Prashant Bhatt's notes

Our trees still grow in Palam

Posted on January 28, 2018 by prashant bhatt

This month, my sons visited the house in Palam where they stayed as toddlers.

I was thinking of writing this post for some time, but today, I thought I should make an attempt to connect the dots of this important trip, with many facets and layers.

Ten years ago, when I used to come to visit the children from Tripoli, they would be studying in Pinnacle High school-Malad, and we would go for trips to Manori, Marve, Mindspace, Aksa and attend programs by Bombay Natural History society at Sanjay Gandhi National park.

Another decade before that, when I used to study in KEM –Parel, we had a view of the world, before starting a family, the priorities were different.

Now, after having stayed two years in Malta, and five years in Canada, the children returned to visit their grandparents in Nirlon colony-Malad and we had a revised new version of the Family photographs.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANI

2-Jan-2018-A POEM BY THE SEA-AKSA BEACH…Arabian sea…Happy Birthday Nani

Of the many photographs of the pujas, get-togethers, reunions, this one on the shores of Aksa stands out as a symbol of the many currents which flow across generations.

In taking this Canadian immigration journey, we gain something we lose something.

As my friends from Juma Saaga-days of Tripoli used to say- Juma Saaga- where we formed many concepts and revisited many issues- Everything has a plus and a minus.e

This picture is a small poem by the Arabian sea…a monument of love of grandchildren to their dear Nani-ji. When they first came to Malta in 2010, their grandmother had told me in a sad voice-

“Give them so much love that they do not miss me.”

It was a tall order, which no one can fulfill, but even if one falls short, it is a good goal to try and measure oneself to.

The love of grandparents is so much different from the love of a parent. But there are some things, which have to be done, the way they are.

PRAYERS AT NIRLON…MALAD

So the children moved from Pinnacle Malad to St.Edward’s Cottonera and every family has their secrets, ups and downs but they saw a different vision of the world, civilization and society.

A DIARY BY THE SEA

2018-January- NANA-JI -with Grandsons..Many lovely hours spent walking by the Arabian sea

4.4 playing in sand in Aksa.Bombay may 2006

2006-AKSA-MUMBAI

JASOLA

BROTHERS…Mayank-Sagar-Sahil…January 2018…see blog https://prashantbhatt.com/2010/06/29/children-growing/ for earlier perspective

Earlier perspectives…Walks in Lodhi

2012

LODHI-July 2012-Shailu-ji, Mamta-Divya walking towards Bada Gumbad. Four generations of our family have walked in Lodhi Gardens. Mayank-met Snuggy dog here, one morning- when i showed them the gate on which is inscribed- 9 th April 1936..the day Lodhi gardens was established…Do you know on which Gate of Lodhi this inscription is?

MAUSIJI…MY MOTHER’S SISTER

VASANT KUNJ- The many notes and things about life which I learned from my Dear Mausa-ji, from Lullanagar Golibar Maidan Pune to the Walks in Lodhi Gardens and Palam of Delhi region came alive in many interesting ways in this great reunion.

My mother’s sister Abha Mausi-ji also celebrated her birthday around the same time. This reunion had many layers of emotions, as a sister remembered the days when she would visit Palam from the University campus in Sagar.

“I sometimes stand on the road facing Mahipalpur and think how it would have been if she had been there with us physically,” she says, being the person who probably misses her the most

MY FATHER’S SISTER

DADI-JI……….Saraswati Bua-ji…the many evenings we used to spend in B Block park as toddlers

This picture with Saraswati Bua-ji, reminds us of the days when the boys were toddlers and would play in the B Block park of Palam in the evenings. The park is still there. I went and sat there for a while with my aunty, and felt the spirits of persons gone by.

DEVRAJ-BHAI…The family grows..This year-his eldest son Mudit got married. And he wrote to us – You have been a part of us..do come.. Many memories came alive from Kankarkhera Meerut to Waterworks Agra to Palam Gurgaon

ON THEIR FIRST BIRTHDAYS

The two rooms in the first floor of Palam Vihar house has got pictures of five generations of our family. Framed and looking down upon us, are our ancestors, the many nuances of life in Garhwal in British India, to Shimla in the 1930s/40s and the way the family evolved through Benares and Delhi.

The boys saw their pictures of their first birthdays, and the many connections we used to have in that period of stay in Palam. We stayed for six years in Palam, and that was the foundation of our many journeys.

