Recent Travel Rewards - Meeting Friends and Heroes

I love my travelling. 

Over the years I have realised that while I may have enjoyed visiting new places, it's people and retaining connections with them that has meant a lot more to me. The joy of connection is 'aboundless'.

Meeting up with friends since our kindergarten days, brings about an intense satisfaction that I am unable to describe. Thus an affiliation with the Internet and social media has been evident. The world wide web has largely contributed towards reconnecting me with friends from an era that would have mocked the very thought of the advances that communication has made. 

What brings me to write about it now? 

I've just had another of those amazing 'connecting' trips while travelling from Banjul to Dubai and Chennai. Caught up with good friends in Mumbai and then in Dubai too. 

Yesterday, however, in Chennai was the icing on the cake! Having been invited for Lunch by Bharat and Bhakti, friends from The Gambia in 2001, was both thrilled and honoured to find myself as a co-guest with Shashi Tharoor and Vijay Amritraj. Both need no introductions.

I was first introduced to Shashi Tharoor by my father in 1992. When I say introduced, I'd have loved to have met him then, but it was one of his books that my Dad, an avid reader and professor of english, presented to me as I flew off to Africa. 'The Great Indian Novel', a hilarious satire, intertwining wit and humour into a narrative of the Mahabharata had me ( and my Dad) in stitches on several ocassions as we read passages together. I instantly became a Shashi Tharoor fan. I had been a book fan for years, devouring Enid Blytons, James Hadley Chases, Sidney Sheldons and Wilbur Smiths as I grew up. Sudden and Perry Masons wove westerns and court dramas with equal aplomb, into my imaginative pastimes. I met Paul Theroux and his son Marcel in Chennai, and my interest in his witty and often sarcastic travelogues garnished my reading apetite. I already was an avid fan of humour. Mad magazine had for long whetted a wildly humourous bent in me. Honed by Goscinny & Uderzos Asterix & Obelix, the adventures of TinTin and Snowy, the 'forever-thirsty-for-alcohol' Capt Haddock, and the fumbling twin detectives Thomson and Thompson, I imagine, characterised my literary interest as I grew up. The introduction to Shashi Tharoor in 1992 was in a way an awakening that Indians could write with flavour and aplomb too. A brief flirtation with Chetan Bhagat began with his Five Point Someone which was later filmed as "3 Idiots" and I recall a controversial debate followed. However, my interest in Chetan dwindled when I heard Chetan speak on television. I however found that character and language from his writing eloquence, magically disappeared the moment he spoke. I haven't been able to since convince myself that Chetan, the author, is the same Chetan, the orator or speaker. And this once again was when my admiration for Shashi Tharoor went up a few notches. I do remember continuing to pick books at random trying out newer authors and I must mention here that my most recent 'wide-eyed literary crush' has been for an extremely talented Roopa Pai, whose "Gita for Children" blew me away with her fluency and use of easy writing skills. I picked up this book purely by chance, for a friend recuperating in a Hyderabad Hospital. Her writing skills and wordplay with simple understandable language, reminded me immediately of a Shashi Tharoorish tact of flirtatiously inviting the reader to read the next sentence. The writers skills make you want to get to the last page without letting the book down. I have since made it a practice to acquire a number of copies of my favourite books and offer them as prizes or gifts to the kids of friends - and have found this practice far more redeeming than gifting anything else. 

My 'forever-interest' in Tharoors writing received a reward in 2006 when the African Union Summit Conference was being hosted by The Gambia. I, as Honorary Consul General of India was asked to make arrangements for a high powered team from India, who were backing a candidature for the Secretary Generalship of the UN. No guesses as to who that candidate was,  Shashi Tharoor himself, He had been invited to present his case to the AU Head of States Summit, along with the other candidates. Shashi Tharoor was an Under Secretary General with the UN. 

For three days, I enjoyed hosting Shashi Tharoor and the rest of our delegation. On the last day of his stay in The Gambia, just before he left, I learnt that my ailing father had passed away in India. I and my daughter flew off to India. It was ironical that the author Dad got me to read when I left india in 1992, was with me in The Gambia when Dad passed away in 2006.

Shashi, in my opinion, had easily won the AU vote with powerful multilingual speeches presented to the Heads of State.  I vividly remember him receiving a standing ovation for his presentation, while Ban Ki Moon made a very ordinary, limp, virtually read out presentation. The US probably vetoed their choice in exchange for proximity to North Korea. We can see where that has led us to in another blog here on US and its state of politics. I have no doubt that the world would have genuinely been a far more safer place with someone like him at the helm. His oratory prowess was something that I had just seen first hand for the first time. Unlike Chetan, I could easily connect Shashi the author and Shashi the orator as being the same person.

