wow! awesome dude.. and thanx for sharing the videos On 2/13/07, arunkbganesh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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
