I use the word googly quite often in my writings, which is a cricketing term used for a ball bowled by a bowler that turns the wrong way from the direction that the batsman expects. This is something like a curve ball or a dipper in baseball. Rajan Phanse is a Cricket Crazy follower of the game and has just bowled a googly.
Rajan Phanse has been a very dear friend and business associate for about a decade. He was one of Urmeela’s favourites too and the reason for that was that he used to call her his Julia Roberts. He is a charming, simple and generous fellow who wears his heart on his sleeves. I consider it a privilege to count him among my friends, as I am sure he does me.
Rajan has had a very eventful life and has seen a great deal of set backs and problems and has fought his way up from what I call, the bottom of the pits. Though he does not appear to be so, he is a fighter and his story written about in The Telegraph is proof of that quality.
All the characters mentioned in the story, Prithviraj, another fighter who has fought his way up from great troubles, Sangeetha, a remarkable woman and a loving sister to Rajan and Rajan’s mother, are all known to me and are almost like family.
Rajan was diagnosed as suffering from Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia in September 2002 and has fought that battle, the intensity of which is known only to very few people as he is not the type to talk about himself much. He is now in remission and has just come out of another battle, which is what the newspaper article is all about.
The purpose of writing this story as a post in my blog is to eat my words that I had written in my post “Euthanasia”.
Raja, it is nice to be your friend and thank you for teaching me a lesson which I will not forget in a hurry.