2015 has been another memorable year and seems to have gone so quickly. Whilst on a macro level there has been a lot of turmoil – man made with the Syrian migration crisis dominating the news in the later half of the year and natural disaster – the Nepal earthquake dominating the first half of the year, our responses to such humanitarian causes are I think positive. We have attended so many fund raising efforts for Nepal and it is heartening to see the response of most countries to the refugee crisis.
January is usually very hectic for us, but for the first time in many years, it was a little slower paced. Although I had gone back to work following my hysterectomy in November, I was taking it easy working at least one day from home. The boys had moved out to their flat in Mile End so it was just Hitesh and I.
We had a skiing holiday booked in March with the boys as well as some other friends so my priority was to recover fully from the hysterectomy so that I was able to ski. The consultant had promised me that I would be able to go skiing in Match when he operated in November but he hadn’t factored in the 2nd emergency operation the next day after the stitches opened up and a week’s stay in ICU. I seemed to be recovering well in January but there was slight bleeding which they were concerned about as they couldn’t understand where it was coming from – worse still it was fresh blood so it sounded like something had not sealed properly but upon examination they could not find anything. The only thing they could suggest was yet another operation to ascertain the cause. I was scheduled to see the consultant again in a week’s time. Having already undergone 2 operations, I was determined not to have another operation. I prayed and meditated harder, and witnessed yet another miracle when the next week, the consultant could find no further blood – it all seemed to have been sealed up! I was given the go ahead to go skiing on the proviso that I did not carry my skis. The best of both worlds!
February was hectic at work but at least I was happy in the knowledge that this would be my last year-end as I was scheduled to retire in early August. Arjun had been on a ski trip with work in early and had been practising his snowboarding skills. Nikhil went with friends in February for some hard core skiing before the leisurely ski holiday with all of us.
And so before we knew it the much anticipated ski holiday had arrived. Nikhil had been playing squash for Barclays against other companies and they had won all their games thus far and were scheduled to play in the final in Canary wharf – unfortunately the final was when we were skiing so he was upset to have missed out.
My sister Bena’s 2 girls, Bhavini and Aasha had joined us as well as Seeta and Anjul, Hitesh’s sister’s children. We had also had a few friends and most had skied a few times, the only exception being Bhavini and Kunal who had only been once before. We didn’t have the best of starts to our holiday when the car in front of our coach braked suddenly and our coach touched the bumper of that car. Worse however was the car behind us that went underneath our coach and oblivious to this incident, our coach kept driving along for a few metres until a passer by shouted to alert us to this! The men within our party helped free the car whilst Nikhil and Arjun and their friends took the opportunity to grab a drink at the local café.
Despite the start though, the skiing was wonderful. We had stayed at the hotel the previous year so it was lovely to see that the chef remembered us and used to make us special vegetarian meals. Hitesh took Bhavini under his wing for the first few days and she also had some private lessons to boost her confidence. I had resolved to take it easy after my operation but everyone zooming along was too hard to stand by and watch and I was feeling fine so I threw caution to the wind and ended up pushing myself and doing jumps as well. The best thing was not carrying the skiis!
Nikhil had a friend’s wedding in Zimbabwe in April. He took the opportunity to visit Victoria Falls and also decided to swing above the falls. The video footage he sent us is quite scary and he does scream but he said it was breathtaking. He also stopped off in Dubai on the way back and visited Hinesh and Shuchi ( my cousin Dilip’s son and wife ) and really enjoyed his time in Dubai. The last time we were there was in 2001 and he had had sunstroke and was not able to accompany us on the desert safari and sight seeing.
Hitesh had booked yet another golf trip in May- this time, he had agreed to take the wives along and so he ended up taking a group of 28, 20 golfers (2 of them ladies), and 8 wives. Harshad his brother from the US was coming to the trip along with Sandhya his wife and also daughter Shreya who was participating as a golfer. The hotel was just fabulous with food and drinks available 24/7 and all the staff were so attentive and helpful. We the wives went for walks, played tennis, cycled, swam and chilled. It was great catching up with Harshad, Sandhya and Shreya as well as everyone else. After the week long trip, a few of us including harshad and family had decided to stop over in Istanbul for 3 nights. Whilst Hitesh and I had already been there previously, we had thoroughly enjoyed our time there earlier and looked forward to showing all the places to the others. Istanbul is truly a feast for the senses – it is where Asia and Europe meet and it is a very cosmopolitan city. The bazaars are very exotic and colourful where you can pick up a bargain; some of the fashion shops on the other hand would be able to compete with the best in Paris or London.
