In this mobile-driven age, the selfie seems to have become the new autograph. But there is a 31-year-old youth in small town Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, who is crazy about autographs. And not just autographs but autographed photographs. “These days”, regrets Deepak Sharma, “wherever you go, you find people pulling out their phones and posing for a selfie with the celebrities.” “Autographs are no longer much valued by either the givers or the seekers, especially in India,” he declares.
And yet Deepak is at it because he believes his is an exclusive collection of astronaut autographs assembled over the last decade-and-a-half. As per records, 549 people have gone to space so far and Deepak claims he has written to 500 of them and received the signed photographs from 175! His awesome achievement was recognised as national record by the Limca Book of Records in October last year when he had 101 of those valued signatures. In the last 10 months he has added 74 more to his collection and is aiming at bettering his record.
Though the prized autographed photograph of India’s first and only astronaut Rakesh Sharma is his personal favourite, Deepak feels particularly happy about two more. After a wait of two years, finally last month he received the autograph of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to travel in space in 1963 and the other was from the sixth astronaut to walk on moon, Edgar Mitchell, who passed away in February this year. “I feel honoured to have received Edgar’s just about three months before his death,” says Deepak, who believes his enormous collection is an investment – both financial and emotional.
Though his love for outer space has been a childhood trait, Deepak was drawn into the hobby of collecting autographs by South African cricketer Lance Klusener, whom he hero-worshipped. In the 1999 World Cup, when Klusener got the man-of-the-series award, a super excited Deepak, studying in class X then, dashed off a congratulatory letter to the player at some random address and forgot all about it. Six months later, when he got a response and an autographed photo from the cricketer, the teenaged boy felt he struck gold. “And it became a hobby from that day,” he says, “because I felt getting a photo signed was the best way to connect with the celebrity”.
The first letter he wrote, specifically asking for an autographed photo was to Punjabi singer and actor Harbhajan Mann. And ever since he has been writing such letters to Hollywood and Bollywood stars, politicians, ministers, Nobel Prize winners, literary authors, cricketers and other sportspersons. Earlier as a student, he did not average many but in the last two years he has written 1,000 such letters. And today his collection of autographs of celebrities, both Indians and foreigners has crossed 3,000 plus. “Now I work as an event manager and it has become little easy for me to meet famous people,” says Deepak, who mostly travels to Mumbai and Delhi in hunt of more autographs. But that is a different story.
It is the astronaut autograph that shot him to fame in his hometown and somewhat pleased his mother and sister, after seeing his name and photo in the newspapers. “Otherwise mostly they complain that I am wasting my time and money.”
But Deepak does not feel so. Getting the autographs of astronauts in particular is an achievement of different kind, he asserts. “Not only you have to be passionate about space exploration but also read up about the space travellers and that adds to your knowledge base,” he says. “It is easy to chase autographs of people from the glamour world, but not those who have been on space flights.”
To pursue autographs from astronauts in different parts of the world requires patience and also the ability to accept rejection. “To begin with, you have to reach them through multiple via addresses and rarely any astronaut’s signature comes free,” he says, adding, you suffer losses when they don’t respond.
After reading about an astronaut, Deepak pens down his feelings and thoughts about that particular astronaut and writes a kind of personal letter and posts it along with a good quality photograph, the return cover and the postage cost. Many times, the letters are returned asking for a specific signing fee or some direct the amount to be paid online. Nowadays Deepak sets aside Rs.6,000 to 10,000 per month for sending 20 to 24 such letters every month. Many require repeated reminders and some flatly refuse, he points out.
Deepak’s most expensive signed photograph so far is that of Charles Duke, the youngest person to walk on the moon. “I paid 150 US dollars for that,” he says. But he yearns for the first man to walk on moon, Neil Armstrong’s autograph. “I am told he stopped signing autographs in 1993 and the ones available cost Rs.1.5 lakh. I hope to get it someday.”
Deepak’s collection includes 375 non-duplicate autographed photos of 175 astronauts from 22 countries and 50 autographed First Day Covers of 50 astronauts including Eugene Cernan, Richard F. Gordon, Fred Haise, Edward Gibson, Valery Bykovsky, Anna Lee Fisher, Charles Bolden, John Casper, Chiaki Mukai, Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan, Anousheh Ansari. Laminated and filed in a big album, Deepak says there is a story to every autograph and a thrill in every experience of getting it.
And has he met any astronaut? Yes, he gushes, I went to Bangalore and met Rakesh Sharma in April this year! And that is another story!
