I distinctly remember that it was in the month of June in the year 2001 that I was transferred to Mumbai, which today culminated into two decades of unbroken stay in this city of dreams.

I was put up in a decent hotel in Fort area, which was closer to my workplace in Cuffe Parade. But the first priority was my daughter’s admission to seventh standard and colleagues directed me to Poddar Santa Cruz. As I was to commute by train. Andheri was the first choice for residence. Natural affinity was for Lokhandwala, though a friend advised me to explore four bungalows as this would result in saving in commuting time. From Andheri to Juhu to back to Andheri four bungalows is a long story that I would touch upon some other time. But it was a smooth subsumption into a routine involving train travel from Andheri to Churchgate and a shared cab or BEST bus from there to office and back home. Occasional after office drink with friends, mostly on weekends in Churchgate or Fort was the big attraction. To put it mildly, for a born Delhiite, adaptation to Mumbai was seamless.

Of course, I witnessed huge changes. For once, I consider myself lucky to have savoured the experience of watching movies at iconic Regal, Eros, Sterling, New Excelsior and Metro, before they shut down ( except Regal) and reopened in the new avatar of multiplex. I could also enjoy the inexplicable joy of eating at some of the iconic Iranian Parsi joints and unbeatable Cafe Samovar inside Jehangir Art Gallery. The thali restaurant at Kalbadevi that started serving thali at Rs60 and the last price being Rs320, has since downed shutters. World Trade Centre gave the first experience of what the malls were going to be !

And so much infrastructure development that happened in last 2 decades changed the face of the city. Scores of flyovers, foot bridges, sea link, freeway, Monorail, Metro and of course, the world Class T2 are some of the transformations I have witnessed during the last 2 decades.

Of course, a few things have worsened too! Two wheelers have crowded Mumbai roads and the owners neither wear helmet nor abide by traffic rules. Auto and taxi drivers can be frequently seen not wearing uniform and running shared services by overcrowding their vehicles! More and more iconic places are shutting shops! And there are other urban malaise like water logging, traffic jams and lack of open spaces.

But these 20 years have been the golden period of my life highlighted by career and life progression – personally for me as also my wife and daughter. Some of the most interesting and important events of life have happened during these 2 decades.

Having lived in Mumbai for two decades, living anywhere else would be quite tough if not impossible. Mumbai is cosmopolitan, broad minded, all inclusive and advanced in its thought process. For those who can work hard, Mumbai has rich rewards. This is a classic example of karmabhoomi becoming more important than my janmabhoomi.

A lawyer standing up for a just cause, getting the justice to a rape victim from the weaker section, who is group raped by the son of the powerful local politician and his friends, suffers character assassination and death in the process. He leaves behind his new bride of a few months, who is pregnant.

The new bride is exhorted upon by her parents to go in for medical termination of pregnancy and start life afresh but she chooses to stay back with her in laws and go ahead with delivery. She is like a daughter to her in laws, who also care wonderfully well for her.

There’s a girl from a conservative family who falls for the wicked charms of her paramour, who tries to ravage her modesty. She escapes unscathed but now has this stigma attached to her by a conservative society. Of course, she’s supported by her reformed father ( another story track) who admits her to medical college. She’s ill treated by her brother’s wife post her father’s death, but she fights it all for a happy ending for herself.

In between, the widow, who now has a 5 years old son, is encouraged to attempt starting life afresh as the young boy needs a father more than a grandpa or uncle. She finds an able suitor who promises to treat her son as her own.

There’s a doctor couple, who abdicate cozy environs of US to return to their native and start a state of they art hospital at a backward hill district. Apart from bringing world class treatment closer to these people, they regularly arrange camps to vaccinate and educate poor and illiterate villagers against devastating diseases.

There are standard parallel tracks around victory of good over evil that we see all the time in our movies too.

If you are guessing the above to be an extract out of a new Hollywood or Bollywood movie, you are quite off the mark! The above in fact is the theme of a Pakistani drama that we accidentally bumped into while searching a programme on YouTube. And once we started watching it, we ended up finishing 28 episodes of over 35 minutes each in under 3 days.

