out that there was nothing common between him and the boy he once knew any longer. In that delicately crafted scene both realise that the gap between them has widened way too much. Dhoni offers tea, just like old times. Satya bhaiya excuses himself gently. Dhoni hugs him and ruefully watches one more friend from his early life walk out.
This is the story of most stars. With time the number of old timers around the celebrities, without them intending, shrinks. Those who have known the star when they were nothing have been replaced by those with vested interests and groupies. The space and time that was once for the OG gang of friends is for the new core teams and inner circles now. Many get themselves surrounded by yesmen and sycophants. Those who used to show them the mirror are missing from the room. Stardom comes with a price tag but sometimes, in the lonely world of celebrities, the bargain is grossly unfair.
Kohli was first hit by the ‘aap bomb’ back in 2012 after he returned home after his breakthrough innings against Pakistan in the Asia Cup. (Reuters)
