10.01~'A Date with Destiny'.

“Now, next time we must meet halfway between yours (sic) and my place”. I did not take these parting words very seriously when he left my home. Peter stays in Freiberg, Germany, where we had visited him once ,few years back.

But then, as things would have gone...

We met in Istanbul -- though not exactly halfway -- but then there could not have been a better location for our rendezvous. In the real sense East meets West here. It is called ‘Gateway to Europe’ since early ages, for the Silk Road starting from China, and passing through Northern India, ends there. The Grand Express, one of the oldest trains that connect major European cities, starts from Istanbul. Interestingly, one part of Istanbul [Constantinople of Byzantine times] is in Europe, and the rest falls in Asia.

For Peter that trip was quite nostalgic, as he was revisiting Istanbul after many years. He had booked a room for us in a 200 years old heritage hotel in Sultan Ahmet in one of the oldest parts of Istanbul, along the Marmara Sea. Actually it was a fisherman’s house that had been converted into this hotel. He took us around like a veteran local guide, showed us markets and houses in lanes and bylanes, made us try local food and drinks -- like Kebabs & Raki [aniseed flavored brew]. He introduced us to many small curio traders in Grand Bazaar, and also arranged a dinner with a top-notch art dealer at a roof café opposite Blue Mosque. He also took us to a few secret hide-outs, generally unknown to the first time traveler.

Sitting in Lale Puddings Shop, he ordered Baclava and Apple tea for us and started narrating an incident as if it had happened only the day before. He had kept it close to his heart for all these years. Istanbul, being so strategically positioned on the world map, has been one of the leading trade centers. However, it was notoriously famous for its smuggling and ‘drug’ market in the seventies and eighties. He said, “that was autumn of 1984. Turkey was not a rich country like other Middle East Muslim countries, where the ‘petro- dollars’ had started to show their shine”. He was just past his teens, and had driven down in some old German car from Stuttgart to deliver it in the ‘second hand’ market. He was left with just a few coins in his pocket. The Hippodrome locality used to be a big parking lot for trucks leaving for the Middle East and South Asia. In those days, Lale’s place used to be a small hotel, and also a meeting place for the truck drivers. In this same place, (where we were now sitting), he got acquainted with one such driver, who offered him free food in return for help in driving and maintenance of his vehicle. For him, it was an opportunity to visit many countries en route to Nepal, where they had to deliver the consignment. ['Was it any contraband?', – ‘That does not make any sense or difference at this stage’ was his brief reply.]

They reached Nepal, via Iran and Afghanistan, after 10 days. He decided not to return in that truck, but from there, he came to India and reached Goa. The ‘Hippy’ movement was all the rage at that time. He immediately fell for it and Goa became his home away from home. He lived the life of a ‘hippy’ for some years and visited many places in India. This opened up a large number of other avenues, created contacts and exposed him to Indian Art. Today, he is one of the most respected connoisseurs of oriental-metal-art in the world. Thus his very first hitch-hiking experience of 1984 changed his life forever. Though he now flies all around the world - by business class on ‘Lufthansa’ - these days, India is like his ‘Karmabhoomi’, he claims!

[Actually, this story was started as 'Interesting Istanbul'. However, I'm cutting it short here, and clubbing the above incident with another one- probably more 'interesting'.One can view few more pictures of 'Istanbul'- by clicking the following link.] http://picasaweb.google.com/drhirenshah/INTERESTINGISTANBUL?feat=directlink

On this day-25 years back!

Around the same time, another young man was on the threshold of transition from his student life. He had just earned his post graduate degree and was to join one of the institutes in Mumbai.

However fate had other things in store for him. His parents were in Karad (south of Pune), in Maharashtra, and were keen to see their son settle down in their home town of Ahmedabad. So his father took premature retirement and decided to move lock, stock and barrel to Ahmedabad. The huge load of household goods – accumulated over 17 years of stay in Karad -was planned to be transferred by road in a truck belonging to one of the family friends. After lots of debate, the young man was persuaded not to go to Mumbai but travel to Ahmedabad first in the truck. He was told that this would save the bother of packing and unpacking of the goods and at the same time help unloading of the vehicle at the destination. So, he and his friend (the owner of the transport company) clambered on that ‘lorry’ to set out for altogether a different journey. The route chosen was ‘Karad-Poladpur-Mahad-Thane-Bhiwandi-Ahmedabad’. which completely bypassed Mumbai. (It also meant avoiding the heavy traffic on the Pune-Mumbai highway and the dangerous steep curves on the Khandala Ghats). Little did he know that this would result in Mumbai being bypassed in the course of his future career also!!

Along with loads of house-hold goods, medical books and a stethoscope in the baggage, that young doctor reached Ahmedabad on the early morning of January 10 ,1984. 25 years back – exactly! 'The original plan was for the young man to leave for Mumbai immediately afterwards. But here too, Destiny had other ideas - he could not join the designated hospital in Mumbai within the stipulated time. So it turned out that his future was not to be framed in Mumbai. On the other hand, in yet another quirk of Fate, he found his future wife in the same year in Mumbai only.

For his parents, it was ‘homecoming’ in a real sense, as their home in ‘Thakor Park’ was built by themselves some 30 years ago. But for the young man, Ahmedabad was absolutely an alien world, and he was cursing that ‘truck travel’ and its destination for the first couple of years. The harder he tried to explore other places and possibilities for settling down for his career, the more he was stuck to this place. Probably, it was destined - that he reached his ‘karmabhumi’, riding on a truck.

Do I need to tell who was that doctor?

While talking to Peter, I recalled the above incident and realized that we not only share many similarities with common interests and hobbies, our ‘carrier’ to our ‘career’ is also common- the truck.

On this day-17 years back!

And while working on the exact dates of my reaching Ahmedabad, I got the most pleasant surprise of recent times. I realized that this particular date has a special rendezvous with Namita also, and of course me too again. We were blessed with twin sons-Shamol and Shanil, on the same date, 17 years ago- January 10, 1992.This date became the special milestone in our lives. For Namita, now a mother of ‘three’, it was the time to redefine her priorities, restructure her professional agenda, and reshape her career!.

Destiny is the dream that lies within all of us, for our desired and preferred future .It’s been said that our actions, our words, our attitudes, and our relationships- all lead to our destiny. But then is that all? There must be many more ‘uncontrolled’ factors, which also play an equally vital role to plan and fix that ‘date’ with the future. Otherwise how can one explain these strings of events where- luck ‘stuck’ via a truck, on the date which repeated to cast ‘twin shadows’, leaving even an atheist and nonbeliever- awestruck!

As all these thoughts came rushing to my mind, I decided to put them down in writing --- lest I forget these interesting parallels in our lives. Twenty five years may be a long time to escape from one’s memory, but then we remember and celebrate this ‘date with destiny’ every year, at least for last seventeen years! And, then this number 10.01 looks symmetrical and sounds auspicious too!!