People & the Ordinary

Each year the World Environment Day is celebrated on June 5. The idea of celebrating World Environment Day (WED) came from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Each year UNEP announces a theme for WED and accordingly events are held across the world. This years theme is Only One Earth. In celebrating the WED, most organizers want to show their leadership in conceiving and holding…

Life takes different and sometimes surprising turns. In the beginning, you probably spend a lot of your time of your life in making your career. You toil to make some money, keep your family happy, build some reputation and give to the society to best of your abilities. There is not much time for a pause, looking back to assess your journey or take a…

My first encounter with a secretary was Wilma at Dorr Oliver in Mumbai. It was 1980. Wilma was secretary to our boss R Natarajan. But Natarajan did not object if we used Wilma’s support occasionally when we would need to prepare urgent quotations. Wilma was a stenographer. I used to dictate sitting in a revolving chair and Wilma would come back to me in minutes…

  Writing this post takes me down the memory lane. I remember Mr Mahesh Sharma, Manager Chemical Technology once invited me for a chai at Century Textiles and Industries in Worli in Mumbai. He introduced me to some more friends. We as a small group started meeting almost every Thursday of the week. The group consisted of people like Prof E D Daruwala, then Director…

  Today Google has transformed the internet connected world. The Google search engine is so efficient in producing results that it can be rather addictive. If you want to know anything about something new, you would simply “Google it”. Generally, you would get the answers to your query or get some hints in the first 5 pages of the search results. The challenge then is…

Some people have a “nasty” habit of asking qualification during the introductory meetings. I feel that this could well be rude, especially to those who are attending the meeting with no appropriate or relevant qualification. To them, such questions could be rather embarrassing. I remember several years ago, I was in Vienna attending one of the UN meetings on the subject of Cleaner Production. A…

Most of my readers know about my friend who lives on the 104th floor in the tallest building in Mumbai. For those who don’t know, this friend of mine is the richest person in the world. His wealth is more than the wealth of Ambani’s (I mean Mukesh), Adanis, Tatas (including Shapoorji’s), Birla’s and Mahindra’s, Agarwal’s and Mittal’s all put together. He pays income tax as…

Last month, I finished my talking session of the day on Zoom and realized that something had awfully  gone wrong. I felt terribly exhausted, with my chest becoming tight. I experienced a voice fatigue that I never experienced before. I stopped talking and told my wife that I am switching off my mobile, going to bed and be in isolation. I called my ENT specialist…

This January my consulting company Environmental Management Centre LLP completed 25 years! I am writing this post today to share my experience in this journey. This story telling may help young entrepreneurs entering the profession of environmental management. I left my full-time teaching position at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay to establish EMC. I was 40 years old then and wanted to do something…

As soon as Government of Maharashtra gave permission to open restaurants in Mumbai, Professor and I decided to meet at our usual coffee shop for conversations. Apart from listening to his interesting stories, I was also missing the characteristic aroma of his cigar - Cohiba Spectre – one of the best cigars made from Nicaraguan Estelí and Jalapa leaves. The restaurant was reconfigured a bit…