’70 years on, Norgay and Hillary’s sons unite to celebrate Himalayan feat..” Times of India, May 29th 

At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, become the first explorers to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth!

Ah the joy of winning! Whether it’s the building of an empire or raising of family and children or the climbing up of a formidable mountain! But winning doesn’t come easy.

My daughter was furious as she walked into the room. “What are you doing dad?” she exclaimed. “Wagging the dog’s tail!” I replied very matter of fact, as I physically held my bewildered dog and forcibly shook his tail. “But why?” she asked.

“Trying to make it happy,” I said. “Don’t dogs wag their tails when they’re happy?”

Watching the terrible atrocities committed against Christians in Manipur left me shocked; churches burnt, priests killed, and terror-stricken women and innocent children fleeing from ruthless rioters! But my mind was jerked to the Depths of Hell where I saw a German with a small toothbrush mustache, looking where I’d just been gazing: He was weeping helplessly!

“What are you crying about Adolf?” asked Eva Braun, also from the depths of the fiery pit.

It troubled me some years ago: They were an old couple next door, who had come to me, trying to sell their land, and with a little experience in having done the same some years back, I was able to help them fetch nearly thirty lakhs more. That was indeed a huge sum, and for many days, a few weeks and nearly a month, all I heard was their grateful thanks. And then they had to buy a house with the money and came back to me. “Please, “ I said, “I’m tired today, can you make it some other day!”

“We have to finalize today!” they said.

Rahul Gandhi’s popularity is on the rise, and I’d like to imagine, it could have been a small nudge from his mother. Maybe it went like this: “Rahul, please don’t think that you are the inheritor of the PM’s chair!”

“But ma, my great- grandfather, grandmother and father all became prime ministers!”