Sometime in the second half of the 1970s there was this frail boy who one fine morning fell heads over heels in love with cricket, a game he could not play by any measure. Because he could neither bat, nor bowl, or field. He loved the game, nonetheless. For its sheer grace than anything else, perhaps. The more he realised that he could not weild the willow or hurl the cherry, the more he grew passionate about the game. He loved the game because of two players who used to be the favourite Sportsweek pin-up boys at the time – two of the Amarnath brothers – the stylish Surinder and the gritty Mohinder. He rooted for the former more than anyone else donning the India flannels. It was just because of him perhaps that he had begun loving the game that those days only gentlemen played.

I was feeling slightly restless – what, with having landed up like those incorrigible Virgos way ahead of time. My first official day as a journalist. I didn’t want to be late. I sat on that uncomfortable so-called sofa in the crammed lobby of the Press Trust of India (PTI) regional office in Calcutta that rainy October morning of 1991. It didn’t quite dampen my spirits – whatever significant I do, it always seems to rain that day. So, as it kept drizzling outside, my restlessness grew. Why the blazes am I the only one here to join as a trainee journalist? I was contemplating whether I should step outside for a smoke, when two young men appeared on the doorway. Laurel and Hardy, I said to myself. They were almost so. One was lean, the other thickset. Well, almost. They were here as trainee journalists too, they told the receptionist, and were promptly directed towards me and asked to wait.

As he, almost silently, parted the curtains and glided into the living room, it was for me as if the curtains had lifted and the show had begun. Cinemar manush (the man from the films) was how I would refer to him as whenever I saw a picture of his anywhere, as a five-year-old. The man I had loved and loathed in Tapan Sinha’s cinematic adaptation of ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ (Jhinder Bandi) . Ray’s actor. Charulata’s Amal. The original Bengali rock ‘n roll star, you would have known had you seen him twist opposite Tanuja in Teen Bhubaner Pare. This and more flashed through my mind in that moment, as I stood up to greet him.

It was a dank wintry evening of November 1993 and we had had our fill of Bengali sweets. My girlfriend and I were stepping out of a confectioner’s in Gol Park when I noticed a lanky, slightly slouching, man on the pavement managing to fish out a cigarette from one of his overloaded trouser pockets. He had a weatherbeaten look about him. He lit the cigarette and let a disinterested gaze swoop over the teeming. He could do so, for he stood tall enough, albeit with that unmistakeable slouch. But the crowds did not notice him; in fact, no one did, except I.