Dear Fellow Group-Mates,
First of all, apologies for the late report..
Feb 12, 2007
I had no idea which flight AR was coming in - all I had with me was
an unconfirmed news that he was coming in the IA Flight reaching TVM
at 11.10AM. I went to the aiport and was relieved to see a "KAIRALI
TV" car parked there, with cameras ready at the airport's exit. The
flight was delayed by around 20 minutes and reached only at 11:30am.
Within 10-15 minutes, I could spot Yesudas inside the airport waiting
to pick up his luggage. I could not spot ARR.. (I had also checked
with the airport folks whether AR was coming in this flight - and
they had said yes). So I was kinda worried when I could not spot
him... Anyways, it took some time for them to come out of the airport
coz of the cargo delay.
Camera flashes started going off like mad, People started
crowding all of a sudden, policemen seemed to come out of nowhere -
ARR was on his way out with his Amma. He came down the aisle, was
walking towards the car. I was wearing the group T-Shirt, which has
his foto on it. He gave a nice stare onto it, smiled at me.
I told him "Hi AR Sir, welcome to Trivandrum. I am from the ARR
group" . He acknowledged and moved on to his car....
I went round and again landed in front of him and said, "Sir, The
group in TVM would like to have a meet with you if it is not going to
cause ANY incovenience to you".
AR : Hmmm... Do you have any number?
(Damn me, I didnt have a pen, a paper or a visiting card @ that
time) .... He understood my situation and said come to the hotel.
Well, 1 thing i noticed here was, as soon as AR heard I am from the
group, his response was fabulous. He kept on talking to me, even when
the organisers kept the car door open and was requesting AR to get
inside the car.
[ Well.. after that, if anyone saw me driving to the hotel , they
would have understood that even a Maruti 800 could complete in a F1
race. :-) ] .. En route. I called up the group friends at TVM who
had contacted me (Srijith, Swapna, Praveen, Sarath Lal, Hakkeem and
the Seven Bells band) and asked them to come to the hotel immd. I
reached the hotel around 12.15pm, but AR hadnt arrived yet. (Later,
got a confirmation that he had gone to the Bheemapally mosque
directly from the airport to pray).
AR reached after half an hour. We were waiting at the entrance of the
hotel, He smiled at us and went inside the hotel with his Amma,
accompanied by the Kairali crew. We decided to wait for however long
it was going to take. After around 20 mins, the Kairali person came
up and said "You came to meet AR right? Pls come this way"...
There was no sign of ARR anywhere nearby, and the other flks had not
reached yet, so we decided to wait on at the lobby.
After around 5 minutes, one hotel staff came up and said "Are you
guys not going there? AR is waiting for you" .... I got butterflies
in my stomach when I heard that!! Can anyone imagine a person like
ARR waiting at the lobby to meet his fans??? We rushed over.. and
apologised for the miss. His face looked very tired. We were 5 of us,
gathered around him and smiled. Nobody UTTERED a SINGLE WORD! :-) I
said "its a dream come true for all of us." He smiled.
I said "more people are on their way. they should be here any
minute".
AR : "Oh! but I am tired.. needed to get some sleep since I have to
wake up at 5pm, and go for the function".. (He was very tired, still
he came down to meet us and was waiting for us. We all felt so bad
making him wait).. We all said "Sure sir, please go ahead. This is
more than enuf for us". He said "Thanks" and got up to leave.
He started walking off which is when we rememberd about taking
fotos.:-) He gladly obliged for it (without a small trace of dissent
on his face), I took around 4-5 snaps while others posed. And off he
walked. ( The number of fotos in the hotel we took must be 2-3, since
we didnt want him to wait. Yeah, we knew this was a great
opportunity, but we didnt want to make the most of it by troubling
ARR).
Well... The more I see him in real, the more I am awed and amazed at
his humility, and down to earth attitude. He is a celebrity who is
not living in a fantasy world, and one knows what real life is all
about.
PS : Photos are uploaded at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ergusee
There is technical problem in getting the videos (airport arrival
video and Swaralaya function video)out of the handycam. So please
bear with me for a day. I am trying to fix it.
Cheers!
~Arun KB
