From Chapter I - A Vagrant in the LibraryPort of Spain mayor John
Rahel revealed that a vagrant was now living at the site of the proposed
Library Complex. Who could this vagrant be? In a manner of speaking, it was I!
It all started when I decide to seek my Nirvana by planning a six-month
visit to Rishikesh in India.
With flights booked, suitcases packed, one morning I received a call from a
building contractor asking me to meet him at the swimming pool of the Hilton
for a drink. I don’t think there is a person in this world that can claim I
declined an invitation for a drink and I was not about to break this clean
record now.
My host, to
tell the truth, looked as if he had some ulterior motive. But I had nothing to
lose. The tall man with Jamaican accent introduced himself as owner of a firm
that had put a bid for completing the Library building. When our gin and tonic
arrived he raised his glass and drank to ‘Your prosperity, Colonel’. He wanted
to show respect, out of kindness and out of modesty. He also wanted to name me
as his Project Engineer in his bid for the Library contract. With decades of
construction experience, my retired status, and some gin inside me I saw
no problem with that. He asked me to join him at the Republic Bank coming
Wednesday for a presentation to the Bank that he had to give to justify his
selection. The Bank, as the financing power for the project, had the task of
selecting a suitable contractor for the Library construction.
The
bank’s project manager interviewing us happened to be a guy whom I had known
well and with whom I had interacted – he himself was an official in the
Ministry of Finance then - when I was building Claude Noel Highway in Tobago in the eighties. He did not bother to ask too many
questions. And after the project presentation the contract was in the bag of my
man.
......
Back in Trinidad the view did not
look so magnificent when my pseudo employer did not give me a date to commence
work even though the Library contract had been awarded to him. Then it dawned
on me that the ulterior motive of this person was just to use me to bag the
construction contract. But it is more difficult to circumvent the theory of
karma. In due course of time it was discovered that he could not complete the
contract and was fired from the job. To compare him with Caliph Omar who burnt
the ancient library of Alexandria
would be a great exaggeration. He only managed to delay the construction of the
national library of Trinidad
and Tobago by three years. And when I did visit the Library construction
site one morning out of curiosity, an informed news reporter might well have
spotted a ‘vagrant’ in me.
Now it dawned
upon me that perhaps it was not yet time for me to seek Nirvana. Nor
perhaps was I meant to continue in the humdrum of the construction world.
Thereupon, I decided to buy a computer in order to write a partially
fictionalise account of my life experiences to get rid of my past while still burning
and raving. After that I would be ready for floating in nothingness.
From Chapter II - Seven Years of Great Expectations
Suddenly one morning in April 1991 I was served with a Court order
notifying me that I had been appointed Arbitrator in a dispute between a
Contractor and the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago that had risen
on a road construction project. I was buoyed up by two sincere feelings: my integrity and my
impartiality. The feeling of the law, the satisfaction of being right, the joy
of self-esteem were powerful incentives for me to bring the arbitration to an
early end. In fact, since I knew engineers of both the parties personally, I
hoped that the matter would be resolved at the first meeting. Quite taken aback
I was when at that meeting instead of engineers I saw Attorneys representing both
sides. Any hopes of an early settlement evaporated when both sides heaped scorn
at each other and my idea of their meeting to negotiate agreement on the claim
of the contractor. Apparently I was the only one willing to talk myself out of
remuneration from the proceedings – the other two were not.
....
The unpleasant
exchanges between the antagonists ceased only when Russell Martineau, a former
Attorney General, appeared for the claimant and Sonny Maharaj, a former Judge,
appeared for the defendant and brought some sanity to the proceedings and I
could raise a level higher than the bickering of the attorneys to which the
arbitration had been reduced. Even in daily life I need to feel above just
as I prefer terraces to closed-in places and passes to valleys in mountains.
From Chapter IV - A Track with a view of Annapurna South and Machhapuchhre
And
when I did get up for the dinner I found such wonderful company in two young
men from Yorkshire and a Sinhalese girl from Sweden that the conversation went
on for almost three hours on war, nations, materialism, yoga and parents!
Apparently wars were unnecessary – There is no room for any nation to consider it
higher than others – ultimately it is spirituality and philosophy that count.
It is not worthwhile to live a life of materialism; a yogi’s life is much more
satisfying. Parents' advice should be listened to but not necessarily acted
upon.
Wow!
Where were these guys all these years? I felt like a cheat claiming a second
youth doing and conversing things with these boys and girls younger than my own
children.
