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16 June 2011

Turning 46

TODAY IS my birthday, and I’m turning 46. It’s a fabulous age: you know you’re old enough to know better, but young enough to still learn more. I'm thinking how quickly I got to this age, since I seem to have just been celebrating my 45th birthday recently. Now I understand why the first 30 or 35 years of your life seem to be the longest and slowest--you spend all that time building up a cache of dreams, hopes, triumphs, regrets, fears, and tears. Turning 46, I’m glad to look into that cache that's now filled with experiences and wisdom, and even gladder to know that I've reached this age pretty fast and pretty well!

Related Stories: Turning 41 | Turning 42 | Turning 43 | Turning 45

13 June 2011

Back in Bombay

AFTER FOUR years in Kolkata, I returned to Mumbai last Thursday to begin a new role in the city, relieved after months of stressful decisions that culminated in this very moment. I am thrilled to be back to here. I’ll certainly miss Kolkata’s glorious food, fashionable winters, long drives to the suburban but dilapidated airport, and laidback attitudes of the cultured Bengalis. Mumbai has none of those: it’s India’s first truly cosmopolitan, 20th-century city, where every recipe has been tempered to suit a gazillion tastes, every road choked with motorists and pedestrians from all over India rushing to reach their destinations, and every minute filled with threats of time leaving you behind.

Yet, Mumbai is the city that gave me the very first welcome to Incredible India. This is where I’ve forged my earliest friendships and experienced the most lasting impressions. And because home is how you've made it and not why, Mumbai has become more home to me than any other place in this sensational, spectacular land.

Time to rock this city again.