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Showing posts from February, 2007

Veer Savarkar - remembered

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Today is Veer Savarkar’s 41st death anniversary. I was fortunate to witness funeral procession of Veer Savarkar from the balcony of one of our relatives( Bapat Maushi) in Lamington Road. I remember my father, after hearing the news of Savarkar’s demise had asked us to start from our home at Andheri to reach this place ( How he did during pre telehone days – that I don’t recall). By evening, when Savarkar’s cortege arrived , the entire road from Apsara Talkies that led to chowpaty was swarmed with people. I had not known about him then but that image of funeral procession has remained in my memory. The other congregations that come parallal to this were that of witnessing Nehru’s urn in Nasik to be immersed in Godawari river, Lining up on western express highway in Bombay to watch heroic welcome of Neil Armstrong, Eldrich and Triumphant Indian cricket team after winning first test match in England. I wouldn’t have known about Savarkar’s death anniversary, had it not been for my attempt

Virginity Lost : Great real life lessons

Till I joined my MBA, academic studies were drudgery – examinations were treacherous. I never understood the logic and the purpose of my academic study in real life. I could effortlessly, solve any problems in calculus or trigonometry without knowing any practical significance of it. Having mastered the weakness of Indian education system, getting good grades was never difficult. Education started making sense in the final year of engineering while designing a power supply or setting up electricity distribution for a village. But the question loomed over and over again. Why reinvent the wheel? Why do we judge someone who churn things that has been already been digested. Why test student on proving Newton or Pythagoras when it is already proven. I do hope, education system may have changed in past decade. Nikil Rao – an avid sportsman and my ex-collegue once mentioned that everything in the life is monotonous with the exception of Sports. I tend to agree with him with a minor addition i

crow : undisputed king of mumbai sky

After ages, I spotted one sparrow at my home in Bandra. My immediate fear was ‘I hope she doesn’t get noticed by any crow’. Last month, with little sparrow in his beak, I saw him on the balcony grill, spreading his span, struggling to fit himself on the frill of the balcony, Seeing the feast in sight, few more of his buddies struggled to get their share. He somehow managed to fled and perch on the tree. With sheer struggle, exhaustion and fear I am sure sparrow must have been still by now. Another casualty to ever dwindling population of sparrows in Mumbai suburbs. When I grew up in Kala Nagar in mid 70’s, coconut trees were just planted and one could see sky horizon up to Kalina from the terrace. Artek Apartments was the tallest building in Bandra East and perhaps the only one with Elevator. At breakfast time, sight of flying green parrots was not unusual. Pigeons would produce babies between narrow spaces in earthen tree pots kept in the balcony. Now slowly all other bird species are

National Shame or Call to Honor?

I arrived in Entebbe –Uganda from Khartoum via Nairobi. As my hotel minivan rolled out of Entebbe airport on way to Kampala, Uganda, images of Israel’s daring rescue operation of hijacked Air France plane on June 3rd 1976 flashed my mind. But soon, Kandahar incident of dec 24th 1999 stood like a blot against this courageous and brave commando operation. Somehow most ‘singh’ that occupied India’s post independence ministerial posts have been great disappointments. Tradition continued with Charan Singh, Arjun Singh, V.P Singh and Jaswant Singh. All these Singhs came with great fanfare and showed lot of charisma and rekindled hope only to leave behind them traces divided society. But Jaswant Singh went further by demonstrating an act that perhaps has no parallel in public behavior. I don’t know much about Jaswant Singh but his appearance gives an impression of being aristocratic background. He does look physically fit with his erect stance and his straight pointed nose project his militar

Sidney Sheldon - a great storyteller.

My first reaction was ‘oh **** !!’ after seeing newspaper headline on Bangkok- Mumbai flight. My fellow passenger was taken a back by my reaction and when explained about passing away of Sidney Sheldon, he was amused. I could make out that – being a businessman he may not have had opportunity to know this novelist. But for me, this man, shaped my interest in English books by demonstrating the art of articulating emotions through words in racy, spellbound storytelling. If Harold Robbins helped me take first steps of English fiction, Sidney Sheldon was my companion during growing up years. Others like Irwin Wallace, Arther Hailey and Fredrick Forsyth followed but no one like Sidney Sheldon carved such a big influence on me with If Tomorrow Comes, Master of the Game, Rage of Angels, Bloodline, A Stranger in the Mirror, and The Other Side of Midnight. And all this from an author who started writing novels from the age of 50. He may have been in the Guinness Book of World Records for the