While there’s no dearth of entertaining content ( on OTT, YouTube, channels etc) and one can see any programme or event and therefore, I am not recommending this Pakistani drama for its entertainment value, the moot point here is the progressive thought coming out of a country from where we generally get news of regressive values. Equal treatment of sons and daughters, rehabilitation of widow daughter in law, giving the highest education to a daughter to make her independent are all the issues that are as much relevant on this side of the border as these are on that side. While there are fanatics with regressive thoughts, there is a section there that’s trying to put up a defiant face and that could be worth emulation.

When a child is born, it’s an occasion to rejoice for the family. First birthday is more exciting as the child has by now started to stand on his legs, identify immediate nears and dears and speak some simple words like Papa Mama. Similarly, subsequent birthdays create an excitement in the family as the child grows and its time to celebrate the child’s growth and development- drawing or painting skills, singing skills, skill to mimic or plain studies. That’s how life progresses and celebration extends to new members – spouse, children, friends colleagues et al.

Beyond a point, count up gives way to the count down. If 80 is the average lifespan than birthdays post the 40th birthday are part of this countdown. Instead of looking forward, one starts looking backwards – the dreams and avidity give way to memories and nostalgia. One starts thinking more about the past – the achievements, good times, the events that led to growth and development.

So I am more at the second stage that is the stage of the countdown. However, the friends acquaintances and well wishers are leaving no stone unturned to make this birthday super special like all my birthdays in the past. And in the morning I woke up to a very special message- an audio of happy birthday song rendered by my grandsons. A few more children of my colleagues are likely to add further sweetness to this occasion.

All this love and affection is creating a bit of confusion in my mind . If I am so loveable, desirable and sought after. I should continue to count up rather than countdown. This is the power of love. It can increase the lifespan and quality of life of a person.

My heartfelt gratitude to each one of you who took to to all kinds of communications- phone call, SMS, WhatsApp, FB, Instagram and greetings inserted inside flowers and cakes to convey your wishes to me! It’s made me to believe that I am celebrating my 19th rather than 59th birthday.

My readers by now are well aware about my fascination with P G Wodehouse writings and I continue to read his compendium of work on my kindle. It’s like a thesis and I am reading it at a leisurely pace.

Apart from his mastery over the use of language and expression to create a situation that’s neither fully ironical nor satirical, his ability to create subtle humour out of day to day situations is really something wonderful. In the process, if there’s a situation with which you identify yourself, it adds a layer of familiarity.

After finishing the acts of Bertie Wooster, I am currently reading another of his popular character Psmith. This is a long winded story about a family of Jacksons having four sons and a daughter and all four brothers are cricket aficionados and good players in their own right. They are sent to famous boarding schools/ junior colleges that are well known for their cricketing abilities apart of academics.

To cut the story short, the youngest of the Jacksons, Mike, who’s playing wonderful cricket and appears to be ripe for county cricket, is summoned by his father to be informed that he has lost all his wealth and that Mike can not pursue his education and cricket further and instead has to join a bank in London.

From campus to brutal professional world of banking, the transition is sudden and abrupt. The young Mike is feeling like fish out of water inside the bank office, where he’s asked to go to despatch section and learn about receipt and delivery of letters. On his way to office in London on day 1, he comes across a college ground and immediately thinks about playing some cricket on weekends and holidays.

The above took me back to the year 1983 when I was going to Delhi university, pursuing my master in physics. The first semester ended on 10th December and the second semester was to begin on 5th January after a short winter break. In between around 15th of December, I got an offer letter asking me to report at a bank’s divisional office at Connaught Place on 28th December. Was I happy? In fact , I was totally crestfallen at the thought of transiting from cool, intellectually stimulating campus life to big boring world of banking. The thought that my further studies were going to end abruptly really sank me to the extreme depths of sadness. And on my first day at the bank, like Mike, I was a fish out of water and again like Mike asked to sit in despatch section. From young, educated, ambitious and disciplined folks at DU campus, the loud, boisterous and invective using bank staff, it was a transition most forgettable that I have not been able to forget till date!

Such is the irony of life; but how you see the lighter side of such an irony is what PGW tells us in his inimitable manner!

This extract of his work transported me to an event that happened 40 years back but whose memory is still fresh in my mind, like it was yesterday. This is the power of pen.

