Dilshan Dil-scooped
- THE PICTURE HE WON’T LET OTHERS SEE
OUR BUREAU
Tillekaratne Dilshan (right) partying at a nightclub late on Tuesday with teammate Sanath Jayasuriya.
The Telegraph would not have carried this photograph had Dilshan not accosted the photographer and forced him to delete the pictures he had clicked on assignment. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta
Tillekaratne Dilshan, the star Sri Lanka opener who perfected the “Dil-scoop”, became so angry at being photographed in a nightclub that he chased a photographer of The Telegraph, Bishwarup Dutta, from the fifth-floor club down to the street to confront him on Tuesday night.
“How dare you? Don’t you know who I am?” shouted Dilshan, refusing to let go of the photographer until he was sure all the pictures had been deleted. The incident unfolded outside 22 Camac Street.
Dilshan, who is married to a Sri Lankan television actress, threatened to smash the camera before handing it over to a friend to delete the pictures. It was not clear why Dilshan did not want to be photographed.
Dutta, who later salvaged a couple of pictures from the digital memory card, narrates the sequence of events.
A senior colleague and I were winding up an assignment on Park Street around 11.45pm on Tuesday when someone called to say that two Sri Lankan cricketers had just walked into the nightclub Shisha on Camac Street, less than a kilometre away. Our office car hadn’t yet arrived to pick us up, so we hailed a taxi and reached Shisha within 10 minutes.
As we walked in looking for the duo, we saw Dilshan and Jayasuriya sitting with an unidentified woman (picture blurred by The Telegraph as she had no role in the incident) wearing a black dress. They were shouting into each other’s ears in an attempt to be heard above the din.
The lighting being inadequate for photography, I pointed my camera at them with the flash on and clicked, hoping that I would get a couple of shots. The moment Dilshan saw the flashbulb popping, he raised his right hand and said something that I couldn’t hear. Jayasuriya then gestured towards me to ask who I was.
When I introduced myself, he said: “You should ask for permission before taking pictures. I will walk out if you point that camera at me again.”
I apologised and decided not to disturb them again, but Dilshan accosted me and ordered that I erase all the pictures in front of him, which I did except for one that I had “delete-protected” seconds ago.
Dilshan’s attitude made me change my mind about not taking any more pictures. I had told him that I was as much a fan of his as some of the guests who were fawning on him but he seemed to be overly suspicious of my intentions. Neither he nor Jayasuriya was objecting to the guests taking pictures of them dancing with the woman in black.
It was a little past midnight when I took out my camera again to shoot pictures of the cricketers on the dance floor. In the dim light, I did not realise that Dilshan had moved away from the dance arena and was following my movements. I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder and there he was, glaring at me.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave us alone? Show me the camera,” he shouted.
I immediately showed him that the memory card did not contain any picture of him but he wasn’t convinced. As he walked back to the dance floor, something told me that I should leave or my camera could be damaged. I hurriedly walked out of the club and entered the elevator.
I heard voices behind me even as I pressed the elevator knob to take me to the ground floor. It was Dilshan, followed by a couple of guests he seemed to have befriended. I got out of the elevator and ran towards the street, hoping to find a taxi. There was one standing there but the driver refused to go. I turned around and saw Dilshan running across the street with vehicles dangerously zipping past him. I froze. What if a car were to run him over?
The next thing I knew was Dilshan’s hand on my collar. He didn’t assault me but his demeanour — and that of his non-celebrity friends — made me look like a criminal. “Take his phone number. Check his identity card,” the cricketer ordered, snatching my camera.
The others followed his instructions. I feared for my camera as Dilshan fiddled with the flash. He then passed it to one of his friends, who apparently knew how to erase pictures from a memory card. Satisfied that all evidence had been wiped out, the group left. My only source of support when I was being surrounded by them were the Shisha staff, who had apparently come down to ensure that I wasn’t assaulted. Some police officers were standing there but they preferred to be mere spectators.