ON FIRST BIRTHDAYS- Sagar and Sahil with a picture of their father-Prashant-with his grandfathers-Ganesh Prasad Uniyal and Bhawani Shankar Bhatt-Nov 1968

AS TODDLERS…Many smiles at Palam

2003- Sagar- when he used to study in L’avenir -Gnostic Centre

2003-SAHIL…Making phone to Guddi-aunty…the Bisht family who stay in front of us, Mr R S Bisht-his mother originally from our ancestral village of Uphalda-Srinagar -Garhwal-Uttarakhand. ..Sahil would run to their house, knock on the door and ask for Goodies

SAHIL-2002-Palam

Our trees still grow there.

OUR TREES STILL GROW IN PALAM..Seeing my sons with the trees planted by my parents gave rise to many mixed feelings. Remembered Richard Holloway’s words-in Leaving Alexandria-…I know now that roads choose us and what they unfold before us is not the person we want to be, but the person we already are, the person time slowly discloses to us.

Posted in Diary, Mentoring | Tagged Canada, Delhi, family photographs, Mumbai, P N Bhatt | 2 Comments

Here’s to our High School Days-Year End Diary-2017

Posted on December 30, 2017 by prashant bhatt

The diary-keeper is an interventionist, the transmuter of what would be normally perishable into what must last. Without a diary, almost everything we do or say or think or feel slips very quickly into oblivion. The born or natural diarist-he is a special being and not like the rest of us- cannot bear that this should be so. It cannot be egotism which makes him write, “Saw Price the grocer uncrating oranges, “ or “Rain shakes the line of poplars”, but a kind of spiritual craving for holding such actions in his personal vision forever, or until the final entry.

Ronald Blythe-Penguin book of Diaries

* * * *

This year, my son Sagar, passed out of High school (Glenforest-Mississauga). My niece Divya-joined Medical school to become a third generation aspirant into the field of medicine.

Where-ever one goes, one finds some aspects of the local community which are interesting and worth learning from and imbibing.

Central High School-Brant Street-Burlington

After acquiring some limited licenses to work in North America, work carries me to a place around 40 km away from my house in Mississauga, and there, I found this written on a wall of Central High School-Brant Street Burlington. There is a quiet park- on Baldwin street- next to this school. During lunchtime, I sit in the Tim Horton’s at the junction of Victoria-Baldwin street and Brant street and browse through my yearly journals and letters of 2017.

Wellington Park-Baldwin Steet-Burlington

JOINT FORCES-THIRD MIND

“I would have passed this exam in one week’s preparation”

A remark of an aunt who has never passed any academic exam after High School-to an international medical graduate (IMG) trying to carve his place in the system here.

* * *

TIM HORTON DISCUSSIONS..From Victoria Park Avenue-North York, to Falstaff Road, to Eglinton-Kennedy-Mississauga to Brant street-Burlington.. many nuances discussed over cups of coffee and soups

When two or more people come together in harmony- a third invisible intangible force comes into being. Many wisdom writers have written about this. I had long conversations with a young man in his late twenties, trying to carve a space for himself in the Canadian system. I learnt many things from this young man, who sometimes in his frustration and aspiration, wonders how I know these things. I then remind him that I too was some time –long time ago- his age.

As I reviewed the many notes –kept in a private journal- about the dialogues and dynamics of his family, his interactions with the different interviewers (some of them are very sweet- but they never get back with the job offer…to which I told him to be on guard with persons who are “very sweet” and make you off guard and get out the information) to the times when he has been going early in the morning to draw samples from nursing homes where Elderly people resist his attempts in different ways.

Sitting in different Tim Horton cafes from Falstaff road (Where I told him the story of Falstaff- the great character of Shakespeare’s history plays- King Henry V- and the tavern life which he represented, and was rebuffed when Prince Hal became the king)…to Victoria Park Avenue- where we would gather after the preparatory classes (where the instructor would explain around 10 MCQs in 3 hours, repeating the points again and again..and we realized how – sitting in a class which is uneven, with people of different levels of reading- one has to be very patient) ..to the Tim near 1 Eva Road-where we gave our different licensing exams.

What was she thinking?

“I would have passed this exam in one week’s preparation”

What was she thinking? …He gave me windows into worlds which I would never have come to know, different facets of Toronto life..what was his aunt thinking about this exam. As I told this young man to be patient, he told how people who do not know the spelling of Paediatrics try to teach him the immunization schedules.

A LETTER FROM YESTERDAY

As we did our rounds of Ryerson University and the introductory sessions tried to give us a window into the University life of Toronto –Canada, my mind’s eye went back to the conversations I would have with my father, when he described his pre-medical study days –in Gol Market-Delhi and then the times when he became a medical student (AIIMS-1958 joining batch). That time, the family used to stay in Sarojini Nagar. Then I thought of my own times when I first entered university (MAMC-1985 batch) and the nuances and differences between the Delhi and Mumbai universities (Radiology-KEM-1993 batch).