In May, Arjun also went on holiday for a couple of weeks. He decided on Nicaragua and then New York to see a school friend who now works there. He went by himself and had a great time, sightseeing and diving and chilling.
Early on in the year, Sandhya had advised us the Jain convention, a meeting of around 4,000 Jain delegates from around the world (mostly US) was scheduled to take place in Atlanta, their home city and wanted us to come as they were attending as were Niru my sister and all her family. I was tempted as Kaka and Ba had been to these conventions on previous occasions and had been very impressed with it all. I had therefore been planning a holiday around the convention and thought about visiting Ecuador but Sandhya was quite keen to go on Alaskan cruise as a family so we worked on that trip. In the end Harshad and family couldn’t make it due to work commitments and taking time out to visit Turkey and also Greece, however Hitesh’s sister Mina and Rahul joined us for the trip.
We wanted to visit the rockies as well as do the Alaskan cruise so we flew out in June to Calgary and hired a car. The Rockies are absolutely amazing. The scenery is picture perfect and we visited all the famous skiing places such as Lake Louise, Jasper and Whistler. It is absolutely stunning in the summer with lots of waterfalls but I can imagine winter would be equally picturesque if a little colder. The funniest thing was that on the 2nd day of our trip , we bumped into some friends from South London. We hadn’t known they were doing this trip and it turned out that we were going to be on the same cruise as well. For the next few days, we kept bumping into them at various places as our itinerary was roughly the same. It really is a small world sometimes.
We took the cruise from Vancouver – another wonderful city with a lot of things to do outdoors. For Hitesh and I, this was our first cruise experience and it was amazing. The ship was huge – around 2,300 passengers and around 1,000 staff. It was like a floating 5 star hotel, complete with casino, several bars, swimming pools, Jacuzzi sauna , a huge auditorium where theatrical west end style shows took place and huge restaurants where sit down fine dining dinners took place over 2 sittings at night. Service was always so slick and efficient, the whole operation beggared belief. I am still amazed how they ran the whole ship. We were totally spoiled (and still some people complained). The scenery was again breath taking especially the Hubbard glacier which was just jaw dropping. Nature is just so beautiful. We also took a whale watching trip where these humpback whales came right near our boat and did some antics – it was truly a privilege to witness even though it was raining and very cold that day. After a week’s cruising we docked back again at Vancouver and parted company with Mina and Rahul who were flying back home. We had another day in Vancouver – we visited Stanley Park and Granville Island as well as Gastown and Chinatown. The next day we boarded the bus to Seattle where we spent a couple of wonderful days near the space needle and in downtown and at Chihully Gardens and museum where these wonderful glass pieces blend with nature.
After this we flew to Atlanta a day before the convention. The theme of the convention was non violence and I had sent a couple of poems on the topic to the souvenir committee – these were printed in the souvenir brochure along with some wonderful articles. The line up of speakers was amazing – there were a lot of Jain scholars, Acharyas and sadhvijis giving disclourses in hindi English as well as Gujarati. The highlight ,however was the speeches of the key note speakers , John Lewis who had marched with Martin Luther King, Andrew Young who had cradled ML King in his lap after he was shot, and Nipun Mehta who has founded service space, his motto being to serve and help others and who has recently been appointed by Barack Obama as a faith based advisor. All 3 were absolutely amazing to listen to and hearing their personal journeys and their sacrifices and humility and power of forgiveness made us feel inspired and want to do more.
In the evenings the entertainment was wonderful, with raas garba as well as a variety programmes from all the centres of the USA with the highlight being a live performance by Kumar Sanu who was flown in especially for this. The food was also great , no mean feat feeding almost 4,000 delegates in a short space of time. There were some timing issues and other organisational challenges but it was inspiring to hear the key note speakers.
Whilst in Atlanta, we also took part in the Peach tree 10k race on 4th July. We had previously taken part in 2012 when we had been in Atlanta for Shreya’s arangetam. This time it was pouring – in fact the start was delayed due to lightening fears, but we managed to run in decent time and then went to the convention all proudly wearing our race T shirts.
After almost a month, we were finally back in London. I was scheduled to finish work on 6th august but due to the amount of accumulated holidays, I only had a few days in the office once we were back. It was an emotional moment after so many years, but I had organised a pizza party at the weekend for work colleagues. Luckily it stayed dry and all enjoyed themselves. After almost 29 years, I had finally severed ties with RBS.
Arjun was still working for RBS as was Ricky my cousin’s son. However Arjun had been getting fed up of late at not getting different experience and had started looking elsewhere. He secured a role with BNY Mellon and decided to hand in his resignation. He was then put in a room by himself with more and more senior people enticing him with all sorts of pay rises, roles to persuade him to stay. He almost caved in at one point. Funny they never tried to dissuade me at all! Finally after 4 hours they gave up and he was promptly escorted off the premises.
