SOMETHING ABOUT DESAI...

"I had 999850. I asked for 999999 and 1000000. He said, 'Beech ka number khatam hoga Kal dopahar baarah baje tak.' So I cancelled noon appointments to be at the same stop and ask, 'Rakha?' He said, 'Woh number aa gaya tha. Isliye Rs 6 ke jagah mein Rs 5 waala ticket bech rahaa tha... rakha… '"



There's something uncanny about Jigar Desai. The 29 year old sewerage equipment manufacturer wears trousers pulled up to his navel and walks rapidly, almost timing each step. Aboard the local train, as we wonder which station follows, he reassures: "In two minutes – Matunga." In two minutes, precisely, it's Matunga. "My brain's used to multi-tasking," he jokes, staring us in the eye… while simultaneously typing and sending an SMS: "Relax. We'll get off at Ghatkopar."

But that's not all that's uncanny about Desai. 999850, 999999 and 1000000 are bus ticket numbers. Around three years ago, Desai saw old bus and train tickets at an exhibition: "Rs 2 tickets were worth Rs 100! Traveling daily due to work – I stored my tickets – sorting out fancy numbers." Around three months ago, while preparing a collection for the Limca Book Of Records, he sold a four rupee ticket bearing "the holy number 786 for Rs 1000".

"I won't collect usual things," he explains. "Creativity is finding worth in what's 'worthless'." Like sewerage equipment, perhaps. In his early days, businessman Dhirubhai Ambani supposedly exported soil to an Arab hoping to grow roses in the desert. Today, while most aspiring entrepreneurs bet on shares or horses, Desai invests in used transport tickets.

His Limca Book… submission will be a set of 1000 Rs 4 bus tickets, the series numbers going from 000 to 999. He has a chart marking the 80 series numbers left. Other prized conquests are a default train ticket with the hour of the day being printed as 25 instead of 24, and four train tickets bearing the same details. Besides these "fancy numbers", there are bus tickets with advertisements: "Like ads for each of the 43 Priya Gold biscuit flavours!" Advertisements on bus tickets ceasing from last year, he claims, enhanced their value. He then flashes a 1943 train pass: "This wasn't as valuable when issued." Instead of buying expensive tickets from the past, he saves present tickets for the future.

That isn't all that's uncanny about Desai either. A collector since age 17, he's assorted other "uncommonly common things." Like pre-paid cell phone cards… or match boxes, "which I donated to someone because I heard of a vast collection with 9000 varieties." Desai collects with a purpose: "The kind of BEST ticket collection I have is unique – it enables me a record." Since last year, he's collecting pre-release film advertisements in newspapers: "I'll concentrate on that in a month." Desai plans every month which collections he'll "concentrate" on, as if they were factory units like the one he helps run: "When, because of workload I can't collect myself, I ask a friend or relative to lookout for certain items during that period." He brings out yet another collection – autographs: "TV stars, Tushar Gandhi, Shyam Benegal…" He sent Ratan Tata's office a Jamshedji Tata stamp cover with an autograph request: "When I received it, signed, I sent them an old Tata diary." Having received that as well, he shows us other Tata diaries waiting to be mailed. India's man of steel will soon be signing more than acquisition papers. "I have a Times Of India stamp cover too, I want the TOI 'main boss' to sign it," he adds. We reserve comment.

As we get off the train, he discusses his collections' future, vis-a-vis his: "Post marriage, I'll have to narrow down to two or three kinds. But I'm planning exhibitions soon." Breaking off to speak to a railway official, he grins, and scurries towards the ticket counter. "I had seen ticket number 888864 in the morning. So I asked them to keep this," he flaunts a ticket numbered 888888. But he preaches caution: "Suspicious railway officers at certain stations are asking their subordinates 'Ye chokra baar baar ajeeb number waala ticket kyon maangta hai?'" They too, believe, there's something uncanny about Desai.