Some times you do not find right words to express your feelings. The same things happened to me today. It was my birthday yesterday, but we (Manohar Vaidya, Nachiketa Desai and I) had gone to Baroda to perform as amateur Harmonica players and so could not celebrate the birthday.
Today, the Harmonica players had gathered together as usual. I also joined them. The players came one by one. I was unaware of their sweet and secret conspiracy to celebrate my birthday. After about one and a half hour when most players had arrived and it was time to disperse, one of the players secretly took out a bouquet of fresh flowers and presented it to me. Another player took out a box of birthday cake and pushed a piece into my mouth. Three players took out their Harmonica and started playing HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.
It was so overwhelming and so sudden that I did not know how to reciprocate. It was my 59th birthday. And, perhaps this was the first birthday that was celebrated like this with FRIENDS. I did not know how friends could be. In fact, I had no friends at all, being a typical judge that I was. Perhaps my nature was such that people did not like to come close to me. I had addressed them in this write up as Harmonica Players. But, now I will call them my friends. They are TAPAN BHATT, NACHIKETA DESAI, MANOHARBHAI VAIDYA, PIYUSH PANDYA, ALEX LOBO, KUMARPAL SHAH, MANOHARBHAI MAJITHIA. There are also other friends who could not come today but conveyed their good wishes to me. I thank them all.
MY FRIENDS, once again I am indebted to all of you, who have given me a different sight to look at the life which I was thinking as boring till now. I now have a new vision, am a student again at 59, many things to learn and all that without tension or stress.