JOINT DIARIES-2011- OCTOBER- Making notes together-Writing Joint diaries, reflecting on visits to Jim Corbett National park, the visit to Mussoorie-reading Ruskin Bond’s “Panther’s moon” and remembering the Aarti at Ramjhula Rishikesh where the environmentalist Sunderlal Bahuguna was also present the day the children attended

Being a medic, I do not know much about the intricacies of the Introduction to Engineering course which my son-Sagar is doing from Ryerson. All I can help him with is, sometimes picking him up when he returns late. However, it is different with my niece Divya- who this year, joined Medical college and is trying to get to know the terms of different subjects of medicine.

My father was a great mentor to me, and I wonder what he would have said , how he would have guided his grand-daughter. One of the meditations – I once got from a writing instructor was- Speak or Write in the voice of your favourite writer.

Following this theme, I tried to tell Divya about what lesser mortals like us- who do not have “Photographic memory” (as some claim ) – do to pass Medicine and then get into specialist training.

The issue of repeated revision, mnemonics, and having a study-buddy- cannot be stressed more.

HIGH SCHOOL..AND BEYOND

LODHI GARDENS-Sheesh Gumbad-many discussions over the years

As I pass by the Central school of Burlington, and think about this writing on the wall- To our High School days- I remember the many schools my children studied, in the year, when my elder son passed out of school. Starting from the play school of L’avenir- Gnostic centre, it has been a journey which made me look at systems, talk to different educators about their concept of education. Some teachers just go through the rounds, but some teachers do something extra, which sticks to the mind. I still remember my teachers Mr.Augustine Lobo of St.Vincent’s high school-Pune (1970s) and the English teacher Mrs.Majumdar of Army Public School-Delhi-1980s..who taught us students to look beyond the routine curriculum, appreciate the finer details which make life.

As I remember my talks with my sons-nephews-nieces- I felt happy remembering that my niece Divya was the only student in her high school class who could answer about the paintings to Thomas Daniels and Tilly Kettle of the Company period , and when her teacher of Birla Vidya Niketan asked how she knew, she told about her uncle who takes her for walks to the Purana Quila- Old Indraprastha fort and National Gallery where these are discussed and displayed.

HOME JOURNALS-LIBRARIES

As the year 2017 draws to a close, I browsed through some of the home and work journals. Some IMGs asked in an exasperated tone- “What does this system want from us?” To which there can be answers which can fill libraries. One instructor –Mr.Luciano –tells to be patient- not to rush and always remember- There is something inside me- that is stronger than the resistance outside me.

That could be a nice one-line answer to what this system wants..testing the strengths inside.

For those stuck in the mechanistic underemployment which many professionals find themselves in Canada, the one-word answer is –Worksheet.

The system here has tick-boxes on a worksheet. If you fit into the Tick-box of the Worksheet, you are through. If not, then you are out.

OTHER PERSPECTIVES OF THE YEAR-2017

For Notes on Thinking Places- See blog-

ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS-BURLINGTON ONTARIO

Retelling the Stories of our Community-Museums as Thinking places

https://wp.me/piL5Q-1hM

READINGS-HUNTSVILLE-ONTARIO

For Notes from Reading Journal-See Blog

Outside the Frame

https://wp.me/piL5Q-1i4

Readings in Riverwood

https://wp.me/p5YX3a-lA

EARLIER PERSPECTIVES-YEAR END DIARY NOTES

2011- In the year-end Diary of 2011 we pondered over the following statement

While many thinkers have mused over how to start a revolution,

not many think of how to end it.

…now in 2017-December-still thinking about the complexities.

https://prashantbhatt.com/2011/12/23/year-end-diary/

TRIPOLI-LIBYA…Walls-2011….While many thinkers have mused over how to start a revolution,
not many think of how to end it.

2014-Association with persons like Rumi encourage one to keep a spiritual diary.

https://prashantbhatt.com/2014/12/28/year-end-diary-2014-remembering-walks-and-readings/

HAGIA SOPHIA..SULTANAHMET-ISTANBUL…The historical Constantinople

Posted in Diary, Mentoring, Reading Journal, Tripoli Reading Group | Tagged Canada, Canada 150, Indian Diaspora, Mississauga | 3 Comments

Outside the Frame-Notes from my Reading journal-2017

Posted on December 26, 2017 by prashant bhatt

“It’s – just – light a little candle.”

