Hi Bokachodas
It has been a LONG LONG time since my last update.
In this last one year, so much has happened.
One of the original Khankis, Dusty Balls (Paul D'Gama), sadly passed away.
Paul was a friend for over 35 years, and I can still remember him playing "Lattoo" in the small school field. I can picture him rolling in the mud on the same field after a particularly heavy drenching, at 4.30 pm. my dad who had come to pick me up was shocked.
You might find this strange, but I can never picture Paul as a man with ample proportions, he will always remain that young boy rolling in the mud to me.
I have now spent a little over 2 years in Oz and am about to become a citizen.
Keenan is now in Grade 6 and has forgotten all his Hindi. Dylan just started Kindy this year. Charmaine is now very close to getting her driving license, and get freedom from dependence on another driver(me).
South Australia is a strange place for a person coming from the chaos of India.
SA is larger than France but the entire population of SA will easily fit into a suburb or two of Mumbai. There are less than 1.75 million South Aussies of which, more than half live in Adelaide.
One of the most interesting headlines in the papers was the one in which the Premier, Mike Rann proudly announced that our population was increasing in leaps and bounds and that at the present rate we would have 2 million South Aussies by 2050!!!
SA is one of the only places in the world where the most popular beverage is NOT a cola..... it is a milk based drink.
SA is the dryest state in the dryest continent, and water is always in short supply i.e. in an Aussie way. We cannot use hoses to wash our cars,( but can go to carwashes and use high pressure hoses as long as we like) and are forbidden from using sprinklers to water our gardens. People keep grumbling here about that. They haven't seen the queues for water at a tubewell or corporation tap.
Adelaide is city that jealously guards its uniqueness. It prefers NOT to be a 24 hour city believing that everyone has a right to be with his or her family instead of working away.
It is beautiful city, far more picturesque than Melbourne, but much smaller. Though Melbourne has a vibrant and modern CBD, I find the suburbs are dull and drab compared to the colourful, pretty houses in Adelaide.
Being a small city, people still greet each other on the road.
I hope I find the time to uipload some of the many photographs taken in the last one year.
I hope with your help we can revive this blog. After all this time, we should not let it die away.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Friday, January 09, 2009
Farewell Dustyballs
Hello fellow Khankis ,
For those of you who have not read my eulogy for Paul , here is a copy . I have intentionally posted this here as this blog owes its initial success to Paul . With his consistant posts and constant reminders to us to get our collective asses on this blog , he was instrumental in keeping this "SVP Clinic" alive for awhile . Of course , time and our other commitments have eroded our initial excitement of "shooting the breeze" with each other or maybe once the novelty of our getting connected and finding out where each one was at has faded , we've lost interest.
My last entry in this blog where I mentioned on leaving Cal that I was really sad I may not see my buddies again has left a cold stony feeling in the pit of my stomach ....
Nevertheless , Paul D'Gama will forever remain in our hearts as Dustyballs . So here goes ....
When I left Calcutta for the last time earlier this year , having taken my parents with me back to New Zealand permanently , I wrote a note in our blog that this was the last time I would be coming to Calcutta as there was now no real reason to come anymore. Paul’s reply to that was I was not to be so sure as I would have to come for his funeral at least, even though there was nothing he could do about it if I didn’t come .
Its eight months later and his casual flippant remark is now resounding in my ear like the sound of a gong . And that would somehow summarise Paul for you . A sense of humour that could sometimes cross the line into morbidity without a care for superstitions or omens . Just to give you another example , a couple of weeks ago he was telling me about a friend wanting to enroll him in some group . Knowing that he didn’t have long to live he wryly informed that friend to sign him up as a life member !
Paul didn’t have time for displaying the common people’s idea of normal acceptable behaviour although deep inside he was very much a normal person like you and me. He loved his family and worked very hard , some would say too hard , to support them. If you knew Paul and he gave you the time of day , you could consider yourself lucky as you would then be up there in his books as someone that fitted with his idea of an intelligent human being. And he was extremely intelligent, very very talented and generous to a fault , to those he truly cared for . An example of his generous spirit is him and Brian traveling 36 hours by train to come over to Bombay for my wedding . They stayed just for the ceremony and reception and pushed off back to Cal the next day, hardly spending even 8 hours in Bombay .
It was the best gift I could receive , having two of my best friends celebrating my marriage with me . Not a care or concern for the cost involved and the time spent travelling . Another example is when I once casually remarked to him that I missed my Elvis Presley concert in Madison Square Garden as it was stolen some years ago. About a week later I find in my mail , a copy of the album with a very creative cover done by Paul himself .
