Thank you Avi

Was flicking through a notebook and suddenly memories came rushing back of the last pages of Avi’s notebooks in grad school – pages full of reg numbers and signatures, for Avi to sign proxy for.

Class after class, when the signature sheet got to him, he’d crane his neck to see who all from his list were absent and sign for them. Sometimes taking 10s of minutes just checking absences and signing on their behalf. He rarely missed a class. And it was equally rare that he forgot to mark for those who missed.

There were times with 10% of class present, but only 10% marked absent. All thanks to Avi. Never cringing, never being haughty or overbearing, always with a smile, signing for whoever asked :)

Thank you Avi! From me, and probably also from a huge bunch in 41/11.

And thank you again, for bringing a smile on from the memory of those years together.

On train back out from Waterloo. Thames, Westminster, then Vauxhall outside my window. Grey blue skies.

Suddenly, I’m in a train south from Bandra. Mahim bay spread out besides. Grey blue sea. Faint smell of the sea, the fish, the Mithi crawls out of memory, through the nose, into the heart.

I miss you, Bombay.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Paul Sherwen actually pronounced the whole word on ITV’s Tour de France highlights package – as a suggestion to Tony Martin’s earlier comments of ‘Super Tired’ and ‘Super Happy’. Wonder how many shots that took? :)

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious – definition by Google

PS: Interesting that the word is way more popular today than it was when the movie, Mary Poppins, was originally released. Sign of the socially networked times?

Jardines – Amitava Ghosh & The Economist

Last night I started reading Amitava Ghosh’s latest novel in the Ibis trilogy – Flood of Fire. The novel, continuing from the previous one, has part of the storyline based in Canton in China during the Opium trading era.

Like many good novels, the storyline weaves in real life facts and characters. One of them being William Jardine, who first appeared in the 2nd novel the river of smoke, and is again present in the background (so far) in flood of fires:

Flood of Fire - William Jardine
Flood of Fire – William Jardine reference

 

Then, today I was catching up with the latest issue of The Economist, and came across this:

Economist article on Jardine Matheson investing in China
Economist article on Jardine Matheson investing in China

 

Interesting coincidence of timing.