Amid dense mist we set out to the quaint
villages Deorali, Banthani and Tadapani along the Eastern ridge of the Poon
Hill. But it was on waking up this morning that I directed my gaze on the
greatest view of my life – it was snow-covered Annapurna South looming together
with Annapurna 1 and Machhapuchhre. These
peaks were clearly visible in all their splendour for half-an-hour before the
mist and clouds shrouded them all. But for that half-an-hour I almost glimpsed
God. Immediately I rushed to the balcony sketched the fantastic scene with
still-need-more-practice (as my grandson Kiran once said) talent.
From Chapter V - Destination KailashIt was nice to
be in Tibet
with a proper visa. Last time I set my feet on Tibet
was in 1957 when I crossed Niti
Pass in upper Garhwal for
a reconnaissance of not too friendly a purpose for which the Chinese would have
hardly issued a visa. But the toilet at the Hotel was so unsanitary that I
would have again preferred to come without visa and use open-air facilities as
in 1957. The altitude at Zhangmu is 2300 meters and the town is laid out on
hill slopes and has just one road – and that too was so congested that our
jeeps took one and a half hours to get out of the town.
But coming out
of Zhangmu did not mean a happy ride. With its gradient increasing perpetually
as the road winded over itself, it comprised a continuous group of pothole
clusters. The drudgery ended soon when waterfalls seemingly spaced every 100
yards appeared on the thickly forested hills that surrounded our road.
By
the time we reached Nyalam – known as the ‘Valley of Happiness’
- we had gone past the Himalayan range and were well into Tibetan mountains.
Beyond Nyalam at a pass near Xixabangma range we stopped for lunch. The height
here was 15,500 feet and the view of mountains was stunning. From then on it
was a drive on the flat plateau of Tibet surrounded by magnificent snow-capped
mountains. When we bivouacked for the night at least four people of the party
were down with high altitude sickness and instead of eating, just vomited. But
my training and rehearsal paid off – I was the oldest person in the group but
so far least disturbed by fatigue and sickness.
From Chapter VI - The Sacred Mountain
. I picked a least dangerous looking site where I
could leapfrog over rocks to reach the far bank and was on the verge of landing
on the bank when my last step slipped from the rank and landed in 2 feet of
freezing water. As I came out and looked at my right I was stunned at the
dramatic and imposing sight of the Kailash which looked so near and so
gigantesque and it was a beatific revelation that thoroughly made up for all
the day's weariness and my soaked left foot. For a moment my soul took leave of
my body and just got absorbed in the apex of the sacred Kailash. At that moment
of ecstasy I refrained from taking even a photograph of the greatest sight of
my life. There was no time nor life nor death. Somebody has written that
Kailash is like a big phallus and it indeed looked as the Kailash had made a
big thrust in a valley that was surrounded by small hillocks. Not wanting to
get frostbitten I rushed to my tent to take my boots off and put on fresh socks
before slipping into my sleeping bag. With the heavenly image of Kailash
hovering in my mind I fell into a dreamless sleep and lost even my
consciousness.
From Chapter VII - Turn of the MilleniumAs I grow older
I see myself fortunate in many ways. I was fortunate to have had this passion
for reading and enjoying philosophy, history and fiction. This passion has
given me much joy, it has given me wife, children and grandchildren who care
for the same things, and it has given me escape from boredom and useful
employment after my retirement. This passion for reading has been a great gift.
It has been cheap, consoling, distracting, exciting and a bestowal of the
knowledge of the world.
As the year
2000 came to close some said that the new millennium actually begins with the
year 2001 – the year 2000 was merely closing year of the first millennium. For
me there was no better way of beginning the millennium than to escort my wife
and two grandchildren – Priya and Kiran to Paris. To make full use of the expense in
traveling that far we would also visit Scotland
and Brighton.
From Chapter VIII - A Castle, A Palace and Scottish Tranquility
No
sooner had we got out of Edinburgh
on A90 we found ourselves on a long bridge over Firth of Forth with
breath-taking views on either side of the bridge. This bridge would have been
reason enough for us to venture out of Edinburgh.
Soon we were on the Great North
Road that took us to Perth
and the car was on A9 that gradually climbed on the highlands till we passed
Pitlochry and Aviemore and reached the town of Inverness. The drive on A82 along the Inverness River up to Drumnadrochit with trees
forming arches over us was a heavenly drive that paradoxically landed us at a
place where we were supposed to see a monster – the Loch Ness Monster.