However the Paul I knew is the Paul of my childhood . The walks home from school , the pranks on the way , the music we listened to and played together – him on the piano and me banging away a rhythm on any wooden object I could find till I got my first drumkit and then he would come over home and we would create quite a racket . Then our various gigs as part of a band both in school and college where we won a couple of contests and then later professionally – earning ourselves some pocket money. Paul’s sense of music and technique were par excellence and according to me was in the realm of unrecognized genius.
But the one characteristic that will forever remain with us is his penchant for relating a good story . Paul could keep you enraptured and in splits for hours with his creatively embellished anecdotes . His memory and sense of detail of events that happened years ago was remarkable .
Paul lived his life as he deemed fit and it is only fitting to tribute to him the lyrics of that great song by Paul Anka :
I’ve loved , I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my wins , my share of losing
And now , as tears subside
I find it all so amusing
To think , I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh no , no not me
I did it my way.
I will miss you , Paul and am sorry I couldn’t attend your funeral . Rest in peace , my friend !
For those of you who have not read my eulogy for Paul , here is a copy . I have intentionally posted this here as this blog owes its initial success to Paul . With his consistant posts and constant reminders to us to get our collective asses on this blog , he was instrumental in keeping this "SVP Clinic" alive for awhile . Of course , time and our other commitments have eroded our initial excitement of "shooting the breeze" with each other or maybe once the novelty of our getting connected and finding out where each one was at has faded , we've lost interest.
My last entry in this blog where I mentioned on leaving Cal that I was really sad I may not see my buddies again has left a cold stony feeling in the pit of my stomach ....
Nevertheless , Paul D'Gama will forever remain in our hearts as Dustyballs . So here goes ....
When I left Calcutta for the last time earlier this year , having taken my parents with me back to New Zealand permanently , I wrote a note in our blog that this was the last time I would be coming to Calcutta as there was now no real reason to come anymore. Paul’s reply to that was I was not to be so sure as I would have to come for his funeral at least, even though there was nothing he could do about it if I didn’t come .
Its eight months later and his casual flippant remark is now resounding in my ear like the sound of a gong . And that would somehow summarise Paul for you . A sense of humour that could sometimes cross the line into morbidity without a care for superstitions or omens . Just to give you another example , a couple of weeks ago he was telling me about a friend wanting to enroll him in some group . Knowing that he didn’t have long to live he wryly informed that friend to sign him up as a life member !
Paul didn’t have time for displaying the common people’s idea of normal acceptable behaviour although deep inside he was very much a normal person like you and me. He loved his family and worked very hard , some would say too hard , to support them. If you knew Paul and he gave you the time of day , you could consider yourself lucky as you would then be up there in his books as someone that fitted with his idea of an intelligent human being. And he was extremely intelligent, very very talented and generous to a fault , to those he truly cared for . An example of his generous spirit is him and Brian traveling 36 hours by train to come over to Bombay for my wedding . They stayed just for the ceremony and reception and pushed off back to Cal the next day, hardly spending even 8 hours in Bombay .
It was the best gift I could receive , having two of my best friends celebrating my marriage with me . Not a care or concern for the cost involved and the time spent travelling . Another example is when I once casually remarked to him that I missed my Elvis Presley concert in Madison Square Garden as it was stolen some years ago. About a week later I find in my mail , a copy of the album with a very creative cover done by Paul himself .
However the Paul I knew is the Paul of my childhood . The walks home from school , the pranks on the way , the music we listened to and played together – him on the piano and me banging away a rhythm on any wooden object I could find till I got my first drumkit and then he would come over home and we would create quite a racket . Then our various gigs as part of a band both in school and college where we won a couple of contests and then later professionally – earning ourselves some pocket money. Paul’s sense of music and technique were par excellence and according to me was in the realm of unrecognized genius.
But the one characteristic that will forever remain with us is his penchant for relating a good story . Paul could keep you enraptured and in splits for hours with his creatively embellished anecdotes . His memory and sense of detail of events that happened years ago was remarkable .
Paul lived his life as he deemed fit and it is only fitting to tribute to him the lyrics of that great song by Paul Anka :
I’ve loved , I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my wins , my share of losing
And now , as tears subside
I find it all so amusing
To think , I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh no , no not me
I did it my way.
I will miss you , Paul and am sorry I couldn’t attend your funeral . Rest in peace , my friend !
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