Nurse-Una Brownly- a nurse from Livingstonia Mission, Malawi

In Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari-

Overland from Cairo to Cape Town, page 311

“Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray.”

Henry David Thoreau

“This is how I want to get old,” said Lena, “with spirit like Miss Carrie’s. Connected, engaged. With people of every age. Even the ones who are dead.”

The Character Lena, in Frances Itani’s book, Requiem, which was featured in the Mississauga Library system, as part of One Book-One Mississauga, was discussed in the Central Library on Sep 25,2017 as part of Canada 150 celebrations.

***

A reading journal is a great place to go back to and refine, expand, and shape our thoughts.

In the previous blog, we looked at some museums and galleries which we intentionally developed as “thinking places”, ranging from the Bradley Museum of Port Credit, Mississauga, to the Art Gallery of Hamilton, to the galleries and many fine special exhibitions of the Royal Ontario Museum.

See blog https://wp.me/piL5Q-1hM

Retelling the Stories of our Community-Museums as Thinking Places

On reviewing my Reading Journal of 2017, in which I have kept reflective notes on the courses seen together with my sons, the thinking places and museums we visited to shape –refine our thinking and the reading places- like Naturalization zone near our house, Riverwood- Port Credit-Edwards Botanical gardens where we went and read and discussed, I remembered similar discussions we used to have in Tripoli under the auspices of Tripoli reading group.

A Reading Journal is a fine way to develop Big Picture thinking.

In his book –Thinking for a Change- John Maxwell writes that big-picture thinkers realize there is a world out there besides their own, and they make an effort to step outside themselves and see other people’s worlds through their eyes. It’s hard to see the picture while inside the frame. To see how others see, you must first find out how they think. Becoming a good listener certainly helps with that. So does getting over personal agenda and trying to take the other person’s perspective.

Reading a Novel- Novels have great lessons to teach about life. Reading a novel is like knowing a person, place, or situation and helps develop long-term strategic and big-picture thinking.

If one intentionally keeps a Reading journal to see what life lessons specific to one’s context are there in a piece of writing, the returns of reading are compounded exponentially. As I attended the Book Club meetings of Mississauga Library system, I found that some veterans who had been attending such meetings for over a decade, saw me keep notes, and lamented the fact that there were no such notes of their many meetings over the past ten years. The Book Club members are very well read, and I found that they could add very interesting insights and expand one’s way of looking at seeing a literary work

NURSE UNA BROWNLY

The March discussion was on Paul Theroux’s – Great Railway Bazaar. Many people consider it a classic in the genre of travel writing. The first part of the route, to India, followed what was then known as the hippie trail. It sold 1.5 million copies upon release.

In 2006, Theroux retraced the journey, finding that people and places had changed, and that while he was famous for his earlier work he was not recognised in person. His account of this second journey was published as Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. (Wikipedia)

I expanded my own participation in the Book Club, by going through another work by the same author. For this I picked up –Dark Star Safari-Overland from Cairo to Cape Town.

In the book club discussion on Great Railway Bazaar, we had asked each other if we had been to any of the railway stations described in the book. I remembered my own trips to Istanbul from Tripoli. In my childhood, I have been on the narrow gauge train from Kalka to Shimla many times. Our family used to stay in Upper Kaithu Bazaar, Shimla, before shifting to Delhi region.

In reading –Dark Star Safari- I remembered my own trips to Cairo, and having lived in Africa (Libya) for long, the note on Nurse Una Brownly struck a deep chord.

It’s just-light a little candle

Theroux met many interesting and important people in his overland journey through Africa.

Theroux writes about his admiration for Nurse Una Brownly, a long-term medical worker in Africa for her humility, one of her greatest virtues being that she was unaware of how virtuous she was. She had not uttered a single word of sanctimony

(Sanctimony- pretended, affected or hypocritical religious devotion, righteousness )

She had no idea that I was a writer. Her sympathy was tempered by realism, yet she had not complained about her fate. No Malawian nurse or doctor would have gone near this public bus, nor taken a 3 day trip from Livingstonia to Lilongwe.

My soliciting her opinion on charity work in Africa seemed to amuse her, for it is a characteristic of the long-term expatriate health workers in Africa that they do their jobs without complaint or cynicism. (Page 311- Dark Star Safari-Paul Theroux)

On being pressed that so little had changed, this is practically the same country I left 35 years ago, maybe worse, the government doesn’t even care enough to help you, she replied

“It’s-just –light a little candle”

This was too broad a subject, she said with what seemed like hesitation but something that was actually a statement of fortitude..It’s just – light a little candle”…she went back to watching the road ahead, for we had entered the outer villages of Lilongwe District.

