The Great Equaliser….. and a jog down the oceans of memory-a Cottonian hits specific lines of his Blog-Bloggers and all.. Confused .com ( Truthful Lies)

Someone’s loss is the other one’s gain…Someone’s death is someone’s bread.

As Heady said, it doesn’t mean if you do not hurt the lion and smile at him, he will hug you…It means in this Big Mean Selfish World, that Lion will get to you and eat you…even if you shake hands with him.

..and the Great Mahatma said, an eye for an eye makes you both blind. Or gently you can shake the world.

Everyone is lighting his own demons-even at Yoga Class or on the banks of the Ganga….everything is a fad from those artificial nails that are filed down to perfection or procuring a fake ass to look like an Afro-Bro-Ho! And some tinkle they do a whole firkin week of work just lying in bed…and then preach as if….yes they earned their MBA sleeping..Horse manure I say old chap. Tally Ho and Pip-Pip.

The genre of Rock is one where I cannot kid myself when I tell you and myself that this stuff does really enter into my veins and Rocks my chickens…from Jethro Tull, to Deep Purple, to Van Halen, Rage against the Machine, Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry and the Guru’s of Rock….Plant and Page and Jones and Bonham.

..Hamilton Bermuda-the Lady Guard at the gate eating shark meat and inviting me in to coozy woozy, I said no…she said yes. After all at the Forty Thieves , Mike Jackon was singing ‘don’t stop till you get enuf’.

…or was it to the two Red Indian Pilots taking my vessel the ‘HIBISCUS’ up Rio Plata from Buenos Aires drinking mate….a local herb tea laced with strains of Cocoa..or was it Coc followed with a-i-n-e?

–that stow away from Cartagena Colombia trying his damnest to get back on my boat and smuggle out at Jacksonville; the guy was lean, muscular and mean. We needed 5 filipino sailors to pin that mother down and splice that bugger on the monkey island, manacle him and bring him back to the land of La Escollera…I requested him never to find me again, ever..find another Boat dude…leave me to do my boring stuff-like romancing flying fish.

…or that Pilot at Valencia who docked the ‘Lontue’ and discreetly passed me an envelope!! Mullah? Plata? Money? Shit three dollars to make a phone call..( those days we had no mobiles no..)

..or on that thick foggy night as we approached Ambrose Light and Sandy Hook Pilots on the ‘Copiapo’ ..I saw a loom…a bright bright loom coming down on my port bow…my Radar showed a blob- a huge bugger…and then the loom crystalised into sparks and shards and a thousand twinklers…it was Cunard’s ‘QE-2’ the world’s biggest at that time….sailing out of New York. As I exchanged pleasantries with the Master. The Rockefellers had chartered the Big Boat for a wedding and yes we passed so close I saw the lovely ladies in ballroom dresses and their amours in black tail coats gliding with ‘the River flows in you’ ( or in today’s world…’the one that got away’and yes again..Champagne ‘Gout de diamants’..Taste of Diamonds at American Three Thousand Dollars a Pop! I swear I could even get the whiff of Clive Christian’s Imperial Majesty the most expensive parfum in the world. This was luxury, opulence, sophisticated indulgence in the rarest. ( Yet as we continued after Red Hook Brooklyn and negotiated the bend of the East River you past Riker’s Island, one of the hardest core prisons for the naughty boys in America. ( I wondered what these poor souls were having for Dinner…..)

..and that Captain who knew I was from Bishop Cotton School always tried to tone me down and stop my shore leave at Port Louis Mauritius or Bombay or Calcutta where my parents lived ( all forgiven)… and the other…..Capt. Hosang Boatwall…A Gentleman and a Navigator, a Mentor…RESPECT Sir.

Or eating Amadillo Meat one evening at Adriana Montenegro’s pit stop at Miraflores Lima.

Driving with Juan Manuel Carvacho from Los Andes through the Cordillera towards Mendoza, part of the Ruto del Vino..( The Argentine Wine Route) with ice grapes being harvested in snow.

..Yes Nights in white satin, never meaning to end, letters are written , never meaning to send…( The Moody Blues)

Young and Old Cottonian,
Stay young
United
Maintain a fertile mind
Go into the world with honour
Help as many,
But laugh and rejoice
As the World is still beautiful
and where ever you may be…
You know,
I know,
Bishop Cotton School, is always there.
Our Rock.
For you.
For Me.

Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas and May the World be more Beautiful in 2016.

Vivek Bhasin
Lefroy 1961-1970