A couple of weeks back, received a unique invitation from a dear friend Ian Pereira www.ianpereira.com an extremely talented & well known photographer heralding his turning the magic number, just when I was recovering from my long list of body damages over the past 6 months & wondering to myself if the year was going to be devoted to Doctors!

Though against doctor’s advice, decided to attend the Do; more from the perspective of wishing & participating in some enjoyment for the evening.

With the doctor’s & wife’s remonstrations ringing in my ears set out to the party, braving the Saturday traffic, reached the venue in Bandra!

And surprise……whilst there were the usual suspects, met up with a completely different set of people, some who had not met for the past couple of years. Whilst Ian had his friends, his son, a young strapping lad also had taken the liberty to invite his friends, making it a lovely mix of age. http://www.flickr.com/photos/91638357@N00/sets/72157606291686564/

Nursing a small drink, touched base with friends old & new on what was new in life for the past couple of months. Whilst the music went up & down, it was the lovely 70’s & 80’s that created a sense of nostalgia. Along with the conversation, since most of us were 40+ (not the jeetendra kind).

Finally staggering out (not me) we were pretty pleased with ourselves & promised to celebrate such events more often…..Since LIFE BEGINS AFTER 40!!!

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the
grocery store he pays Rs. 6 a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won’t last a
week he normally buys two dozens at a time. One day while buying eggs he
notices that the price has risen to Rs. 7. The next time he buys
groceries, eggs are Rs. 7.5 a dozen.

When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, “The price
has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly”. This store buys 100
dozen eggs a day. He checked around for a better price and all the
distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy
from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven out of
business. The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to
distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit.
The distributors then have to raise their prices to t he grocery stores.
And on and on and on.

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Never having had an opportunity to meet Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw in person, but having read about him over the last 30 years, it was with a feeling of India having lost a great man, that one read about his demise. Over the past fortnight I have read a lot about him but an article that came through, made a lot of sense & whilst knowing that it would make no difference whatsoever to the powers be, I thought of sharing it -

“ The highest compliment was,in my view,paid to him by a Pakistani resident of Karachi .He stated that he admired the Field Marshall for attacking Karachi in 1971 every morning to take control of the harbour and for destroying the air force in East Pakistan over a week-end.The Pakistani added that if a Hindu had been in Sam Maneksha’s place,with his misgivings and diffidence about fighting wars despite the population-size,money and ammunition being very much in his favour,the 1971 war would have been as inconclusive as the 1947 and 1965 wars.

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Received a SMS from a friend first thing today morning - “plz forward this phone no. to all your friends. Very urgent.. A baby needs A -ve blood immediately. Contact 9944506707. pls do not delete, atleast fwd.”

Having received such sms in the past & being reasonably expert on them, asked him to verify the authenticity of the sender, nos & revert…..

No response till late afternoon, when I received a sheepish reply ‘pls ignore’

This was repeated twice during the course of the day; Mind you they were from different locations, friends who do not know each other.

This sets one thinking - Is this a marketing gimmick? Do people have so much free time to play around with someone’s lives if it is genuine enough???

WHATEVER the case may be, at the cost of being rude, I have made it a rule to always ask for verification/confirmation of authenticity before even thinking of forwarding such sms….

Dance like there’s nobody watching.. Love like you’ll never get hurt.. Sing like there’s nobody listening.. Live like it’s heaven on earth.. And speak from the heart to be heard. Wish you a beautiful, bountiful NEW YEAR…..Anaggh, Nippa, Kannagi!

The past 15 weeks have been one of great turmoil.

AND

The past 3 weeks a period, of the greatest personal turmoil in the last decade. Read the rest of this entry »