At the TRF event during the recent visit of RI President Yinka Babalola to Hyderabad, one of the most enjoyable moments came when the President said quite disarmingly, pointing to the beautifully embroidered red cap he was wearing. “Now this is a simple cloth cap, but it is hand-made and hand embroidered too.” The cap had the Rotary logo embroidered in yellow and the presidential theme for the year ‘Create Lasting Impact’ in indigo.
He announced that he was willing to give it to any Rotarian in the hall for a decent price. The money it fetched would of course go to The Rotary Foundation. DG Uday Pilani, RI District 3150, immediately seized the opportunity and began the bidding by announcing that he was offering $5,000 for the cap. This kept increasing by sum of $500 to 1,000, with the main contender being Pilani’s assistant governor and AKS member (Level 3) Chiranjeev Saluja and his wife Sunali, till RI Vice President M Muruganandam, who was in the hall, stepped in with his own set of bids.
Now the bidding war really picked steam, and with Muruganandam getting into the act, the figure quickly climbed to over $10,000, 15,000 and 25,000 and beyond, till the VP said “$30,000… and this is my final bid.”
With Pilani urging the district’s Rotarians to ensure that the RI President’s cap remained in the district, preferably Hyderababd, Saluja wrapped up the auction with a bid of $31,000. Amidst loud cheers and applause Babalola placed the cap on Sunali’s head.
Later DG Pilani told Rotary News: “I gave this idea to President Babalola as we were walking to the hall for the event. I am so glad I did because this fetched TRF ₹30 lakh!” He recalled that at the Hamburg Convention too, where four paintings were auctioned, he had told his wife that they should buy a painting. He bid for one, “and by the time I went to pay for that bid, my wife, who thought I had said we should buy all the paintings, had bid and bought the other three too. I remember that totally, I paid 35,000 Euros for those paintings.”
Anyway, all for a good cause! Vive la TRF!