Meet the headhunter who stalked celebs for autographs

In 2012, K Viswanatha made his way to the front row of an event at the Christ University. He had one agenda on his mind: getting past the Z-category security and request Dalai Lama, who was to speak there, for an autograph.
When the security ring prevailed, Viswanatha decided to go to the monastery in Mundgod, Hubballi, where the spiritual leader was headed next. He moved heaven and earth to get entry and waited for an opportunity. Finally, he managed to come face to face but only for a few seconds. The Dalai Lama signed `Wish You All The Best'.

It was an achievement and an unforgettable moment for the retired headhunter, just like the 1,250 other celebrity autographs in his collection.

“I have collected 85% of them personally. The other 10% and 5% are through postal requests and friends respectively,“ he says.

Gathering and preserving celebrity autographs is a hobby Viswanatha picked up when he was only 18.

“My uncle, a voracious reader, used to take me to literary and cultural festivals, where I met many icons,“ the 66-year-old recalls. “I thought why not take this up as a hobby? It does not cost me anything.“ His first autograph was that of theatre personality Gubbi Veeranna in 1968.

This was followed by autographs of Sir CV Raman, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Mother Teresa, Sir Mirza Ismail, BKS Iyengar and Shakuntala Devi. Viswanatha also has preserved dedicated messages from the film world (Dr Rajkumar, Mahesh Bhatt, Farooq Sheikh, Sadhna Bose, Javed Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar, Priyanka Chopra), musicians (Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma, Shivamani, Sonu Nigam etc) and almost all Indian cricketers.

Viswanath always gets signatures on postcards. “I have also collected messages and autographs from all the eight Jnanapith awardees from Karnataka,“ he says.

Using this as an opportunity to learn more about the personalities, he laminates each postcard in an A-4 sized sheet, with their profile and achievements. He designs them using a graphic editing software.

Viswanatha also has a considerable collection of notes and ancient coins.“Some autographs are accompanied by ten-rupee notes whose serial numbers correspond with the birth date and date of death of the personality,“ he explains. For instance, next to the autograph of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar are laminated two notes with serial numbers `280583' (birthdate: 20051883) and `260266' (date of death: 26021966).

Although politicians do not feature prominently in his collection, Viswanatha hopes to have Narendra Modi and Barack Obama's autographs next.

“I have already written to them, hoping they will respond,“ he says.