I am famous (continued...)

So there we were, superstars in our right, giving advice and inspiration to all those who came asking for it. Life couldn't have been better. I was all charged up for the Finals, even more so when I realized that we were having a very special celebrity guest on our show. She was the former Miss Universe, Sushmita Sen herself! The year was 1997 and she was famous then.People were still making the mistake of comparing her with Aishwarya Rai, and so it was quite a big deal when she walked into the studios.I was happy too.

In my QF, I had Abey Kuruvilla as the special guest and T.N. Seshan in the semis.For the ignorant person,Abey's claim to fame is that he is India's tallest medium pace bowler(fast would be an aberration), who played one series in West Indies, and had Lara effectively reduce his ego to Lilliputian standards. Nevertheless, I was glad to meet him; I had indirectly met God himself. The reasoning being that Abey must have interacted a lot with Sachin during his playing days, and now I was doing the same with Abey.
Get the connection??

There were many more celebrities we met. There was Baichung Bhutia who was gracious enough to have breakfast with us at the hotel. Dravid too, but he had just started,so people weren't paying him too much attention. Dalip Tahil(remember Sirjee from Kaho Na Pyar Hai?), Remo Fernandes and Shiamak Davar. It was a nice company to be in and we were loving it.

Unfortunately,the Finals didn't turn out the way I had imagined. We made some major goof ups and by the end of the show were tied with Naval Public School,Bombay for the first position. There could be only 1 winner, so there was going to be a tie breaker.My partner had gone eerily quiet by then and I had started praying to as many Gods whose names I could remember. When the tie breaker question was finally asked, I didn't hear it. My partner still had a case of the freeze up and before I realized what was happening, it was all over. Naval Public had won and our fairy tale story had come to an end.

Surprisingly, my partner took the loss rather well. He had recovered from his speech impairment and was busy mingling with everyone, shaking hands and congratulating all and sundry. I, on the other hand, couldn't get my ass off my chair. It still hadn't sunken in that we hadn't won. Success is a wicked thing, it makes you greedy. And when your greed isn't satisfied, it literally kills you. I couldn't speak, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Talking to anyone seemed like a pain. It really felt like someone had poked in a thousand needles into my heart and was pulling them in and out at will.

When we returned to Durgapur, we were accorded a hero's welcome by our friends. Our exploits had reached far and wide, and almost every day,I had people coming up to me, wishing me and sympathizing with our loss. Buses, hospitals, markets, wherever I went people looked at me and smiled.Many wanted to talk too. In my school, I guess apart from a few disgruntled teachers (with whom I had a long and chequered history) and perhaps Fr Jerome (I guess he was still angry at our extra long holiday),we were treated like royalty.

One good pay off was that we were discussed even in the neighboring Carmel Convent Girl's High school. Suddenly species from another planet whom I had only heard about but had never spoken to, were discussing me and a couple of brave ones even approached me to know more about my experiences.The pompous fool that I am, I was loving every moment of it. I was getting missed calls and prank calls from the girls all the time and my ego was at all time inflated high. Of course my father couldn't quite understand these side effects of stardom, and his patience was slowly weaning out. I couldn't care less though. I was making sure that I spent a couple of minutes extra combing my gelled hair,(actually, it wasn't gel, but water)had my best pair of jeans at all times and wore the Old Spice cologne, which a medical company had kindly bestowed my father with, at all times. Life was beautiful and I was hell bent on enjoying it as long as it lasted.

Anyways, things went back to normal within 6 months. My identification went back to the mundane "Dr Singh's son", a big fall from the once exuberant "BQC Kid". But life moves on, and I was lucky to have experienced something that very few people in their life time have ever gone through.I thank the Lord for that.


p.s. The tie breaker q. we were asked in the Finals was "Rearrange the word "POLES" to get a word, which implies the side of a mountain."

Adios!