And so it’s time to say goodbye to 2016. What a rollercoaster of a year 2016 has been. On a macro level, it’s been a tumultuous year with the refugee crisis and the wars in Syria and Yemen showing no signs of abating; to cap it all Brexit and Donald Trump have turned our world upside down. I always taught my kids that they must take responsibility for their actions but I wonder what kind of message and moral lessons we are teaching our kids when most of those who campaigned so fiercely for Brexit have as quickly disappeared from the political arena –it is ok to make a mess and let someone else clear up after you? 

An even bigger issue is the election of Donald Trump – what were the American people thinking? Granted the choice wasn’t great but a man who is a racist, a misogynist and a liar? So will the next generation think it’s ok to lie, cheat, abuse those less fortunate including blacks, Mexicans and women and still become president of what is purported to be the greatest democracy in the world? Yes 2016 has been a year of never expecting the worst to happen and it has! 

On a personal level however, it has been a different story- highlights include joining a gym and getting fit, going to see Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall as well as going to the FA cup final at Wembley (both courtesy of friends), getting together for lunches on a monthly basis with like minded ladies (sahelis) as well as getting my book finally printed , my niece Aasha and Sunil’s wedding and a few holidays for good measure! I’ve also finished a couple of children’s stories and looking to get them illustrated before getting them printed. Watch this space!

January was again hectic as although I was no longer working, having retired in August 2015, I had been working on my parents’ migration story. Having finished the book and put in an order for 50 copies to distribute to friends and family, the books finally arrived in January. I was hosting a ladies lunch at my house at the time and amidst much pomp and ceremony – well a few photos actually, we opened the box. I was so excited to see the fruition of my dreams, the culmination of years of hard work and of course to see my name in print! It was we all felt a fitting tribute to my late parents! However, as I was opening a few to sign I discovered that the binding was creased and I was so disappointed. But luckily the printers who are based in the UK took the whole lot back and rebound them perfectly so we got them in February. A little delayed but no harm done. Perhaps it was a reminder to accept all situations with equanimity and remain humble! 

I also started my online TEFL course and completed it a few months later, the idea being to go and teach English abroad on a voluntary basis, however that has yet to materialise. And as part of my new year’s resolution to get fit and lose some weight, I joined a gym, initially attending Bollywood, aerobic, spin and aqua classes but after a few months ended up just working out in the gym and using the pool and the steam and sauna rooms. I’ve tried to maintain a regular routine of waking up early for the yoga and going to the gym straight after yoga. It has been an eye opener to see how many people, especially how many elderly ladies are working out and swimming and then exchanging the latest recipes and health tips in the steam rooms! Although I only exchange a few words with them, just their presence at the gym has motivated to me to keep at it! It’s a case of if they can do it so can I! It seems to be the place to socialise now. 

Arjun went skiing in January for a long weekend and of course had a fabulous time, and had also booked a holiday in South Africa with a couple of his friends. Again he had a fabulous time but my heart was in my mouth when he sent me his video of his bunjee jump from the highest bridge! You could hear him screaming too!  

Nikhil went skiing with his group of friends in February. This time they had booked the whole chalet and it was fully catered so they were really well looked after. The skiing was great too! 

Nikhil had been playing squash for Barclays against other companies as part of the square mile squash classic – last year he had not been able to play in the final as we were skiing that week; this time they were in the final again and it was played out in the same venue as the canary wharf squash classic. Unfortunately Barclays lost in the final but he was not too disheartened as he was off to Sri Lanka that same night. He went by himself but as always met lots of other travellers and made lifelong friends. He then stopped over in Oman and spent a few days there. He found it expensive but said it was beautiful. They have both inherited our love for travelling and adventure!

So the books finally arrived in February and I wanted to hand these out personally so made treks in East and South London as well as in Harrow to give signed copies away. My cousins in South London were so impressed with the book and the gesture that they suggested a get together in April that they would host where all our extended family would be invited. There were around 70 of us at the gathering and I was so pleased that all the youngsters had made the effort to attend the event on 10 April. The Sunday morning started off with a prayer session for all our parents and other family members who are no longer with us with a particular emphasis for my mum as it was 4 years in April that she had passed away. After a wonderful breakfast, for the benefit of the younger generation, Nemchandkaka’s family had put together a presentation of how we are related and some other anecdotes from the early days. The children were indeed surprised to find out their great grandfathers were brothers. Finally I did a book launch and talked about my journey in terms of why I wanted to write the book and how I undertook the task and read some passages from it. 

