I return after 10 days during  which  a lot has happened in the realms of events & non-events . Most significant in this collage has been the arrival of Rishi Kanuga , on 10th August , in London . This one therefore is for you, Rishi : Veni Vidi Vici because I like my blog titles in trios , & tagged to your name because Vici rhymes rather well with Rishi ( except to those who pronounce Vici to rhyme with Ricky !! ) . Most importantly it reflects a hope that having arrived , you will see & conquer ( metaphorically of course ) the world .

First things must  always come first ( that I presume, is why they are called as such ) & let us therefore go through the Welcome address .

Hello there , Rishi Kanuga . Delighted at your arrival . A warm welcome to the Kanuga clan , as its youngest member . I once held that title for decades together & was dislodged by your Dad & others , in quick succession . The incumbent Title holder has had a long reign, also counted in decades . You, my friend , are now the title-holder , with no serious challenge on the horizon .

Let me take you on a tour of some of the Events & Non-Events that marked your arrival , pal , suitably updated now that you are already a little older & wiser .

Big Bazaar hyper markets in India announced a 6-day ” Maha Bachat” festival which closes tomorrow. That notwithstanding, food inflation stayed rock solid at 11 % . Monty , the sirdar at the Planning Commission rushed to Washington to learn new ways & means to challenge inflation. I went on a 3-day training programme at Sun & Sand to learn nuances of new management tools & am busy with a dissertation for the next 30 odd days . Mery Kom won the boxing-bronze & Sushil Kumar a wrestling- silver at the Olympics in your neighbourhood , to take India’s Medal Tally to an all-time high of 6 ( wow !! ) . An incident in Mynamar caused rioting in lower Assam & led to an ugly incident in Mumbai last Saturday. Peace is threatened as a result in Pune , & the Hyderabad police has gone on a preventive high alert . The Government in Delhi meanwhile appealed to all trouble makers to stop doing things unbecoming though commonplace in the country , & went on to announce free mobile handsets for the 400 million officially poor in 12 months & electricity in their homes within 48 months ( handset chargers thereafter ?? ) . A 70-year rope weaver & a 65 -year cobbler reacted on the telly  that they would  prefer food to mobiles : a clear case of ” if they dont have enough at home to eat , let them use a mobile phone ( to order Chinese take- away !! ). Baba Ram Dev ( your grandpa will tell you all about him when you have a moment to spare : right now, quite understandably , you must be kind of busy gurgling your Hi there’s & making new friends ) went on a fast  probably because he is not officially poor ( quite honestly he himself does not appear to know what he is or is not ) &  the Govt , therefore, did not offer him a free mobile . The main Opposition in Parliament went ballistic ( it is not clear whether they too want free mobiles or are genuinely aligned with the Baba or merely want to make an ad-sum noise )  . The Government was accused of having lost its way ( your Dad will read you a story one of these days about a certain Alice in a place called Wonderland who did not know where she wanted to go & was told that she could therefore take any of the several paths in front of her to get to nowhere in particular !! )

To cut a long story short , several seemingly unrelated events & non-events more or less coincided with your arrival. Where’s the connection , you might wonder !! . When you are a little older & read a fascinating subject called Physics , you will come across  an exciting theory apart from the rather dreary phenomenon of falling Apples : the Theory of Chaos . Simply stated , the theory correlates events & non events as non-linear outcomes of seemingly unrelated occurances. For example, India’s Industrial output fell by 1.8 % because mine went up by 18 % .

In the midst of this chaos , one prediction needs to be made. Through your growing up years , back home in India , cobblers will cobble while rope weavers will weave ; Big Bazaars will announce discounts , while Holy men & Yoga teachers will go on fast/s ; Government/s  will  reduce poverty by re-defining its thresholds & by occasional empowering freebies : may be free internet will follow free Ring Ring !! ( to order Chinese take aways on-line ).  And yet, as you gurgle or scream as is your right ( more likely gurgle with joy after gettig featured in my blog )  to demand attention , you could in fact be announcing your arrival to place such disjointed issues & desultory non-issues on notice , so to speak. There is hope yet that our Medals Tally will go up , or our Governments will cease to be directionless , or that poverty will actually get eliminated without re-definitions & so forth. You, pal , have challenges ahead of you : challenges that the preceding two generations  of Indians , including me, chose not to confront .

God bless you young friend

Cheers & ATB