Ali Peter John - Lost And Found

I had woken up at 3.30 in the night (or was it morning ?) and had started scribbling what I thought was my story till then and I didn’t stop scribbling for the next six days. I had to be forced to stop by some inner force and when I finished, I realised that I had written the story of my life till I was 50 and couldn’t believe how I could write my whole story in 6 days. I wanted to get what I had written typed but I had no one to type like I don’t easily have a typist even today.

I happen to go to Indore to visit a sister who was not my sister and who had started her own school called The Genius. I told her about my problem bout typing and she told me that her 12 year old son, Anand could type for me if I dictated my horrible scrawl to him. I looked at Anand as if I was some visitor from some another planet typing out what was to be my autobiography. And I can never stop being grateful to him. (He is the Principle of The Genius now.)

I came back to Bombay and showed what was written to my friend Kulbhushan Gupta who was a journalist and had turned producer of films. He read what I had written in one go and said, “This is like something I have never read before and it has to be published”. I asked him who would publish it. He said, “Me of course”. Within the next 2 days he had started his own publishing house, Primus Publications and had given what I had written to the press and I had titled my book— “ Life – Bits and Pieces”.

I now had to find a way of releasing the book. But before I could, I met my dear friend and the great painter M.F Husain over a very delicious lunch ( Husain loved food ), I told him about my ambition to bring out a book and he asked me a question, “Who is doing the cover for the book?” and before I could answer him, he said, “ Come and have lunch with me again tomorrow and I will bring the design for your cover tomorrow”. I just couldn’t believe him but I went to have lunch with him. The bare-feet genius came exactly at 1p.m in his Black Mercedes and told me that he had painted the design for me all night but had forgotten it at his friend’s shoe shop, Joy Shoes at the Taj Mahal Hotel. I told him to order his lunch and rushed to the nearest railway station, got into a luggage compartment and reached Churchgate from where I ran to the Taj and saw my cover on the table of Mr. Quereshi, the owner of Taj Shoes, it was like a race for me as I ran back to the hotel with the painting and saw Hussain Saahab still waiting for me.

The book was ready. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I mentioned my book to the Messiah Sunil Dutt and he said, he would conduct and host the release function himself. I still can’t believe how almost the entire industry landed up at the Auditorium which was so packed that legends like Dev Anand and Husain Saahab were happily comfortable sitting on the steps leading to the Auditorium.

My Book traveled to different parts of the world. It was translated into Hindi and Marathi. Tom Alter did a One man Show based on it and there were plans to make it into a film. Which however didn’t materialise because the young man who was to produce it died an untimely death.

All the copies of the books had been exhausted and I didn’t even have a copy for myself. It was my friend, Ketan Anand, the renowned Film-maker, who once sent me a message saying that he had Four copies of my Book. My heart danced with joy but I couldn’t just find the time to go to his house and collect them.

Today morning, I was heading towards, Mount Mary’s Church in Bandra when Fr. Joe who I was to meet me told me, That he would not be in Church. I changed my plans and decided to drive around in my royal Auto all over Juhu and I suddenly found the quaint little Bungalow of Chetan Anand where I had been with Dev Anand some 15 years ago. I called Ketan and he came to his living room with four copies of my book. They were in the same condition as they were 20 years ago.

Who says the age of miracles has passed !

Ali Peter John – Lost And Found

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