Following this we all had a delicious lunch and mingled with each other promising to keep in closer contact! It was a lovely gesture on the part of Hitesh (Flemings) and all the other brothers and one that I really appreciated. 

I had booked to go on the SOAS Jainism and science lectures in March and at that event handed a copy to Atul (who had kindly added a testimonial at the back and had been so supportive of my efforts from the beginning). He was even more excited than I was and promptly got the chair of the conference to announce and show the book to the whole audience! I was so embarrassed when he pointed me out in the audience too but it was amazing to talk to a whole lot of new people about the book. 

After the conference, I went to the boys flat where we celebrated Arjun’s 25^th birthday by going for a 10k sponsored run the next morning at the Oylmpic park. All those gym sessions helped as I didn’t feel too sore. Afterwards, we went for pre dinner drinks and then dinner at Dshoom with all his friends and it was great to see them all – all grown up and working now!  

In the meantime, I had been working on getting the book published as a paperback on amazon. As the print size was different, we had to recut the manuscript and pictures, a task which took me the best part of a month, but these were also finally available in April. I ordered a few to give away to the libraries – there is one copy each in Ilford , Gayton and Kenton library as well as a copy in the SOAS library, in the V&A and the British library (where it stays for posterity)! 

Atul had also written a book review on his site and I was asked by Shailan a friend of ours from North Area to do an author talk at Oshwal Centre. This took place in May and was really well attended and well received. Following this I was also asked to talk at Gayton and Kenton library in October as part of the black history month. Again these sessions were very well attended and I have now received invitations from Ealing and Hounslow library for next year. It has been so humbling to know that other people not connected with me or with Kaka and Ba were interested in reading the book and more importantly were very positive about it having read it! The best was a post card I received from a 6 year old girl, Suri, who simply said ‘Mrs Shah, I love reading your book!’ So what I thought was the end of the project was really only the beginning! I’ve given away over 50 books, sold over 100 books, have sent about a 100 people a copy of the PDF and it is also available to download from the Oshwal Memory Project facebook page. So I’m estimating at least 1,000 people will have read Kaka and Ba’s story! Amazing! It is available in hardback, paperback, kindle as well as a PDF and I’ve just donated my first £100 profits to BEHT a charity that we have supported over the years!

Of course life was still going on whilst all this was happening. As I had finished my TEFL course, I started helping out in Kenton library from April on a weekly basis. It was a conversation class of different abilities and different ages from 19 to 70+ but it was amazing to see these mix of people from around the world all getting on with each other and helping each other out. I did this for about a term and half and was then asked to help out with the Nepali community so I started volunteering there a while. There are a lot older as they are all ex army (the Gurkhas) and their wives and most them can barely speak any English so it has been quite challenging. 

This year has been more about experiences and less holidays – we did not go skiing this year as I was so busy with getting the book published! As I mention in the book, ayambils had been very important to my mum and she had died in April 2012, 2 days after completing her ayambil. So it seemed appropriate that I should also partake in this penance and therefore in April Bena and I went to Oshwal centre to take part on the first day as well as the last day. We helped out with the food preparation and only ate the ayambil foods. It felt good, however I’m not sure I could do it for the full 9 days. 

Hitesh had booked his annual golfing pilgrimage to Turkey – this time 24 of them went without the wives and as usual had a fantastic time although they went to a different hotel and he resolved to go to Voyage the following year. 

