THEY GAVE A STRANGE BOY FROM NOWHERE THE HONOUR TO BE HIS FRIENDS

 Ali Peter John

It seems like only yesterday when that boy from the village was a newcomer in the industry. His only strong point was his weakness to write without which he couldn't live and still can't live. The boy who was known as a very shy boy went on to be a very good friend of some of the greatest names in the industry who watched him grow and he took great pleasure in watching them grow. Soon, the boy became Ali Sahaab, Ali sir and Aliji which were terms he couldn't believe.

He couldn't even know when and how he grew up with the stars who were growing up with him. Like he had seen Amitabh Bachchan when he had signed his first film and had seen Amitabh grow into the star of the millennium, like he had seen Amitabh presenting him with his first ever award and then releasing two of his thirteen books and how Amitabh and the boy have never had any ups and downs in their relationship,

like he had spent the most glorious times of his life with the ageless sprite of Dev Anand, like he who had only heard Lata Mangeshkar sing had Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar volunteer to release his book, “Keeping Ali(ve) Only for You"at the hall in her own building, Prabhu Kunj which was one of the last public functions she attended, like the villain Pran was his most lovable friend and so were the other villains,

Amrish Puri, Gulshan Grover and Prem Chopra, like he had seen unknown names like Govinda, Anupam Kher, Manisha Koirala, Deepti Naval and even the great Rekha grow from nobodies to people who changed themselves and became examples for others to follow, like he had seen great writers like Vijay Tendulkar, Javed Akhtar and Gulzar

literally lighting up their faces when they saw him and like how M.F Husain gave up his own grand inauguration of his exhibitions to spend time with him and have ‘sev batata puri' in one of his favourite Udupi hotels and how he came to the boy's house to make his own tea and how he had walked out of places in high which couldn't serve him his kind of tea, like how he dropped him home in the middle of the night and then went home to Colaba, but not before offering him a dicky full of notes and how the boy refused to touch even a single note, like how Dev Anand's

love for him grew to such an extent that he introduced the boy to the Late King Mahendra of Nepal and others as his own son and how he had some sixth sense on his last birthday and posted one of his big parties at his favourite Sun-n-Sand Hotel where he had his suite (320) for more than twenty years and how he had called the boy to his suite and had embraced him and cried and kept calling him“my son, my son"and then to London and never came and the story of the boy's journey in and through the industry can go on and on,

but the boy can never forget how he had to have a clash with the young Salman Khan over his problem with his photographer and how he had an emotional and grown up reunion with Salman at the birthday party of Subhash Ghai whose rise has been one of the most interesting experiences the boy who is now an old man has been a witness to. None of these photographs have been specially posed for, but they have been natural reactions which have been kept captured by some good-hearted photographers who were there at the right time in the right places.