Saturday, November 21, 2009

What a week that was

Twelve years of concentrated effort, whittled down to three years of intense effort and we had one of the best reunions that I can remember, taking all classes in our school into consideration. (I have been helping several classes to organise their reunions.)

The credit goes to the entire Mumbai crew, headed by Capt. Shivi and Piloo. Let us make no mistake about that.

Without their perseverance, persuasion and immaculate planning, it would not have been possible. Many credit me with the success. I refute that completely.

What Annikki and I did was enjoy ourselves connecting people who desperately wanted to be connected. Now they have established their connections, they can continue with this way or they can use the direct channels.

So, as was suggested by some, we can the of our Google Group to do something worthwhile for our communities. I will, over the next few weeks, try to highlight some of the important projects that could merit our support. Some are being done by members of our Google Group, others by members of our School or College, and yet others by persons not connected to either but friends who need to be supported in their efforts.

After the Tuesday Parsee dinner, both Annikki and I suffered total burnout. I managed to meet a young boy, my cousin's son, Aanad Katakam, and have lunch with him on the Wednesday. This youngster is so fascinating and so alive, it brought back much of the youth in me. He is interested in everything . T is the sign of greatness. He could talk to a 66 year old with such confidence and be interested in what I had to say. A mark of the greatness that lies ahead of him.

On Thursday, I went to Chembur to meet Abhijit, who had done the catering and decoration for "The Evening with the Findians". I thanked him for the wonderful flavour he brought into our lives. But on the way there and back i was virtually gassed out of existence. The pollution in Mumbai is so overpowering, I really wonder how one can live in this. Coming from a country where the air is clean and fresh, 365 days a year, this sort of throttled me to a stop. I got home and slept from around midday till the next morning.

Friday I was still tottering, but I stayed away from food and tried to stay close to home, but I had to meet Malathi halfway. She came in from Powai and I went to Bandra Gymkhanna. We spent a couple of hours talking about the past and the future.

While at the Gymkhanna I watched the kids on the tennis courts in what was a coaching session. How different coaching sessions here are compared to in Finland. In Finland, the first emphasis is on physical fitness followed by increase of flexibility and mobility. Then comes a more focused training in the sport of interest. So jogging, muscle activation, etc. are the key aspects of a training session. Hitting the ball would be the last stage of the process.

In a one hour training session, the first 10 minutes is the warm up, the next 15 minutes is the physical fitness part of the training, the next 2o minutes would be the training in the sport, the next 10 minutes would be fun time, and the final 5 minutes would be the warm down.

Maybe I should see some more training sessions before I make generalised comments about training in India vis-a-vis Finland.

I feel well enough to venture out today, so stay tuned for more from the blog.

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