We had booked to go to Romania for a holiday at the end of June – it just so happened to be on the morning of the referendum result. All the exit polls were predicting a remain victory so imagine everyone’s surprise when we woke early in the morning to learn that the Brexit camp had won! It was a disappointment and by the time we arrived at the airport, we found out that David Cameron had resigned and sterling had lost considerable ground against the euro. The most embarrassing moment was when we arrived at the airport and the immigration clerk told us ‘welcome to the EU’! The holiday ended up costing us a lot more due to Brexit but we had a great time. We went for 12 days and hired a car and travelled around the country booking accommodation along the way. Bucharest had a wonderful folk festival where troupes from around the world had come to perform, Cluj Napoca had a jazz festival, Brasov and Sibui had film festivals. Romania has had a chequered history and some of the architecture and building have seen better days but now with the help of the EU, they are pumping money into the tourist industry and renovating a lot of the beautiful but decrepit buildings.

We had organised a pizza party for the boys and their friends in July. It was a glorious day and their friends really enjoyed the event. There was a little damper as Hitesh’s aunt passed away that morning but the whole family insisted we carry on with the event. For us it was a good practice run for the main pizza party in October for Aasha’s wedding. We’d had another practice run in June when we helped out Kantaben my cleaner for a pizza party for her daughter’s wedding. At that time people had been so impressed they wanted our business cards!

Nikhil had suggested a family break – short one and I was happy to take whatever time they wanted to spend with us. Now that they live in Mile end, we only see them on a weekly basis and I miss them. I have all this free time and no-one to cook for! Well Hitesh is there but it’s not the same. So in August we booked to go to Oslo for a 4 day trip. We were due to come back on 21 August but I must have been doing something else on the computer and ended up booking the return trip on 21 October, the day of Aasha’s wedding! It was only a few days afterwards when Hitesh noticed the mistake and we had to book another return flight. But we had a wonderful time in Oslo although everything is so pricey – of course Brexit has increased the cost of holidays by about 25%. We’d again hired a car and saw a couple of places outside Oslo as well as taking in Oslo where there was a mela going on which had some great acts as well!

Arjun had booked to go to Sri Lanka – he went with Freya, his girlfriend and they had a wonderful time also stopping in Dubai to see Hinesh and Shuchi (my cousin’s son and wife). 

After they came back, they both took part in the Tough Mudder event – he keeps trying to get me to sign up!

For a few months, Hitesh had been suffering with a pain in his groin and he had been diagnosed with a hernia. He had an operation for this in mid September, just a month before Aasha’s wedding. I think he was expecting to be fully fit and able to do everything in a few days and was frustrated at being so idle and inactive. 

Towards the end of September, Nikhil went to South Carolina with his friends, one of whom has a family house there. It was at the time Charleston was embroiled in riots due to the shooting of black people by the police. The city was under a state of emergency and under curfew, but it didn’t stop these daring youngsters venturing out and seeing  for themselves what was happening in the city centre. I only found out when I saw the photos on facebook! Nikhil did admit later it was quite scary. Nikhil also went to Atlanta for 1 night to see Hitesh’s brother Harshad and family where they celebrated Nikhil’s birthday early! 

Meanwhile the preparations for the wedding of the year, well Aasha’s wedding were proceeding at full steam. Bena was stressed out about the desserts (or was that just because she was spelling desserts backwards!) that we were going to make for the home events and she kept experimenting with various recipes so that we were eating these rather than dieting! But the gym sessions had helped and I did feel toned up and had lost some weight to the point of the blouses feeling a little loose. 

The really stressful bit of course was signing up to do a dance for the sanji when you have 2 left feet and are completely uncoordinated. Actually the biggest stress was on Payal and Seeta who had been persuaded by Bhavini to teach us oldies the dance – what they thought was a simple dance that a person with zero ability should be able to master in half an hour turned out to be a challenge to choreograph especially when most of us wanted to offer our twopennies worth. However it is amazing what you can pull off when you are dressed for the part. All the dances (there were a few other dances) and the skit (written in part by Nikhil and Arjun) went really well at the sanji and it was a lively fun evening. The sanji was the start to all the proceedings; next up was the pizza party. Unfortunately in the morning it was raining heavily, and being October it was fairly cold. The marquee however looked absolutely beautiful and the heaters worked a treat. The pizzas were a little slow coming out as it was so cold but people were happy to patiently wait as they tasted great. And so the 2^nd event was a roaring success too! After this we could relax as the other events were all catered for ; all the desserts had been prepared earlier. Everything went really well, the dinner, the mehndi party, the wedding itself and the reception. Aasha had asked Freya to make the wedding cake for the reception and I was fretting about how she was going to cope with an eggless cake for around 400 guests. But the cake not only looked elegant, it tasted great too! 

