An untold saga excerpted from Sandeep Patil's book, Beyond Boundaries with Clayton Murzello.
IMAGE: Cricket Manager Sandeep Patil coaches the Indian cricket team at Lord's, May 1, 1996. Photograph: Brandon Malone/Action Images/Reuters
Karsan Ghavri was my roommate at the start of my career, for both India and Bombay.
Ravi Shastri became my roommate when Karsan left Bombay for Saurashtra, after the 1981-1982 season.
Sunil Gavaskar asked me to share a room with Ravi. To say that we went on to have a blast would be an understatement.
Ravi and I got along very well, and shared rooms till I retired.
One incident stands out in my memory. We were staying in the beautiful heritage wing of The Taj in Bombay, during the first Test of the 1981-1982 series against England.
Ravi and I placed an order for dinner, and the room service attendant who delivered the food on a trolley asked us if there were six people in the room.
I told him there were only two. The attendant said there was no way two people could consume everything that we had ordered.
Well, we proved him wrong! The attendant could not believe his eyes when he came to clear the trolley.
He then brought the chef along, to show him what we had 'accomplished'!
The chef was impressed, and invited us to the kitchen, to which entry was usually restricted.
His staff, whom he introduced to us, also could not believe how much we had eaten.
Whenever we went to Kanpur, we would spend one evening at Sunil's in-laws' home.
If Ravi and I were part of the group, Sunil used to instruct the chef to double the quantity of food. We had that kind of reputation.
We also used to drink a lot of beer back then, which only reinforced the tag of 'wild guys' that we had earned.
Some people liked us, and others did not, but the bottom line is that the two of us always had a good time.
We were once doing a modelling assignment for Thums Up in Delhi. Roger Binny, Ravi and I had a lot of fun on that trip.
We drank an enormous amount of beer, and then piled up the cans in a pyramid outside our room -- 10 cans at the bottom, then eight, then six, then four, two and one.
A photographer even clicked a picture of the pyramid, and got it printed in a newspaper.
I used to love beer, but I shifted to Bacardi in 1981. I have been a 'Bacardi man' for a long time; first introduced to it by Sunil, after I scored 174 at Adelaide that year.
Having learnt a lot from Karsan, I wanted to pass on some lessons to Ravi, when he moved in with me.
By the time he joined the Bombay team and, later, the Indian team, I had been playing for a few seasons, and hence knew how to look after youngsters -- what to say, and what advice to offer to them.
Ravi and I became buddies instantly. Our teammates -- senior and junior -- would often join us in our room.
There were times when even members of the opposition dropped in.
There were no restrictions on movement in those days, and we looked forward to each evening.
We would either visit a friend's place for dinner, or visit a restaurant or discotheque.
Come to think of it, I hardly ever batted alongside Ravi.
A notable exception was the Faisalabad Test of the 1984-1985 series against Pakistan, in which I scored 127, and Ravi got 139.
That was probably the only time we shared a long partnership. The same was the case with Karsan, Ravi's 'predecessor.'
The one time I had a good partnership with him was in Sydney, during the 1980-1981 series.
Ravi and I were as thick as thieves till we had an unfortunate falling out, shortly after my retirement.
I was appointed manager of the Bombay Ranji Trophy team, in between my first retirement and comeback for Madhya Pradesh.
It so happened that Ravi had declared himself unavailable for the 1987-1988 Ranji Trophy pre-quarter-final game against Karnataka in Bombay.
I wanted a player of his calibre to take on one of the strongest sides in the country.
However, he stuck to his guns, and we had an argument. It was not personal; I only wanted the Bombay team to do well.
I could see his point too -- he had informed the Bombay Cricket Association of his time away, and wanted to be in fine shape for the Sharjah Cup, where India won in 1988 under Ravi.
The cold war lasted a few years, until Ritu, Ravi's wife, invited Deepa and I to their Worli home, to try and get us to patch up.
I am not saying that he was wrong but, at the same time, I was not wrong either.
Issues of this kind are bound to crop up between people who have been associated with each other for a long time.
Today, we are good friends, and are in touch with each other.
I am proud of everything that Ravi has achieved not only as a cricketer, but also as a media personality, and coach.
Whatever he has done, he has done it extremely well.
I should also mention two families whose support we will never forget: Milind Rege's and Dr Vishwas Raut's.
I remember knocking on the kitchen window of Vishwas' apartment in north Mumbai at around three or four in the morning, and asking his wife Renu if there was anything to eat.
This happened several times, and she always provided us great food.
Similarly, we would call Raj (Milind's wife) on the landline whenever we were near Prabhadevi, and tell her we were coming over to eat.
We would also request her not to inform Milind. We were scared of him, as he was our senior.
Raj would ask us what time we were expected, and she would leave the door of the house open, so that we could sneak in, eat, and leave.
These ladies were like elder sisters to us. They never complained, and made it a point to cook more food whenever we called them, knowing our appetite.
Not that they were soft. They would constantly advise us to change our lifestyle, and rein us in.
Of course, they could say whatever they wanted, as we shared a special bond, which has endured to this day.
Renu and Raj stood by me in the toughest period of my life when I was going through domestic hell.
They guided me, and showed me the light when I was helpless.
Not every cricketer gets the opportunity to develop close friendships with the families of their teammates. We were blessed.
Excerpted From Beyond Boundaries By Sandeep Patil, with Clayton Murzello, with the kind permission of the publishers Global Cricket School.