I had by then several of his books and before leaving The Gambia, had a personal autograph on my copy of "India - Midnight to the Millennium" which I treasure till today. A few months or a year later, Shashi Tharoor left the UN and joined the world of Indian Politics. He joined the Congress party. And then to my absolute delight, he was appointed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs with direct charge of Africa. Just imagine my joy when our Foreign Minister invited all Honorary Consuls to meet in Delhi on the sidelines of the CII India Africa Conclave. I was over the moon.

Thereafter, there were occasional tweets and exchanges between Shashi Tharoor and  me. I got into blogging, convinced that even if anyone didn't read your writings, it helped you lay your thoughts out and your could revisit your thoughts anytime. I took to tweeting too, as did many politicians following the example set by Shashi.

Twitter Responses

Tweeting, unfortunately, and I add, an inability to understand his language and decipher his sense of humour within simple phrases brought about his tenure as Foreign Minister to a premature and unfortunate end. The very eloquence that made him a success in the literary world, became a thorn in his political world. I remember having arguments with friends politically aligned with the new powers in town tried to comment on how Tharoor wasn't someone with India at heart. He was a UN product and an elitist, they insisted. The comments were quite shocking for me, who having read Tharoors books long before he became a politician, knew more about India and its history. India, Midnight to the Millennium is enough proof of his love for India, Kerala and Cricket. I was very easily able to counter the argument that he was involved in cricket as a opportunist - Ever since I have known and followed him, he was and is a cricket buff and lover. I remember hosting him in Banjul at a reception for the Indian Community and while the large crowd was eager to speak to him and have photographs taken, he was more eager to check the score of an India cricket match that was playing live. The unfortunate and sordid aftermath of his wifes passing away, no doubt under a cloud, was already faulty in my opinion when many ignoramuses questioned his love for cricket and the country as possible evidence of guilt. I advise his critics, do read his writings, written long before he became a politician, before you try and analyse his personal life. 

with Vijay Amritraj

And here I was , In Chennai, speaking to dear friend Bharat Joshi, the very popular, effective and significant Deputy High Commissioner of the UK in Chennai, when he invited me for a lunch, with Shashi and Vijay. I still cant wipe that grin off my face and remain every thankful to Bharat for this meeting. Not only did we have a close chat with my literary idol, Shashi Tharoor, but I did get to meet a childhood sports hero and champion, The A of the ABC of Tennis from the 1970s. Easily the most sporting of sports persons that I have known, a thorough gentleman and a celebrity in today's world. Vijay Amritraj meets world leaders and presents a view of his encounters with them - from hours spent with Narendra Modi, to his proximity to the Bush family, and a long meeting with Donald Trump, his accounts on these memorable encounters could have taken hours if not days. And once again, a many years ago meeting, as a child in NDA, Khadakwasla, I recalled, standing in line to have an autograph from Vijay when he and his brother Anand played an exhibition match, way back in the 70s. Meeting him 40 years later on a one-to-one basis, this was an over-the-top, extraordinary afternoon for me.

The Delicious Veg Gujarati Thali

Alas as all good things having to find an end, Shashi had to attend three more events before his departure back to Delhi. Vijay too had to fly out, back to the US. All this in the amazing setting of Cottingley House, a UNESCO property that houses the High Commissioners residence in Chennai We had one of the most delicious vegetarian Gujarati meals, we all agree, we have ever had. Bhakti and Bharat inform us that Cottingley House is 100% vegetarian. Bharat is British of Indian descent and is probably one of the youngest British Ambassadors. Certainly the most dynamic ones I have met. He and the family are complete vegetarians. Thus irrespective of who the guest is, the food is always vegetarian. And this discussion on a British of Indian descent representing the Queen in India, led us to discus Tharoors latest book and the issues that it, "An Inglorious Empire" (Or "An Era of Darkness" as it is titled in other markets, covers. The book is a detailed argument by Tharoor on the attrocities committed by the British Empire, and the reluctance of the UK to ever acknowledge or teach colonial history to its citizens,  are discussed in an atmosphere of absolute amicability. The mood is refreshingly humorous as we depart. A British Flag car is dropping Shashi to his next appointment.

I still cannot just wipe the grin off my face. What a weekend.