My regular readers know about Mr Malik, a rare personality, as we generally do not come across such personalities very often in our day to day lives.

A simile very often used to describe a person who has a tough facade but a soft heart inside is coconut. A coconut has a hard shell outside but the nut inside is soft. For Mr Malik, I go a step further. He’s like a raw coconut used by us to savour it’s water. It also has a tough shell ( requiring a sickle to unshell) and inside it’s not only filled with sweet nectarine water that quenches our thirst but also soft milky pulp or malai as we call it colloquially that tastefully satisfies our hunger too. Such is Mr Malik’s persona.

Mrs Malik is what a true lady is – a devoted wife, a doting mother, a dutiful daughter in law and a qualified professional who also contributed to family’s welfare!

And together, they have brought up two lovely daughters – educated, talented, professional, homely but fiercely independent! Though they both came from middle class families uprooted by partition, their thought process has always been progressive bereft of any conservatism. And the way daughters and their families bond with Mrs and Mr Malik, it’s enough to break the age old myth of a son’s requirement to take care of parents in old age.

It’s a milestone, a big occasion when two such good, affectionate, loveable people celebrate golden jubilee of their togetherness. And though in these Corona times, the celebration will be low key and restricted to immediate family, we, the friends, well wishers and admirers of this fantastic couple will also rejoice the occasion in our own small way.

We pray to God to give good health and prosperity to this beloved and respected couple so that after golden, they celebrate diamond and platinum jubilees of their togetherness.

Happy golden anniversary Mrs and Mr Malik.

It’s been some time that I last wrote a blog on Mahatria’s Pearl of wisdom. His today’s thought has once again impacted me deeply, inspiring me to share the same with my readers. The thought says:

Anything in life that comes to you should either stay with you, making you peaceful or should leave you, leaving you peaceful.

It should never stay with you, keeping you disturbed.

I think a major part of our life gets wasted on the activities, relationships and thoughts that we are either forced to live with against our will or are so very entwined in our day to day lives that’s it’s difficult for us to overcome them. The message is very deep and requires lots of pondering over, but let me cite a rather simple example. Many of us want to follow a healthy lifestyle, wake up early and do some yoga and meditation. Yet we find it difficult to get up early and in the process this lethargy makes us unhappy, but we are unable to let go off this habit. And this example can be extended to any part – we want to develop habit to read, but don’t find time, we want to get rid of a particular friend or acquaintance, yet we persist with him or her, we could be unhappy with our jobs, yet we continue for want of a viable alternative.

Another way of interpreting this great message by the great man is that we need to live in the present, without carrying the burden of past guilts or future expectations.

And yet another way of reading Mahatria’s mind is to be happy with whatever you have by way of material and relationships instead of being unhappy about what you don’t have. This was the theme of one of my other recent blogs too.

I feel blessed to be receiving these daily pearls from my friend, occasionally sharing them in my own humble way with my readers.

Today I came across an interesting news item on “vaccination tourism”. A Delhi travel firm is arranging packaged tours to Russia for 21 days that will include two doses of Sputnik vaccine, besides normal sightseeing. First dose will be administered immediately upon arrival in Russia and the second on the 21st day on the date of return. The only requirement as per Russian rules is negative RT-PCR report.

The above is packaged differently and I must say, very timely, when everyone wants to get vaccinated but there’s not enough supply of vaccines. Those who can afford to spare a few lakh rupees can definitely avail of the above offer by mixing sightseeing with vaccination . However, medical tourism is nothing new and the fact is that our country has been a beneficiary of overseas patients coming to India fir treatment of serious ailments due to advances medical techniques and comparatively low cost. Many affluent Indians regulated fly to overseas destinations, mainly USA for advanced medical treatments, mainly relating to the dreaded malaise of cancer.

Also, various nations use their strength to their advantage differently. Dubai is flight hub for Indians and all tourists and Indians working abroad use Dubai as transit passengers. In fact, Indians must have played an important part in making Emirates amongst the biggest and most sought after airline in the world. Singapore is financial hub due to its efficiency and discipline. And there are many such instances.

However, we should appreciate the Russian line of thought that has commercialism mixed with compassion as also the Delhi based travel firm that has discovered a business opportunity to revive a sector that has borne the brunt of the pandemic.