Just
after checking in at Drumnadrochit Hotel we drove two miles to see the
magnificently situated Urquhart
Castle, on the banks of
Loch Ness that was an impressive stronghold despite its ruinous state. Once one
of Scotland’s largest castles,
Urquhart’s remains include a tower house that commands splendid views of the
famous Loch and Great Glen. What makes Urquhart Castle the definitive romantic ruin is
the possibility that the 600-foot deep waters surrounding it on three sides may
suddenly ripple, and then part, as something completely unknown to science
emerges to confound a skeptical world – the fabled Lochness Monster, Nessie.
Nessie may or may not exist. But the possibility that she does provided a
powerful draw to me to take Priya and Kiran to the area. And we had a good look
at this beautiful loch. Quite amused we all were when we observed that another
touring couple was chiding their children for not being as affectionate
siblings as were Priya and Kiran. Of course, we were taken to be the parents of
Priya and Kiran!
From Chapter IX - Seven Days in Paris
Preceded by a Gallo-Roman temple
to Jupiter, a Christian basilica, and a Romanesque church, construction of
Notre-Dame de Paris began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII. Pope Alexander
III laid the foundation stone. The idea to replace the Romanesque church
occupying the site - the Cathedral of St. Etienne (founded by Childebert in
528) - was that of Bishop Maurice de Sully (who died in 1196). (Some accounts
claim that there were two churches existing on the site, one to the Virgin
Mary, the other to St. Stephen.) Construction was completed roughly 200 years
later in about 1345. It was here that after the anointing by Pius VII on 2
December 1804, Napoleon seized the crown from the pontiff and crowned first
himself, then Josephine.
While Amma, Priya and I were
indulging in some photography on the lawns of Notre Dame Kiran suddenly
disappeared from our eyes. Three of us immediately lost our speech (it could
not have done much in any case among that French speaking crowd) and wandered
hither and thither looking for Kiran. And all of a sudden what we see but Kiran
getting from a garden bench rubbing his eyes – apparently he had decided to
take a quick siesta. We held each other’s hands, entered the Cathedral and
admired the beautiful statues and paintings. Then we took a taxi from the
Gothic masterpiece to go to the next attraction – Les Invalides. It consisted
of a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement, containing museums and
monuments, all relating to France's
military history, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans,
the building's original purpose.
King Louis XIV initiated the project in 1670 as a home and hospital
for aged and unwell soldiers: the name is a shortened form of hospital des
invalides, the hospital for invalids
...
We were a bit early for lunch and
I was a bit underdressed for entering the dining room of the Ritz. We occupied
the time by having a drink at the Hemmingway bar – the author used to patronise
it and hence it has been named after him – admiring the display of jewellery
that was on sale and loitering in the courtyard from where Princess Diana had
entered the Ritz on the night of her fatal accident. When at last the doors of
the Dining Room were opened, the Steward loaned me a jacket and a tie so that I
could be properly attired for the hallowed room. On an adjacent table was
sitting an aging actress (Gina Lollobrigida?) and some other people who were
overwhelming themselves with their own importance. But four of us enjoyed the
service when two waiters would come to each of us by turn: one placing the
ordered dish with its heat preserved by a silver plated cover and the other
would use a large napkin to remove the hot cover and then look at us in a
triumphant manner for revealing to us a great treasure. When I enquired the
tariff for us to spend a night at the Hotel the price quoted was 19,088.35
French Franks; I passed the offer.
.
From Chapter X - An Indian Pavillion in Brighton
But Tony Buzan,
lecturer and author of several best-selling books about the mind, was teaching
that by being spiritually intelligent you can appreciate all the little pleasures
in this very world and make this very life worthwhile. In his new book, The Power of Spiritual Intelligence, he
enumerated five specific exercises to develop the intelligence.
1. Nurture
yourself. ‘If you are going to help others and achieve what you want, you have
to be as strong and healthy as possible.’
2. The bigger
picture. Remain aware of the magnificence of every living thing and the vast
and gigantic beauty of the universe.
3. Find your
purpose. Think about or plan the future with imagination and wisdom is
essential.
4. Laugh. See or
speak to the friends who make you laugh at least once a week and be constantly on
the look-out for new, fun friends – people who can help increase your feeling
of well-being.
5.
Seek peace. Practice meditation.
