Best this BMW! Colorful :)
Atul's posterous
digital nomad
Where else but in Delhi would we cone across 18th century Mughal architecture. Another reason why I just love my Delhi.
Strange Umbilical Cord
Old friends and memories are a heady combination for intoxication on emotional high. I met an old & cherished friend Sharmistha Adyanthaya (Mitra), this Saturday April 10 in Mumbai, after a gap of 15 odd years. Beauty of relationships came effervescently fresh, even after so many years, just like my dear friend Sharmishtha's personality.
Four hours of meeting & getting to chat with her filled up the gaps of not in being touch with vibrant colors of conversation. I'm so happy to be in touch with her again.
Another meeting with an old school friend Sarita after 32 years, on this fruitful Saturday, let me to believe & ponder certain facts. Foremost being that though distances and time might be instrumental in making people forget each other but memories of yester years, if strong enough, never let a person forget anyone. One just starts from where they let off.
These past few weeks have been such a heady trip down the memory lane & I've enjoyed every bit of the time spent with old friends from my Rosary School. Met Atul Kochhar, Sandeep Chanana, Vikram Vats, Parwani, Rajesh & Ravindar, Chand Bedi, Daga, Partha. Got in touch with Sarita, Gurpreet, Sameena, Suman, Samita it was like being in school again; only if we actually were back in school.
Kids did not understand why dad's spending way too much time on Facebook all of a sudden, Seema, my wife, on the other hand was bemused with all the information I was sharing with her.
This brings few things in forefront, that is all of us guys are in our mid forties, kids have grownup or growing up to leave the nest and move on. All of us are happily settled in and comfortable with what's around us & our achievements. All of us had our own circle of friends that we made when we moved out of school and lost contact with each other. But with all these facts, one thing bonds us together is the time we shared while in school; that fact is the umbilical cord still binding us.
I earnestly hope this new found togetherness does not fizzle out after some dinners or get together meets and we continue with this friendship as we would have had the school not been over.
--Atul
Gray Matter & My Memory
I presume 45 years of my life would have taken some sharpness off my gray matter resulting in selective memory retention?
Why this sudden realization, you may ask ? Well, I came across my grade school classmate Sarita on Facebook, she remembered me & Seema; Seema (same school, now my wife) remembered her but I could not really place her!
Why? It beats me, I do have very fond memories of this excellent catholic missionary run school "Rosary School" me & Seema went to. I remember the teachers, Mr. Augustine, Mrs Mathew, Mrs Sunaina Ramson our Sanskrit teacher (who threw me out of her class record numbers of times), Mr. Singh (Singhada), Mrs Gangadharan & Mrs. Rita Kapoor our biology teacher, Mrs Lajja our Hindi teacher & above all our sports teacher Mr. Massey & his stories of presumed valour.
I remember the white robed principal's, the white sari clad, loving, catholic sisters (wore Sari's just like mother Teresa's), the vast school lawns, the eagles at lunch break, the canteen, the dog plate Dosa, the "Amarak ki chat", the gardener- Gainda Singh, the dwarf south Indian cook our principal's had. I remember the school picnics, the teacher's days, the school functions. Hell, I remember almost all of my school life !
If I remember so much how come I only remember just a handful of school mates, when I had all the above memories shared with them, day in & day out. I must remember their names! Faces, I remember but names always allude me, ALWAYS.
So is it my gray matter? May be my brain's hippocampus is hardwired to just remember faces & not names associated with them. Something, that's worth researching right?
My research (hey I just Google'd the subject like any sane person would) suggests that keeping ones gray matter sharp with their exercising will increase the grey cells that in turn help ones hippocampus flush with these new grey cells leading to a healthy long term memory.
Uncle Google suggested a lot of ways for gray matter exercising like this one - http://www.lumosity.com/ but I came across another rather good one - http://deathball.net/notpron/ that would really task your brain.
Back to my friend Sarita Chadha (Sarita Aneja in school) well I do remember you now & fun thing is I've just had my grey matter exercised - quod erat demonstrandum .
Stuck !
Coming back from family dinner and stuck, big time, in dense fog & traffic.
Atul
Thread in time
I visited Haridwar yesterday and once again came across a note written by my grandfather Shri Bishan Dass Mohan in his own handwriting. The note written in impeccable English is dated 4th January 1916 when he had visited Haridwar. He probably chose to write in English envisioning that future generations may not be comfortable with Urdu/Hindi.
Our ancestral records, going back 5 generations since early 1800's, have meticulously been preserved by our 'Mohan' family Purohit (priest) and open for any family member to explore and read. On previous occasions old Purohit's had been averse to these records being copied, their newer generation is more indulgent I guess, so took a photo of this note and am sharing it here with you all.
I've not had the honour of seeing my Grandfather as he had passed away long before partition in 1930's but have known him through my late Grandmother Smt. Shanti Devi.
This small note left by him in past is probably a thread in time that our past & future generations would be united with.
-atul
