TOUR DIARY

BLOG: In flight with Virat Kohli

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Requests for autographs and selfies were aplenty for Virat. © Cricbuzz

"Sir, when he gets a little free, can you please ask him to sign this? They're not letting non-team members approach him and my son is a huge fan." The passenger seated across the aisle made a simple request, three minutes into my flight. Conflicted between a desire to offer help and mindful of its ramification, I offered a tentative half-nod.

I'd like to believe that I'd become the second-most-important and certainly the most despised passenger merely by occupying seat 12C on Indigo's October 21 service from Delhi to Chandigarh. For, seated to my left was a certain Virat Kohli - captain of the Indian Test team, heir apparent to the godly throne of Sachin Tendulkar and the most recognised cricketer in the world.

In hindsight, I should have known something was amiss when I collected my boarding pass at Terminal 1D of the Delhi airport. I was asked to pay fine for checking in excess baggage. That almost never happens to me. I'd overshot the limit by only two kilograms but having rounded off my post-Delhi ODI stories rather late, I didn't hang around to haggle. There was sleep to catch up on with a further three games to cover across three different cities, all inside a week.

For a relatively early flight, the airport was abuzz with excitement. But this was New Delhi. That could have also been because of a flash discount in one of the confectionery stores. I spotted the New Zealand team at the KFC outlet, catching up on their breakfasts and was glad to have some friendly, known faces in my flight. That's always nice. Then the Indian team joined the beeline from a special entrance and this time I was sure that no price cuts on 'mini samosas' could have caused that earlier hubbub. Front cameras of mobile phones worked overtime. Some security personnel too utilised their advantage of proximity.

As I boarded my flight I was expecting that would be the last of that, what with the teams separated from the other flying denizens by the aviation class divide - that thin, sinister sheet of cloth. And I was undoubtedly astonished to see there was no such demarcation. As I walked towards my seat, I was pleasantly surprised to see Kohli seated in 12C, head bowed, sunglasses and earphones on et al. Surely, I wasn't going to suggest to the best batsman in the world that he'd got his placement wrong and so I took a second look at my boarding card. No, I was right. The print did say 12C. Seeing my hesitation, Kohli quickly requested if I would be okay to exchange places with him because of his seat's not-so-private location. He flashed his boarding card. It said 2A. Right next to the entry gates.

Honestly, I didn't have a problem. I just needed a seat to dump by backpack and sleep. But as soon as I said 'okay' and turned around, there was a massive queue of people waiting to catch a glimpse of their star before they did of their seats. "The price of fame," philosophised a senior gentleman, while asking me to stay clear of his shot of Kohli.

The air hostesses had been greatly outnumbered and their attempts to diffuse the ensuing chaos was proving futile. This prompted a change of plans. Kohli quickly gestured me to take the aisle seat next to him as he moved to the window. Some other member of the support staff was to take 2A. And thus, Virat Kohli and R Sridhar, the team's fielding coach, became my companions for this short shuttle. I had an inkling of what would follow but I had grossly underestimated.

The first selfie request came 10 seconds after a curt 'boarding complete' announcement from the airport's ground staff. Kohli, who had by now buckled in to his seat, offered an apologetic denial. There really was no place for him to oblige with a pose, with Sridhar and me cramped up next to him. The next hopeful, a lady in her mid thirties, wasn't easily budged.

"Woh humare hero hain, haq hai humara unke saath photo kheenchna (He is our hero, it's our right to take a picture with him)," she argued as a team official tried to reason with her. Her sonorous insistence turned a few heads, chiefly those of the New Zealand cricketers seated further ahead of us. They seemed just as sleep-deprived. Heck, I sat in an air-conditioned press box and wrote. They'd actually played.

Taken aback by the clamour, Kohli relented for a picture. A liason officer in a New Zealand jersey offered to click it. The lady though wanted to be standing or sitting, (maybe hugging?) Kohli and wasn't at all pleased with having to share frame space with me and Sridhar. But I'd received non-verbal instructions from the standing security officer to stay put. Inadvertently, I'd become Kohli's first line of defence to the selfie barrage. The lady, though, wasn't done. She demanded a retake because, according to her, the Indian captain wasn't exactly distinguishable in the photograph. The aeroplane was ready for takeoff and there were passengers still out of their seats. This was slowly turning into a safety concern.

Calm for so long, Kohli jumped in to cut her off, letting her know curtly yet no less politely that she could have a picture taken upon landing. That and a stern word from a steward appeared to send her back to her seat.

Now, I've spoken to and heard Indian cricketers complaining about invasion of privacy but this was a first-hand experience. No sooner did the seatbelt sign go off, than we received the next batch of selfie seekers. When Kohli put his head down, in an apparent show of undivided attention towards his iPad, I became that resourceful go-to guy. Instead of valuable sleep time, here I was getting 10-dollar bills among various other things, to pass on to Kohli to autograph.

I wanted nothing of it. I'd been tired of the whole ordeal after the first five minutes. Frankly, I was more interested in what Kohli watched on his iPad but not in a nosy kind of way - He'd set it up on the tray table in front of him in a way that was visibly accessible to me. There was the mockumentary '7 Days in Hell' about two professional tennis players set around the 1996 Wimbledon Championships. This was followed by a quick shuffle of documentaries - first on the footballing upbringing of Lionel Messi and then a story of Brian Lara's epochal 375* versus England. It was fascinating to watch a champion pore closely into other champions' body of work and stay clued on even on an off day.

But that was just a momentary journalistic gratification, as another batch, this time comprising three teenaged girls, came up with a selfie request - politely denied - before they ceded to take an autograph instead. One of the girls even had a parting word to share - "Can I say something to you Virat? You are so adorable." Kohli smiled and it was sweet. No drama. But that was reason enough for another batch to begin slipping in papers through me with requests of "Aap toh team ke ho na, aap karwado (You're part of the team right. You can ask for autographs)". By which point, the security officer had had enough. He quickly ordered that the star player be left alone. That and the pilot's announcement of a descent settled it.

The security officer, who'd seen me around in stadiums during the tour, offered a sympathetic arm around my shoulder at the end of the whole experience. "You know this always happens," he said. Truth be told, it wasn't all bad. It was a good peek into the lives of these sportsmen and I nodded in comprehension, but certainly glad in the knowledge that Delhi and Chandigarh were separated by only 254 kilometres of air space.

© Cricbuzz

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