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18th DECEMBER 2001
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Like most of the people I too celebrated my 50th birthday. It was at Majorda Beach resort, amongst close friends and relatives.
The invitees were so close that they would have come uninvited in any case to wish me .
Actually it is not as easy as it sounds. And I believe everyone after 49 goes through this dilemma whenever he attends his friends 50th birthday bash, and goes home to a sleepless night with the following questions:
Should he too celebrate his 50th birthday?
Where should the venue be ?
Who should be the invitees?
Would others feel bad if not invited?
Where should the cut off line be drawn?
Which whisky to serve?
What are the expected expenses?
And by the time you arrive at an answer , you start looking 60.
I too went through all this. The list of invitees was made and erased number of times. And ultimately came with a guest list which we could handle with "care" . Everything went on smoothly -And as they say- All is well that ends well.
Reproduced below is my speech in response to a couple of speakers including Mr. Umesh Wagle, Adv. Prakash Prabhu Desai,Mr. Ramakant Angle(MP),Dr. Antonio Rodrigues, "bold and beautiful" Akhil.
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Well, I have been forced to say a few words. Frankly, I must confess that besides saying a big thank you to all of you, I cannot make formal speeches. And in the past, whenever I have said something in the mike, it has ended in people laughing. I hope , today , atleast you will not laugh at me.
So here I am to tell you about a few stray thoughts that are coming to my mind.
I have been always wondering, why people celebrate their 50th birthdays. I , for one, would not like anyone to know that I am getting older. In fact, I am doing everything to make me look younger including wearing a wig and contact lenses.. And the results are obvious. Why, just the other day someone remarked to Maya that I look like Akhil's brother, and a younger one at that.
The secret of looking young was revealed to me at a strange place one year back- at Phatorpa Jatra. It so happened that Maya was buying some " Chanas" from a lady and I joined her casually. The lady looked up and remarked-" baye ho tugelo put??"(Is this your son??). I found it quite amusing and I said: " kite ge, haum tuka itlo janto dista? Haum tajo natu muge"(Do I look that old? I am her nephew).
The poor lady believed that and blamed the lapse on her advancing age.
And there I knew the secret of looking young. To look young, you got to look younger than your wife.Which means, if you cannot make yourself look younger, then try to make your wife look older.
And there are various ways of doing that. One of the best ways which many of us routinely do is that , go to the woodland bar every evening and drink till late night, and give your wife sleepless nights.
Drinking has its own problems though, and sooner or later you will land up in a physicians chamber. Select your physician properly. Always select one who drinks more than you do- the reason being, if he drinks more than you do, he cannot tell you to reduce your drinking.
One more way of looking young is to choose your friends properly. Always move with one who wears thick glasses, or one who is so bald, that he looks like your grand father.
But I feel , the real reason , why people celebrate their 50th birthday is that, they get a chance to entertain people, who could be of some help to them in their advancing age.
And I have done precisely that.
I have with me here, three leading physicians from Margao, in the hope that, should I get chest pain in the middle of night, I will have a 33.3 % chance, that at least one of them will be found sober.
I have leading surgeon to take care of my hernias, prostate and piles, leading anaesthetist who wont gossip about my surgery to anyone,
leading skin specialists, to whom I can always go for some extremely private and personal problems,
leading opthalmologists for cataract, leading orthopaedician for senile fractures,
leading dentist, to knock off any healthy teeth left,
leading psychiatrist, to take care of my senile dementia, provided, by that time, he himself recovers from it,
and lastly leading paediatricians, in case akhil and Aneesh ever get a sister.
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