To seek peace on the last evening of
our stay at London, Priya, Kiran and I walked to
the nearby Kensington
Gardens while Amma rested
at home. The Gardens with their magnificent trees were the setting for Kensington Palace,
William III and Mary II’s London
home. They cover 275 acres and were originally part of Hyde
Park. The peace of Italian
Gardens within this park was in sharp
contrast to the openness and activity of Hyde Park
a short walk away. We promenaded near the lake and while I lay down on a bench
to gaze at the sky and the trees, Priya and Kiran quietly pooled their money
and bought ice-cream for three of us. And that cup of ice-cream, filled with
pure love of my grandchildren, will ever remain the best ice-cream I ever had
in my life.
From Chapter XI - Facing Disasters
Use of actual
spacecraft for reducing cosmic disasters was a point to ponder when in early
2002, Clifford Murray, President of the Association of Professional Engineers
of Trinidad and Tobago asked me to deliver feature address to the Engineers’ ‘Annual
Convention on Disaster Prevention’ at the University of West Indies. What
follows are the extracts from my address at the convention.
Nineteen Nineties were United Nation’s International Decade for
Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) the main objective of which was to mitigate
the effects of natural disasters in each country. But at the end of the decade
if one took stock of the achievements, it would sound like the confession of a
Benedictine Abbot in the days of Roman Empire:
‘My vow of poverty has given me 100,000 crowns a year; my vow of obedience has
raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince’. I forget the consequences of his
vow of chastity.
Major losses in lives and property were inflicted by earthquakes
alone during the IDNDR in Kobe, Japan; Los Angeles,
USA; and Cairo,
Egypt too in addition to the
one in Turkey.
One would have been forgiven for dreaming some Engineer begging a Nobel Prize
for disaster mitigation during the Decade for Disaster Reduction. Instead,
three scientists won the prize in 1995 who warned of more catastrophes to come.
Paul Crutzen from the Netherlands
together with Mario Malina and Sherwood Rowland from the United States sounded alarms about
the depletion of Earth’s ozone layer and were honoured by a Nobel Prize.
The
International Decade of Disaster Reduction may have come and gone in the last
century without greatly improving our natural disaster reduction technologies.
Yet there is hope that the consequence of the Benedictine Abbot’s vow of
chastity may yet not be promiscuity. This Conference, so timely conceived by
President Clifford Murray, can provide a launching pad to improve and
accelerate technology transfer to communities in the Country for natural
disaster reduction in the coming years. I can do no better than conclude this
talk by asking you, fellow engineers, in the words of fiction writer AL Barker,
‘Bring me tomorrow that I am thinking of at this moment’.
From Chapter XII - North by Mitsubishi Pinin and SAS
The drive to Carlisle in our Mitsubishi Pinin was interesting. The traffic
on the so-called Highways A40, A41, M1 was slow moving. But just when the
traffic eased for me to drive faster on M6 it began raining. For some reason,
even though the visibility had been limited, I enjoyed driving. By the time we
reached Old Brewery residences at Carlisle campus of the University of Northumbria,
we were quite fatigued. We had a whole floor to ourselves. The bedroom had the
view of the Carlisle
Castle and the kitchen
was even bigger than the bedroom. Immediately after unloading our stuff in the
room we sought lunch in a nearly ‘Indian’ restaurant. Though it was almost 4
p.m. the restaurant was full. When I asked the Manager how long we might have
to wait for a table, the Bangladeshi arrogantly told us if we couldn’t wait for
an indefinite time we might go elsewhere. ‘Thank you very much’, I said and
took Anika and Amma for a fish and chips meal.
I
personally did not wish to miss visiting ‘Dove Cottage’ of the poet Wordsworth
whose poetry ‘Daffodils’ I had memorized at my school in Aligarh when I was 12. And one morning we
drove to Dove Cottage at Grasmere which has
been managed by a Trust since 1891 and maintained ‘for eternal possessions of
all those who loved English poetry all over the world’. We experienced the
tranquility of this site of outstanding beauty in the heart of the Lake District. As well as Dove cottage – home of
Wordsworth when he wrote his greatest poetry — the nearby Wordsworth Museum
tells the fascinating story of the poet, his circle and their life.
From Chapter XIII - Ten Days at Bergen and Oslo
Prior to
proceeding to Holmenkollen next day to see the famous ski resort of Norway I got up
early to walk to the Rimi where we found the best yoghurt in the world. But
before I could step out Anika was up and putting on her clothes and shoes to
come with me. And when I enquired why, she replied in a matter-of-fact manner,
‘because you will miss me’! Later Metro Number 1 deposited us at Holmenkollen
station from where we walked up to the ski resort. At the the ski-museum Amma
sat at a bench while Anika and I climbed up the steps of the ski jump. The city
sights from the top were stunning as they were from the restaurant balcony
where we stopped for refreshments. On return we just promenaded on Karl Johan
till we reached the Royal
Palace, where we strolled
through its lush, green, parkland grounds.
