Paramjit Singh, the mini celebrity of Ranchi, talks about MS Dhoni

MS Dhoni: The Untold Story broke a couple of records at the Box Office since its release more than three ago on Sept 30. The movie explored the star cricketer’s life journey and narrated about his life as a kid, his family, his struggles as a young upcoming cricketer and the roadblocks he overcame to eventually become India most loved skipper.

While his family, school life and his brief professional life as ticket collector were depicted nicely in the movie, the biopic, for the first half, revolved mostly around his relationship with his friends. His friends – Chittu, Subash and Paramjit – formed the backbone of his success story. Whether it meant riding through the bumpy roads to the Dum airport to waiting anxiously to Dhoni smash the Pakistanis and prove his worth, they were with Mahi at every stage of his career.

A trip to Ranchi isn’t complete without a visit to Prime Sports at Sujata Chowk. The owner of the shop Paramjit Singh is a sort of mini-celebrity there. He was also seen in an advertisement for McDowell’s club soda that also featured Dhoni. “It was shot six months ago. Dhoni bhai called me and I readily agreed to shoot.”

Paramjit says he never goes to the stadium to watch matches. “I still watch matches on my small TV here,” he says opening a drawer below the stack of tennis balls and shuttles.

He continues, “We all played club cricket together for Royal Club. I stopped when I opened this shop and he never stopped playing.” If you are lucky, Paramjit will open a secret compartment containing his collection of every paper clipping published in Ranchi of Dhoni during his list-A and developing days. To Mirror though, he shared an ID card, made by the Ranchi Cricket Association, of the then 15-year-old.

Contrary to scenes from the biopic on Dhoni, the Indian ODI and T20 captain it seems did not run away from his job as a ticket collector for the Indian Railways. Keshav Banerjee, who persuaded Dhoni to shift to wicket-keeping from goalkeeping in the Jawahar Vidya Mandir school, points out it’s preposterous.

“He actually resigned from the railway job,” Banerjee said. “They wanted to show it as a change of scene I guess. If any government official runs away, police will register a FIR against that person. Why will Dhoni do that?”

Another coach, Chachal Bhattacharya, corroborates. “When he was named in the India A squad, he resigned,” he said.