… back inside a little hole in a Fir tree trunk…
Curled like a ball
I struggle
to stretch my neck out
adjusting my shrunk body…
Making it a point to get back in
every year…
to tell myself
you did all that…
…attending OCA luncheons in Delhi, London and Chandigarh..
Worshipped at Kali Bari..
The School Chapel…
The Monasterio de Santiago de Campostela…
Christchurch On the Ridge..,
Talai Mandir Criagnano, Mashobra..
Walking on the path…
On the Ridge…
On the Mall…
Through cobwebs of Gurugram..
Swimming in the Pool at Garden Estate..
Playing Golf at Karlstad..
Looking across London with another soul mate riding the London Eye..
.. slow walk at Notting Hill
.. and the SW train to Weybridge..
Dinner in Mayfair with John Hoare Esquire…
Reading “Walking with Nanak”
.. slow an easy in liquid sunshine in Düsseldorf..
and Schloss Benrath with Lady Pureness.
I sometimes stoop and fall
but stand up eventually ..
to teach wild village boys to respect their women in Lohvan Vrindavan..
and jazz across the catwalk at ITC Grand Bharat..
a kaleidoscope of colours.
Having dinner with
Simon David Weale Esquire..
..showing Class XII Cottonians the way …
And being half the force in India Viking..
Gosh… do I realise stuck in the hole in the trunk of that tall fir tree in a thick dark forest in Karlstad …that I am now 3 score and four… ?
that it’s Christmas Day !…
I stick my head out cautiously
… and see a Moose looking at me, confusedly… “ what is he doing in there ?” Yeah what am I doing in here right now…?
So after the hectic never ending gallop through 2019, I better look ahead …
With renewed strength…
With renewed hope…
Having sung Silent Night – Holy Night in Swedish at midnight mass last evening in Karlstad’s Cathedral …
I just flashed a message to my Class of 1970..
Fact: thirty four of us rascals times ten point five years time two hundred seventy days gives an answer of approximation …
Yes one hundred thousand times we heard the bugler ringing the bell on the First Flat for Chapel…
A hundred thousand times we entered our Beautiful Chapel and prayed from 1961 to 1970…
We came from all walks of life..
Our Moms and Dads sending us on the Howrah Kalka Frontier Mails to become some Scholars, some Bankers, others Lawyers and a few those Military men, some Sea Captains and some Mountaineers , some based in Washington, others in Minneapolis, Chicago and Kathmandu, Calcutta, Stockholm and Bombay, Delhi and others in Madras and Dubai. With our precious Metal Badge and our Four colours… we became what we became.. Good Men..
On this Christmas Day.. I called my Mother in Gurugram … I spoke to her ( as I whispered too to the soul of my departed Father)…. “ Mum Thank You for sending me to Bishop Cotton School… and maybe today I sometimes do get irritated and impatient with you and “seem” to think I know more and know better than you … and you agree ….
Mum …within my heart I disagree with myself …. You sit alone .. counting the days when I will come back to spend that precious hour having tea with you…. it was you and my Father who sacrificed so much to send me away .. so I could polish my own shoes and scrub my own back and become the boy that still stays within the man within me….
YOU GAVE ME ROOTS
BUT ALSO WINGS …
so I could keep my ship and crew safe and secure.. so that I could wing away to my closest and special ones… and walk the world being both of you and with the soul of Bishop Cotton…
YOU GAVE ME ROOTS
BUT ALSO WINGS
AND MADE ME THINK…
LIFE HAS BEEN GOOD..
THERE IS A PLACE UP IN THE MOUNTAINS..
THAT BELONGS TO ME…
THAT BELONGS TO MY BROTHERS..TO ALL OF US
THAT NO ONE CAN TAKE AWAY…
IT IS THERE FOR ME
FOR THEM
FOR US…..
Thinking of All Cottonians where ever we are… At Christmas 2019.
( from within the trunk of this conifer tree)…
Vivek Bhasin
Lefroy 1961-1970