Second wave has taken our nation by surprise and exposed serious chinks in our armoury to fight the pandemic – lack of oxygen, ventilators, hospital beds, ambulance service, Remdesivir, non availability of vaccination et al. On the other hand, caution was thrown to winds for playing Holi, doing Kumbha snana and participating in state and panchayat elections. India created new records of daily infections and deaths. With the extensive lockdowns and other measures, the second wave seems to have plateaued and the numbers have started receding almost all over the country. In this context, I had two thoughts or new perspectives on the issue.

First is on the underlying principles of democracy. Democracy is more about self governance- to be aware of our duties and not only rights. Governments under democratic system of governance are not expected to deal with iron hand as it’s the government of the people, for the people and by the people. While government has been rightfully lambasted for its handling of crisis, the people at large – who partied as if lifting of lockdown meant end of Corona, travelled like there was no next day, celebrated Holi and Kumbha and made mockery of social distancing at election rallies and shopping for festival are equally to be blamed.

Second is on the satirical piece by inimitable Jug Suraiya who wrote beautiful on co-relation between our five senses and Corona. As he says, it all starts with us losing our sense of taste and smell. Then there’s constant admonition to not to touch any object – door knobs, elevator buttons or for that matter shaking hands, forget hugging or embracing! Our sight is not affected but it undergoes a change seeing people not as people but as case loads or hospital bed or oxygen seekers! On sense of sound, the author very wittingly says that while we ignore voices seeking Covid help certain other “Mann ki baat” gets amplified to crescendo pitch. However, he sums it up beautifully saying that apart from these five physical senses there’s a sixth sense that can be adversely affected by the virus and all the misinformation doing the rounds. This is generally called the common sense. Ultimately, it seems that it all boils down to people using their common sense or discretion in fighting this pandemic.

We all have to use all our senses, including the sixth one, to get rid of Corona. Mask will protect us from senses relating to taste and smell, hand washing from touch, good literature and thoughts from senses relating to sight and sound and common sense from unnecessary crowding and outing and all this combined with vaccination will give us victory against Corona.

My father would have turned 93 today had he been alive, but he decided to call it a day a month after turning 83, losing his battle to cancer that struck him late in his life.

All of us love our parents and we use expressions such as – “my father strongest or my mother most affectionate” , and thus if I pay tribute to my father on his birthday, there’s nothing unique or exceptional about it! Only aspect of his life that may interest my readers his total apathy to material assets and he hardly owned any assets all his life. He never owned a driver licence or a passport implying he never rode a self driven two or four wheeler and never traveled abroad. He used his retrial benefit to own a property as all through his service life, he lived in quarter provided by government whom he served! Most of his sightseeing happened after his retirement when his ability to walk freely was severely curtailed due to a serious accident that he met late in his life after having lived virtually a healthy life bereft of any serious ailment.

He was an atheist but I have never seen him missing his daily prayers that he used to say to the supreme lord one who had no form, shape or face. He was at his happiest when with children as he clearly avoided politics, especially of the family kind and his best friends were the most deprived in society – the cobbler, barber, driver, vegetable vendor – whom he would give mints and toffees as if they were his children!

His total retirement benefit could be my monthly take home, I have travelled to at least 3 continents, owned cars, houses and other assets he never owned and enjoyed and partied as if there’s no tomorrow but if I could ever become even 1% of the human that he was, I would have achieved at least something worth mentioning in my life.

A prayer for deliverance from Corona

Human beings are counting their breaths
Hospitals are counting number of deaths

Burial grounds and crematoriums are not having a moment that’s dull
For bodies are coming and coming and there’s not even a moment’s lull

And people are seeking safety in vaccination
But vaccination centres are overcrowded destinations

And god has given us abundant amount of oxygen
Yet people are dying for hospitals have no oxygen

And though Remdesivir is no sure shot panacea for Covid
Yet it’s skyrocketing price exposes the human greed

Wave 2 is more fatal and serious than wave one
And scientists say wave 3 will affect children

Death is knocking on the doors of friends and neighbours
Who knows when life will treat us out of favour

Let’s wear mask, stay indoors and pray to almighty
It seems only some unseen force can save us from this calamity!