.....
We could not
leave the city of the Nobel Peace Prize without visiting the Nobel Institute.
But the Institute was not open to public. Even so, I rang up the Administrator
of the Institute and told her that I had brought my granddaughter all the way
to Oslo from Trinidad
and wanted to show the Nobel Institute to her as part of her education. She
readily agreed to spare an hour and show us around the Institute herself. Anika
actually sat in the chair of the Chairman of the Nobel Committee that selects
the Peace Prize winners. I humorously remarked that had Anika been occupying
that chair sixty years earlier perhaps Gandhi would have got the Nobel Peace
Prize. At this the Administrator was really embarrassed and confessed that not
awarding the prize to Gandhi was the greatest blunder of the Nobel Committee.
But it was done because of enormous British pressure at that time for Gandhi
had been infamously called ‘half-naked fakir’ by the wartime British Prime
Minister, Winston Churchill.
From Chapter XIV - Bombay Dreams
Amma insisted on going to
Southall first to collect some clothes that she had given there for sewing. It
was again a great race against time to rush to Southall and then return to Victoria by taxis and
trains to reach the theatre just in time for the show. As expected a Negro guy
sold us three tickets for forty Pounds each. At the play people in the front
and on our sides kept raising their eyebrows at Anika’s asking me questions
about the play rather loudly. As if that was not enough Ira rang me up at my
mobile phone from India
and I had to talk to her for a minute before she would let me switch off. More
derogatory murmurs followed.
To escape any chastisement
I rushed to the bar as soon as it was interval. But that did not take me off
the hook. On my return a girl from the Management was waiting for me to relate
to me that more than a couple of people had complained that Anika and I were
disturbing their enjoyment of the play. I apologised to her, gave dirty looks
to my neighbours and settled down to this unusual musical – Anika took the hint
and kept quiet for the remainder of the play. Webber was on record saying that
this show will change the face of musical theatre in the UK, and he was right! This play
encapsulates the essence of Bollywood, from the first sweeping strings to the
breath taking dance numbers. I was never a great fan of Indian music, but this
musical certainly made me change my mind. A R Rahman's ground breaking music
fuses ethnic Indian with western beats. The songs were simply stunning and
lyrical (The best being Like An Eagle, and Chhaiyya Chhaiyya), and the show
transported us to a world of fantasy. The production was so colourful that this
(Bombay Dream) was one dream we wanted to have.
From Chapter XV - The Acropolis of Athens
To end an
exciting day we visited – much to the chagrin of Amma – the temple of Zeus
to ‘offer our worship’. It stands on a low elevation in the ground to the
southeast of the Acropolis. The antiquity of the sanctuary is attested both by
archaeological evidence and ancient sources. In 515 BC endeavours were made to
replace the original temple with a much larger one. The construction went on
and off till it came to halt in 163 BC. During his stay in Athens Emperor
Hadrian decided to complete the temple and it was inaugurated in 131 AD. The
temple was one of the largest in the ancient world, and stood in a large space
measuring 250 by 130 metres. Of the 104 columns, which were 17.25m high, and
1.7 in diameter, only 16 are now preserved. The cella housed statues of Zeus
and Hadrian. But the bright sun on the grounds now drove us back to the comfort
of our apartment. The taxi driver was new and therefore very friendly. He had
just taken over the taxi from his father and wanted to show him how good he was
at his work. He offered to drive us next day to Delphi
to view the famous Apollo temple there – for a reasonable fare.
Next morning
our young driver was with us on the highway E94. When he kept on this coastal
road instead of turning into E962 further inland I suggested to him that he was
on the wrong road. Had Delphi been on this
coastal road Agamemnon would have simply come on his ship to sacrifice his
daughter Iphigenia for a breeze to Apollo rather then take a long land route, I
suggested. That cut no ice with the Greek who only realised his error when a
road sign revealed that we were headed for Corinth. The intern spoke in Greek with his
father and enquired from me how I would like to be compensated for the
inconvenience. And absolutely delighted he was when I told him that ancient Corinth is what we would visit today at his standard fare
and reschedule Delphi for the next day.
