As the nation debates the High Court verdict in Salman Khan hit-and-run case, my mind jogs back to the time when I met the second-most important man in the saga – Khan’s police bodyguard Ravindra Patil.
It started with a tip-off from a source, who said Patil was in a bad state and admitted in one of the city hospitals. At the time, he was missing with neither family, friends nor the police department having any clue about his whereabouts. Several phone calls later, I ascertained that possibly, Patil was at the tuberculosis hospital in Sewri. It was September 20, 2007.
Once at the hospital with a photographer colleague, the tried-and-tested tactics of trying to ferret out information proved to be in vain. Either nobody knew about Patil or they were unwilling to divulge any information.
Hours later, we found Patil in ward number 4 on the fourth floor. The sight left us stunned. Images after images on television during the days following the Salman incident in 2002 showed Patil as a tall, slim, athletic cop. He looked every inch a police bodyguard, ready to spring into action as and when required.
On the TB hospital bed, however, Patil was just a skeleton wrapped in skin. His legs and hands protruding from a black blanket he was wrapped in were like sticks, without an ounce of flesh on them. His face was so gaunt it was almost unrecognisable. His hair had thinned and his voice was soft, almost a whisper, punctuated by regular coughs.
Doctors had diagnosed him with a deadly strain of bilateral active pulmonary tuberculosis. Patil had been dismissed from the force, abandoned by his family and had no place to stay in Mumbai.
The first thing he asked of me was some thing he was apparently asking anyone he met – money. He told me a story of awful wretchedness. He was roaming around the streets of the city, sleeping on street corners, begging for money. All this while, no one had even a clue that he was the most important witness to possibly the country’s most talked-about hit-and-run involving one of the biggest matinee stars.
Managing to speak slowly, he told me he didn’t have any money. “This accident case destroyed my life, I lost my job. My health deteriorated. Nobody from my family or friends come to meet me. I don’t like hospital food and want to improve my diet. I need money for that,” he said. I also remember Patil telling me that Salman was a good man. He didn’t explain what he meant by that. I asked again, but couldn’t get him to talk about the actor again.
Hospital superintendent SB Padhi told me they were giving the best possible treatment to Patil. His brother told us that he was under treatment at Dhule but had vamoosed from there and made his way to Mumbai. Relatives were avoiding him as he asked for money.
On October 4, 2007, 14 days after we met him, Patil died, and with him the truth about the case. While the man at the centre of the incident went on to become one of the country’s biggest superstars, Patil’s destiny brought him to a state where even the patient in the bed next to him had no idea who he was.
It started with a tip-off from a source, who said Patil was in a bad state and admitted in one of the city hospitals. At the time, he was missing with neither family, friends nor the police department having any clue about his whereabouts. Several phone calls later, I ascertained that possibly, Patil was at the tuberculosis hospital in Sewri. It was September 20, 2007.
Once at the hospital with a photographer colleague, the tried-and-tested tactics of trying to ferret out information proved to be in vain. Either nobody knew about Patil or they were unwilling to divulge any information.
Hours later, we found Patil in ward number 4 on the fourth floor. The sight left us stunned. Images after images on television during the days following the Salman incident in 2002 showed Patil as a tall, slim, athletic cop. He looked every inch a police bodyguard, ready to spring into action as and when required.
On the TB hospital bed, however, Patil was just a skeleton wrapped in skin. His legs and hands protruding from a black blanket he was wrapped in were like sticks, without an ounce of flesh on them. His face was so gaunt it was almost unrecognisable. His hair had thinned and his voice was soft, almost a whisper, punctuated by regular coughs.
Doctors had diagnosed him with a deadly strain of bilateral active pulmonary tuberculosis. Patil had been dismissed from the force, abandoned by his family and had no place to stay in Mumbai.
The first thing he asked of me was some thing he was apparently asking anyone he met – money. He told me a story of awful wretchedness. He was roaming around the streets of the city, sleeping on street corners, begging for money. All this while, no one had even a clue that he was the most important witness to possibly the country’s most talked-about hit-and-run involving one of the biggest matinee stars.
Managing to speak slowly, he told me he didn’t have any money. “This accident case destroyed my life, I lost my job. My health deteriorated. Nobody from my family or friends come to meet me. I don’t like hospital food and want to improve my diet. I need money for that,” he said. I also remember Patil telling me that Salman was a good man. He didn’t explain what he meant by that. I asked again, but couldn’t get him to talk about the actor again.
Hospital superintendent SB Padhi told me they were giving the best possible treatment to Patil. His brother told us that he was under treatment at Dhule but had vamoosed from there and made his way to Mumbai. Relatives were avoiding him as he asked for money.
On October 4, 2007, 14 days after we met him, Patil died, and with him the truth about the case. While the man at the centre of the incident went on to become one of the country’s biggest superstars, Patil’s destiny brought him to a state where even the patient in the bed next to him had no idea who he was.
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