PERSPECTIVE NOTE- Having worked in Health sector in Libya for long, I came across many expatriate overseas workers who engaged with the local communities and served them for long. The Churches of different denominations in Tripoli –Benghazi region provided a platform where workers from different institutions could meet and exchange notes. The work of some businessmen in keeping the supply lines of medicines and reagents to run Dialysis centers gave a different window into the many facets of reality.

While we used to stay in capital Tripoli, where things were better, some of my colleagues opened my eyes to more harsher conditions in the interiors, where the facilities were worse and the rule of law was not existing even in more stable times of the previous regime.

At present, the dinar is trading at over 10 to a dollar.

I talked to workers who have come away from Ibn Sina of Sirte – after it was run over by Daeish. These workers found work in Tripoli, Ras-al-Anuf, and Misrata, trying to piece together the different threads of their lives.

The way the managers of some clinics treat the expatriate health workers reflects Brinkmanship –Take it or Leave it, probably the managers assume that these workers are staying here in such difficult circumstances, so they do not have better options.

From the worker’s angle- once one leaves one’s country, one has to work through for at least some period of time, before changing course, otherwise, all efforts will be wasted and come to naught.

Earlier Perspectives

2008-Enrich your life- with a read a day

“Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there”

Lenny ..In the Home coming

Harold Pinter-Oct 10,1930 to Dec 25,2008

Click here to read full post https://wp.me/piL5Q-3S

2009- Subtle awakenings-Remembering Rishikesh at Apollonia

Recalling a 2006 Trip to Jebel Akhdar-Green mountains of Eastern Libya

Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar uplands. The city was named after a spring, Kyre, which the Greeks consecrated to Apollo. It was also the seat of the Cyrenaics, a famous school of philosophy in the 4th century BC, founded by Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates. It was then nicknamed the “Athens of Africa”.(Wikipedia)

Click here to read full post https://wp.me/piL5Q-a7

2010-Readings of Idylls of the King-at Art Institute of Chicago

MALTA-Floriana-CEMETERY-read- blog-Father’s Day Walk- https://wp.me/piL5Q-rY

The whole work recounts Arthur’s attempt and failure to lift up mankind and create a perfect kingdom, from his coming to power to his death at the hands of the traitor Mordred. (wikipedia)Click here to read full post https://wp.me/piL5Q-bS

2011-Evacuations in Tripoli-Touch and go

YASIN-Friends of Bouazizi

“ Miss Addams understood why each person had become what he was.

She didn’t condemn because she understood what life does to people

To those of us who have everything and those of us who have nothing.”

From –Touch and Go-Studs Terkel’s Memoir

Click here to read full post https://wp.me/piL5Q-dx

2012-One year on-What is the change

One man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great and noble action.

Leo Tolstoy

Click here to read full post https://wp.me/piL5Q-k3

2013-Kabir to Safir-Exploring Public domains

“I keep doing the same thing again and again and expect different results,”

Click here to read full post https://wp.me/piL5Q-z5

2014-Don Quixote-

We all start by laughing at the Don, we end by recognizing ourselves in him

Click here to read full post https://wp.me/piL5Q-Iy

Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery-Tripoli

2015-On her influences- Nobel Literature 2015- Svetlana Alexievich

Although Khatyn, by Ales Adamovich was a work of fiction and Alexievich was a journalist, the method of closing one’s eyes to monument and listening to voices until the ruins underneath begin to move was the one that she made her own.

Click here to read full post http://wp.me/p5YX3a-c2

2016-Shafshoofa to Shakshooka

“We got rid of Shafshoofa, now we have Shakshooka”

Summary of the present situation in Libya

Shafshoofa-in Libyan Arabic was used to imply the Dictator-Gadhafi who had long hair-some said-full of lice. Shafshoofa Maleshi –became one of the most popular slogans of the Libyan Revolution of 2011

Shakshooka– In Local dialectic, this implies the chaos, “salaata” which has come to define our region with power cuts, hospitals running out of supplies, no proper schools,

No Liquidity-No Electricity-No Security

https://wp.me/p5YX3a-fQ

2016-On the 100^th year of Russian Revolution-

we reviewed Animal Farm by George Orwell

Click here to read full post Remembering George Orwell http://wp.me/p5YX3a-4k

Posted in Diary, Reading Journal | Tagged Canada, Canada 150, Mississauga, Reading, Tripoli Reading Group | Leave a comment

Prashant Bhatt's notes

Our trees still grow in Palam

Here’s to our High School Days-Year End Diary-2017

Outside the Frame-Notes from my Reading journal-2017

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