TRIVIAL TRAVAILS
Mahesh has been in Oman since 1985. After having worked with Bank Muscat and Merrill Lynch, he started Trinity Investments, apparently named because of the three women in his life...his wife and two daughters. You can contact him at mahesh.verma@apexmedia.co.om
Hello from Camp Bangalore...oh ok, Bengaluru to keep the purists happy, though the air seemed purer and the city less congested in what was originally Bangalore and the local residents or Kannadigas, as they are called, probably did not need to debate the “can I dig a” pothole or not? Thankfully the so-called guardians, who have over time changed the old order and made Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata, Bangalore to Bengaluru and Bombay to Mumbai and it’s Victoria Terminus to Chattrapati Sivaji Terminus etc etc decided to let London and the Buckingham Palace go scot-free (or maybe Indifree?) otherwise they could also have been renamed as Firangdon and Bankimhum Niwas!
The Bangalore sojourn for the wedding of an ex-Muscat friend’s daughter turned out to be more like a reunion of old friends, some of whom had left Muscat more than 15 years ago but were still bound by the sprigs of the Paradise that is Oman. We reminisced and we broke bread and we reminisced some more and introduced Johnnie-Scotland’s famous walker, to Goa’s Paul John, and basically that made everyone very happy and all had a great time. Thank you Arun & Bindu - wonderful to have caught up on the Muscat days, and one could still hear the milk of human kindness sloshing inside you guys, giving a run for its money to the draught of vintage spilling around your guests!
And if one goes down memory lane, then invariably one trudges down to the good ole college days, which twinkles like
the proverbial diamond in the sky of one’s memory. And probably the biggest diamond of those days was Neil whose “Song Sung Blue” helped many of us break the ice with the “Cracklin’ Rosie” and woo “Sweet Caroline”. Totally a different matter altogether that the Rosies and Carolines preferred someone who could sing remotely like Neil, unlike yours faithfully who could only croak and sound as if a frog was stuffed down the throat.
It is therefore with the deepest remorse that one heard about Neil Diamond being
DOWN MEMORY LANE
afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, and having had to cancel his concerts and officially declare that his singing days are over though he would still continue writing songs - hallelujah!
This man who sang “song sung blue weeping like a willow, song sung blue sleeping on my pillow” will unfortunately sing no more and as you sang so mellifluously “me and you are subject to the blues now and then, but when you take the blues and make a song, you sing them out again, sing them out again”.
This man with the velvet voice was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011 and will now receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. We shall miss your concerts Mr Diamond!
And there down under, probably as a tribute to Neil and his “Sweet Caroline”,
Wozniacki won her first Grand Slam as she beat Simona Halep in the just concluded 2018 Australian Open. Caroline thus became the first Dane in male or female singles, to win a Grand Slam and the first Danish player ever to win the Australian Open, in what is regarded to be one of the greatest women’s Grand Slam finals ever to be played. Well done or should one say “Well Dane?” To quote Diamond:“Sweet Caroline, good times never seemed so good!” May the years ahead give you the guts to create similar racquet (or racket?) as you smash your way through the competition!
And then on the back hand, we have Roger Federer, the man who won his sixth Australian Open title and his 20th Grand Slam - a “score” very difficult to match or overtake, and justifying the epithet of The Goat - the greatest of all time! Well done or should that be Well Rogered?
And before I sign off a few random thoughts:
▶Do you know that there are quite a few people out there who think they are God’s gift to mankind but are actually the devil incarnate? I don’t necessarily hate them but am not particularly fond of their existence either.
▶Do you know if one gets debarred from a bar, is one actually raising the bar of such bars?
▶Do you know that the Mafia has moved from the underworld to under water where the Codfather rules the roost? Till next fortnight... .