Choti si yeh dunia

The world is really small.

Yesterday I left Bangalore for Coonoor to see a holiday home. I took a late morning flight from Bangalore to Coimbatore – the city where I had stayed for six months after my return from England for business training.

That was in 1996 - the year of the booming tea trade with Russia and Poland. My job was to learn about tea packaging and I was dealing with a company called Shakti Associates that was owned by two brothers N Sriram and Ananda Sriram. After that I lost touch with them quite against my nature.

During the Bangalore-Coimbatore flight the person seated next to me introduced himself as Prashant Jain. During our conversation I told him that I was going to Coonoor. He asked me if I were the one looking for the Holiday Home. I said yes and he mentioned the name of my friend and cousin Anil Kathotiyas who stays in Bangalore and with whom I had talked about my requirements.

What a coincidence!

At Coonoor I went to see the family house of Mr Ajith Kumar Jhabakh. Mr Jhabakh’s fore-fathers, who were bankers to the British, came and settled down in Coonoor about 125 years ago. One of the oldest and most respected families of Coonoor, the Jhabakhs have been engaged in a lot of social welfare projects in an around that area and had even donated the family land for a temple in Coonoor. Later they shifted to Coimbatore.

While having tea at the Taj Gateways Property at Coonoor with Mr Jhabakh it dawned upon me that Mr Jhabakh knew the Sriram brothers pretty well as they were always together at the Round Table club. It is a small world indeed.

Thanks to Mr Jhabakh, the coordinates of the Srirams are with me and we would soon connect.

Flew back to Bangalore from Coimbatore and will leave for home – Kolkata – by evening flight.

ess bee