For those who came in late, Farokh Engineer was one of Indian cricket's original glamour boys - along with the likes of Salim Durani and ML Jaisimha - redefining cool with his charisma, 'keeping and debonair batsmanship. Now, at 80, the sideburns, dimples and sparkle of youth is gone, replaced by wrinkles and sagacity. Some of the dash, though, is admirably intact.
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An outspoken personality, Engineer has never been known to toe the common line.
Yet now, in his twilight years, there seems to linger in him a tinge of regret for unheeded accomplishments, a longing for Mumbai, a need to return 'home'. A realization that he has lived his life, in essence, as an outcast.
"Outcast? That's too strong a word," Engineer tells TOI over a cup of tea as rain pelts Birmingham. "I first came to England in 1966. My Lancashire stint started in 1968. I stayed on. They wanted me to. Yet if you ask me if I would embrace India or England, I would proudly say India. I have retained my Indian nationality and passport. My soul is Indian."
Engineer was one of the first Indians to play as a professional in county cricket, and had offers from Worcestershire, Somerset, and Hampshire before he settled on Lancashire and made Manchester his home.
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"I couldn't resist the prospect of keeping to the furious Brain Statham," says the man who kept to India's famed spin trio. "Garry Sobers was in talks too but he and Lancashire agreed to disagree. Then Clive (Lloyd) came in and we had a remarkable time. They just wouldn't let me go. They gave me three-year-contracts. At that time I would also play all Ranji games, all Duleep Trophy matches."
After 1976, he stayed on, bought a house in Cheshire, started a business - that of exporting textiles to the Caribbean - and for all intents and purposes became English. "I get the feeling India cricket kind of forgot me. I kept wanting to go back, but the price of property kept going up in Mumbai.
"Sadly, I have never, ever got a coaching offer from India, though MS Dhoni himself came to me early on his career and we worked on a few things with his 'keeping. Some of the coaches I see there aren't exactly top grade. I am appalled the CK Nayudu award has eluded me, and gone to Padmakar Shivalkar and Rajinder Goel. All respect to them, but they didn't play Test cricket."
Engineer is reluctant to reveal what he taught Dhoni, simply saying "that is between me and him", but does reveal that he lost all his money sometime in the early 1990s, when the Bank of Credit and Commerce collapsed. "I lost a million pounds in a day. It was a difficult time. I had to come to terms with it. My business collapsed. My lifestyle changed. But I recovered from that too. That's life."
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Engineer reveals that he is only one of two people - along with MAK Pataudi - to have not got a benefit match in Sharjah.
"We got a one-time payment, and people confuse the two. I get the BCCI pension, of course, around 300 pounds a month, and I'm grateful. But that's not the point. Why weren't my cricketing talents better used by India? I was the only Indian in the Rest of the World XI at that time."
These days, we usually see Farokh Engineer the commentator or TV pundit. Rarely do we get a glimpse of Engineer the person. "That happens," he simply says, appearing to lose interest in the issue. So has Indian cricket made him feel like a pariah?
"Yes," says Engineer, appearing perplexed. "But I'm Indian, you know. I just stay here."