WHAT YOU DO NOT EXPECT -

IT MAY AT TIMES HAPPEN!

Things we never dream of happening, sometimes happen. In 1957 I was in Bombay in search of a job. After a day’s desperate attempt to land in one I used to go in the evening to the GateWay of India to relax for some time. I used to observe fat wealthy women alighting from posh cars; take some coins in their hand and throw it in the sea to please their God, in the midst of poor people stretching their hands for alms. The logic of their action still confuses me. Hotel Taj faces the Gate Way of India. I have seen escorted well-clad men and women alighting from beautiful limousines go in accompanied by the front office guard. I was sure I would not make it, but I exercised my freedom of imagination. I imagined myself to be one Taj resident for my own sadistic satisfaction. Then I will remember the fox after the grapes story and will abstain from such wild imagination. In 1960, I landed in a job in Johnson & Johnson of India Ltd. A job in it was the most coveted one then. This spider failed twice, but never yielded. In the third attempt the spider made it. And that too in the Sales Department under the awesome leadership of a genius, the late Win Chadha who left his job in the early sixties. In 1967 during a conference as the District Manager in the Southern Zone, I was allotted a room named ‘Viceroy Suite’, the most prestigious and expensive one in Taj with mini bar facilities. Bar was always a bar to me. So I did not use it. But for two days I stayed in a facility that was the exclusive domain of the top privileged beings in India, Maharajas, Viceroys and others in the top rung. When I look back many reverses in my life project before me. These reverses have always turned out to be good for me in later years. Along with are great surprises like this Taj episode. Learn this from me: I interact with my God direct and he does not have to look for my broker to channel the flood of his blessings on me. - K. Mathew Thomas