Footnote

Footnote, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

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I Thank all my Facebook friends in humility for remembering me on my birthday , and I reciprocate your wishes with love hope and a good life ahead for all of you.

Now there are people who often forget their birthdays for reasons known and unknown, even their closest of kin dont remember them on their birthday, and some are unfortunate like me to remember their birthday as long as they live on the face of this planet, I say unfortunate because my dear childhood a life living man forcibly closed the doors of his life , he just gave u the fight , and strangely we lived to live like him , he was our strength and our hope , we were a coterie of friends , but we were also three closely bonding friends with a happily lived and shared past.

We studied at Holy Name High School and two of us passed out the unfortunate friend left it prematurely becoming a successful entrepreneur, we all three got married , we had kids , we kept in touch.

We met at Strand Hotel that was owned by Ramesh Mulchandani one of the three , we were really very thick as friends almost blood related , and this picture was shot near Shellyys hotel close to Radio Club , the lane we passed as Ramesh Mulchandani stayed at Garden Hotel Road.

Ramesh Alva Anna was the third friend , a Shetty , he made the two of us a Shetty too, gave us a taste for South Indian cuisine and stayed at Sangeeta Building Strand Cinema, I stayed at 3 Mohini Mansions, a few blocks away..the other friends in our group were Mohan Sadhwani, Ram Parsani, Jaggu and Bharat Mulchandani..

But yes the three of us were quite inseparable ,we were destined with good wives ,great children, and on 10 December Ramesh Alva just left us and decided to call it a day.

It has been several years now and though we hardly keep in touch, with each others family this day is a day of sadness and remembrance .. that we too will have to go one day.

I dont celebrate my birthday at all but I wont impose my sadness on any one of you , I reciprocate your good wishes , and because I am a Hindu Shia born in India , following the tenets of Islam pertaining to Hussainiyat , am in the midst of Moharam , we are austere , we wear black clothes we mourn and relive the Martyrdom of Imam Hussain the Gandson of the Holy Messenger .

So this is 10 December as a footnote of my life as it adds another page bewildering me all the more , I have skipped a poem as life is nothing but a drop of tear within the soul of Humanity.


I pray to God to give Ramesh Alvas family the strength to move ahead in life with his guiding spirit as the soul of a Father never dies ... he is always there Om Shant Om..