He therefore had a month’s gardening leave along with a couple of week’s leave in September and so decided to go travelling to South America. Although he went solo, he was joined in Bolivia by a friend he had met at a summer camp in the US and then by his school friend in Brazil. He went to Peru, Bolivia and Brazil and had a fantastic time and also on the way back stopped off in Atlanta and spent a short time with Harshad and family.
Meanwhile I was enjoying my retirement – we had booked a trip to Myanmar in October with a few days in Thailand and also had booked a trip to Egypt in December. However before the trips, I was keen to finish my project of many years – my parents’ biography. I had completed a draft by May but it was very rough and needed a lot of editing. August and September were therefore spent writing and rewriting, cutting out and adding other bits, collating photos and getting family trees. It was so time consuming, Hitesh was left to do the cooking! He was so patient and understanding though. I felt really bad that I had retired but taken something even more demanding. Unfortunately it didn’t get finished by the time we went to Myanmar and there were still some corrections when we went to Egypt so it is only today that I finally gave the go ahead for the printing of some copies. Following some positive feedback from a few people, especially Atul who suggested sharing with a wider audience, the intention is to have it available on amazon as a paperback and an e-reader next year. Watch this space!
I also started on online TEFL course with the intention of teaching English overseas on a voluntary basis, starting with the school in Chapparda which we have supported in the past and where we have some connections. Unfortunately I’ve not yet finished so it is debatable as to whether I’ll go early next year or leave till later on in the year. Maybe a better alternative may be to practice here for a while.
In September, I went to hear the Dalai Lama speak on India’s contribution to non violence movement – he was visiting the UK and giving a couple of lectures. It was surprising to see that even such a revered figure such as the Dalai Lama has some fierce opposition – there were some vocal protests against him outside the theatre.
Myanmar was wonderful. It has only really opened up to tourism over the last five years. Before this , people who visited were not allowed to discuss politics with locals, the cost of mobile phone or a TV was as much as the cost of buying an apartment to keep people in the dark as to what was happening in the outside world. Although it was still under military rule when we visited, the first free elections in decades were planned in November and people were free to discuss politics and all had phones. The countryside is beautiful – it is still a very agrarian economy, the men and women all virtually wear traditional longhyis even those working in offices and airports. The people are incredibly polite and warm and honest. It was really refreshing. It is not called the land of a thousand pagodas for nothing though. Everywhere there were pagodas – in Yangon the Shwedagon pagoda is absolutely stunning; Inle lake had lots of old monasteries and festival going on whilst we were there. The lake itself is incredibly beautiful and we saw some stunning sunrises and sunsets as well as glistening stars in the sky at night. Bagan is however the land of over a thousand pagodas. There were over 3,500 pagodas but a lot were destroyed in an earthquake so only about 1,500 remain. The view from the top of one of these pagodas is incredible as you see all these pagodas across the horizon. Sailing on the boat on the Irrawaddy river was another wonderful experience seeing village and river life and a beautiful sunrise. We met some young trainee monks at our last stop, Mandalay, who wanted to speak to us lots but their English was limited. After this we a had a few days relaxing in the beach at Hua Hin in Thailand where I had a daily massage (incredibly cheap) to relieve the tensions in my neck and shoulders.
In November the Indian PM Mr Modi was visiting the UK and there was a welcoming event organised at Wembley Stadium on the 13 November for which Hitesh and I had tickets. They had asked us to bring our passports due to the strict security but in the event, we got in just with our tickets. I commented to Hitesh then about the lack of security and if any terrorist wanted to infiltrate the event and cause havoc it was probably not that difficult. There was a show prior to the PM’s speeches which was wonderful. The dances and singing was of the highest calibre and the whole event was magnificently organised. The PM finally came along with David Cameron and for Hitesh and me, it was David Cameron’s speech that was better – short and to the point, he reiterated the contribution British Indians have made to Britian. PM Modi’s speech was far too long and in Hindi, was lost on us. Both reiterated the threat of terrorism as being one of the biggest facing the world today as on 8 November, a Russian plane from Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt heading towards Russia had crashed in the Sinai desert and ISIS had claimed responsibility.
Unfortunately neither could have foreseen how prophetic their words were as that night Paris came under attack from Muslim fundamentalists and 130 people were killed.
