Sketches during Journeys

For the past weeks I am really blessed and meeting quite interesting people during my journeys. One night I had a British couple sitting opposite to me. I never mind to start the conversation and opened up and found that they were returning after viewing a stage performance in London. They were from a country side and occasionally travel to London to see good stage performances. They were busy reading books and I started sketching. Unless you talk to someone you never know many things about them. It was interesting to know that the Gentleman had been to India through job, and had stayed in places like Bangalore, Cochin for few months. Our journey was quite interesting and we never realised the length of the journey.
Last month few people at my work had given resignation and while going in detail about their new jobs, it was pleasant to know from my present boss, that his new company may send him frequently to Chennai for training. He was very happy about it. Though he had visited once Jaipur for holidays, he was excited to know about Chennai. The great joke of this is on talking detail, he was surprised when I said that ‘Chennai’ and ‘Madras’ are the same. He laughed and said that it was nice talking about it to me, since he had couple of friends in Madras, and was worrying that he has not heard about Chennai. To some extent, some of them are familiar with ‘Mumbai’ and ‘Bombay’. Even during one of our meetings yesterday, there was some reference about ‘Shennai’. I thought it was a different place, by the way pronounced by someone who addressed the meeting. Within few minutes I realised what she was talking about. Will our ‘Manbumigus’ assure us that they will not change the names anymore.
My son picked up the pictures of Marlon Brando and Rowan Atkinson and wanted me to try sketching both of them last week. I have always admired MB’s acting. I have seen most of Tamil Actors imitating Marlon Brando’s favourite action of scratching the centre of head. I have seen Kamal, Radha Ravi, even Anandh Raj in some or other movie. I presume the sketch has come a bit closer. Prakash Raj is another good actor. He does not imitate anyone and has its own style. I think it was a bit tough to draw near his nose.
For long time I was a great fan of Kapil. It was nice to read an interview in one of the National Newspaper recently. I preserved the picture for my train journey and tried my hand with Kapil. He had been such a great all rounder. Kapil you rocked us those days! Somehow I became very nostalgic after having drawn Kapil. Once I reached my destination, the Taxi was waiting to pick me up. I started convesing with the driver and found that he was of Jamaican origin. On knowing that he had knowledge of cricket, we started conversing about famous Jamaican cricketers like Courtney Walsh, Joel Garner and I think of late it is Shivnarain Chanderpaul. We exchanged lots of past glory. I was surprised when he said that he always admired Farookh Engineer, and Bishen Bedi. There were talks about Vivian Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes. Believe me or not! We were so engrossed he did not bother to move after dropping me and was still talking about old cricket days at least for few minutes after I got down. The best of that night was when he mentioned about a six hit by Viv Richards off Bob Willis last ball of a match. Viv Richards pretended as if he was walking with the bat under his arms and suddenly hit the ball for a six. Oh..dear.. we both wondered about it, and he parted away after both of us complimenting each other on the past cricket remembrances.
The good and sad news is my family may be joining me for good next week and my weekend journeys may come to an end.