Tales from a Travelling salesman

Life at Hari Niwas Mumbai today is a far cry from one I lived and loved in 1975. The city then had grace, beauty, elegance, and elan. My stay in Hari Niwas on C road, Churchgate is a part of those memories. I arrived early morning at 6 am at the Bombay central station from Ahmedabad. A freshly minted MBA wet behind ears, wide-eyed with starry dreams to work in a big bad city. The company I worked for was considerate and had deputed Natarajan, a guest house caretaker, to meet me at the station. Natarajan was to become my friend, philosopher, and guide for the next year. Natarajan was taciturn in his speech, not because he did not want to talk, but knew a few words of English and a few more of Tamil. He guided our taxi driver with the economy of the words and gestures that Bombay is well known for. Hari Niwas is where my company guest house was on C road, off Marine Drive, two minutes walk from the station, and five minutes to the center of all actions for a young heart lik...

Meeting with my Maker I am prone to flu, like any other person. Mine tends to be more severe though. Over 4 decades of facing flu have convinced me that I may die at the evil hands of the flu. No cancer, no heart failure but plain and simple flu is what will kill me.  Anyways, this blog is on the latest episode of the flu I was inflicted upon early this week. My last flu attack was about 18 months back. I was in Bhopal with my wife for a speaking engagement. I would have thought flu won't catch me at 30,000 feet flying over Raipur but it did exactly that. By the time we landed at Bhopal's Raja Bhoj airport, I was enveloped by the full-blown flu. I wonder how I fulfilled my speaking assignments and how we managed to actually see Bharat Bhavan, but we did all that.  This time around, the flu located me near Mehboob studio in Bandra when I was returning from an errand. It struck me instantly and sapped my energy so suddenly that I had to call my driver to reach home. By aftern...

7.35 am Fast to Dombivali For a Bandra resident, Dombivali seems far away, like another continent. But the early morning visit was a mandatory one. My private secretary of two and a half decades Subramanian (Subu) lost his wife a few days back so I had to go and meet him. Subu is only second to my wife in a hierarchy of knowing me intimately. For 24 years, he looked after me lovingly, efficiently, and dedicatedly, putting up with my nastiness known to a few. I am now reaching a stage of life when rushing for anything is less appealing. So I woke up at 5 am, got ready at a slow pace I am not known for, and got into an auto-rickshaw not expecting the driver to be so sinfully cheerful at that hour and wanting to discuss UP politics and poll alliances. I arrived at Bandra station at 7 am. Even at that early hour of Sunday, Bandra station was a melody of colors and cacophony of sounds. Everyone was heading somewhere; to a football match, for a cricket coaching, a temple vis...