Following these events, there was a question mark as to whether we should go to Egypt. I had already cancelled one Egypt trip last year following my hysterectomy. People were nervous and even we were slightly anxious about going. All flights to Sharm had been cancelled until January and Russia had stopped all flights to Egypt. But according to the foreign office Hurghada was OK and so was the Nile cruise so we decided to go ahead.
We left on 8 Dec and only arrived back last night. Egypt was wonderful. We were in Saal Hasheesh a beautiful beach resort north of Hurghada –all along the coastline, is a promenade. The red sea is gorgeous and calm and we swam about 20-30 m from our hotel beach and saw beautiful fishes and a small coral whilst snorkelling. The sun shone brightly every day.The hotel was wonderful and the staff couldn’t do enough for us. Unfortunately it was only about 20% full. About 60% is generally occupied by the Russians – they have Russian staff, all the signs are in Russian and not a Russian in sight.
Due to this, they pestered us a lot more in all the shops as it was so deserted. After 5 nights in the hotel we went to Luxor to take a Nile cruise to Aswan and back. Again the boat was half empty, even though only about half the boats that previously sailed are sailing since 2013. Luxor used to be the ancient capital and has the valley of the kings – where the tombs of the kings are as well some important temples. All this was magnificent and it is incredible that the Egyptians made all these tombs and temples and carved and painted these some 3,000 years ago. Aswan has the dam that controls the waters of the Nile and it has resulted in the formation of Lake Nasser which was once the largest man made lake in the world. From here we got up at 2am one morning to travel 300km south almost near the Sudan border to visit Abu Simbel, one of the greatest temples built for Rameses 2nd who ruled for 67 years. It was spectacular especially the fact due to the building of the dam and the creation of lake Nasser, the temple had to be moved 200m from its original site. That is some feat. A few days earlier, we had also seen another temple which had had to be moved from its original site to higher ground again due the floods of the Nile, but this temple was much smaller compared to Abu Simbel.
The foreign office advise against all but essential travel to Cairo so initially we hadn’t planned on going however the tour operators were selling day trips to Cairo and Hitesh was keen to see the pyramids so we decided to go for a day. The Egyptian museum houses all the treasures found in the Tutankhamun tomb which was incredible. The amount of gold used in the mask, the chairs the ornaments etc is astounding. They buried everything in the tomb including his play things from a younger age.
The museum also houses other large statues, mummy caskets for other kings as well as other artefacts. It is worth a visit – this was apparently the last week we could take photos as from January this won’t be allowed. Unfortunately in trying to delete a bad picture from the museum, Hitesh ended up deleting all our previous pictures from the trip thus far so the Nile cruise and the Hurghada hotel. He was gutted.
The saving grace is that we had met a lot of other wonderful people from England on the cruise who we made good friends with and hopefully we can get some of their photos.
Next stop in Cairo was the pyramids – they were just so much bigger than I imagined. We climbed up a little way on the great pyramid (134m) and then clambered up further, but we were still virtually on the ground. We also went inside a smaller pyramid to see the chambers inside. Finally we saw the great sphinx which was again colossal.
After Cairo we were back in Hurghada for a couple more days of relaxation before returning back home. We spent it snorkelling and seeing the fishes and walking along the promenade. It was a wonderful trip and I’m really glad we did not cancel. As always it is the ordinary people that pay the price for such atrocities and the Egyptian people are suffering from the lack of tourists. We were pestered persistently by shopkeepers who wanted to sell us stuff as well as by Egyptian Ferrari (horse drawn carriages) drivers who wanted to take us to Egyptian markets. It got annoying but they have to make a living somehow. If you have never been to Egypt – go. It is safe and wonderful and they need the tourists to come back.
2015 has heralded quite a few changes in our lives. The boys are living separately in Mile End, I’ve now retired, and so we have been on a lot more holidays. But some things are the same. Hitesh has been carrying on with his coaching commitments and is also busy with his soft furnishings business, as well as playing golf and organising his annual Turkey trips.
The boys still play their squash and go to the gym regularly. Nikhil also plays football once a week with shishukunj friends and so comes home for that every week. Arjun has started playing golf with Hitesh on Saturdays. They are here weekends or we go to see them. They had both signed up to take part in the survival of the fittest challenge in November but Arjun had injured his ankle and pulled out. Nikhil carried on. Both of them are going skiing on Boxing days with friends from Shishukunj, and Nikhil has booked to go again in February. Arjun is due to go to South Africa in February. Both are busy with their work and their social commitments.
I’m now looking forward to finally getting the printed hardback copies of my parents’ biography so that I can embark on the next phase of the project as well as finish the TEFL course.
I hope you all have a memorable and wonderful Christmas and a peaceful happy New Year.
Hasmita Shah 