With the wedding behind us, we only had a week to go before Diwali was upon us. As Niru my sister was here from the US, we went full out with making googras and mathias and other sweet and savoury dishes to celebrate. We also celebrated Nikhil’s birthday at the same time at a local restaurant– the last 2 years we had been away during his birthday!   

A week after Diwali we went to Myanmar – that is Niru and I with Bena’s tour group. Bena has been organising these tours for a few years now to different places but I had yet to go on one of these tours. Whilst Hitesh and I had just been to Myanmar the previous year, Niru was wanting to go and as I had had a lovely time last year, I decided to accompany her. It was amazing to see how many more tourists were there this year compared to last year, especially tour groups. Last year there had been virtually none. The people are still so friendly, so polite warm and honest. The Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon was as stunning as I remembered it from last year; Bagan and Inle lake were just as mesmerising, although Bagan was so much more crowded this year. Mandalay is fast becoming a hot tourist destination with lots of luxury hotels sprouting up in the last year. Bena had also included Ngapali beach – last year we had not been there.  It must rank as one of the world’s most beautiful beaches with its pristine palm fringed coastline leading gently into the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal. Although a prime tourist destination, it is still unspoilt and retains its rural almost village like charm as it is much more expensive than the beaches in Thailand and there is little in the way of nightlife. Also the problems with the Rohinja muslims in that state discourage a lot of tourists from venturing there. We had our own guide, Gigi whose infectious enthusiasm, smile and genuine can do attitude won our hearts even though we found her accent a little hard to understand. Bena had arranged all vegetarian lunches and dinners and the hotels were all really good quality; the whole group gelled very well so it was a fantastic trip. There were 22 of us and we became a close knit family over that short period. 

Before we went to Myanmar , I had heard from a friend from New Zealand who had worked with me at NatWest over 20 years ago. We had lost touch over time but he managed to locate me on facebook and as he was in London, we met up before I went to Myanmar. It was wonderful to see him again after so many years and he was thrilled that we were coming to New Zealand in February 2017 and has insisted that we stay at his house in Christchurch, even though there will be 4 of us. He has even drawn up a day to day itinerary for our time in NZ! It was such a shame that there was a large earthquake in NZ when we were in Myanmar which has led to so much devastation. Luckily they were all ok. 

It was when we were in Myanmar that we found out that Donald Trump had won. And then according to one whatsapp message, it turns out he only decided to run for president as he was humiliated so publicly by Barack Obama some years earlier! If that is true, perhaps silence is golden applies to both the current president and the incumbent. 

Back home after Myanmar, Niru was here for a few more weeks until early December, so we had a few outings, one with a whole lot of us going to the British museum. London has so much to offer in terms of museums and art galleries, theatres, parks that we have decided to make these types of outings a regular event. 

The boys are doing well at work. Nikhil is now working for Barclaycard and is finding the work a lot more interesting than his previous role; Arjun joined BNY Mellon towards the end of last year and is progressing well. With limited holidays, they try and make the most of their annual leave, Arjun by taking mini breaks, latest of which was a weekend in Lisbon with his friends and also to Bruges for the Xmas markets. Before that he had gone camping in the summer as well as a weekend away in Marrakesh and a weekend away in Geneva. 

So as I write this, I’m looking forward to the festive season and having the boys back home if only for a few days. Nikhil still comes home most Mondays as plays football near here; Arjun has been coming home on Friday nights or Saturday morning to play golf with Hitesh. Hitesh has been playing his golf regularly ( he only took a few weeks break after his operation!) and coaches badminton and still has his soft furnishing business. I keep telling him to retire so we can go for longer travels but he is not listening. Still we have our long New Zealand trip coming up in February with a couple of days stopover in Dubai to visit Hinesh and Shuchi and a few days stopover in Sydney to see my cousin’s son Sanjay and his family. 

I hope you all have a memorable and wonderful Christmas and a peaceful and happy New Year.