Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

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PRATAP BHOGILAL - JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE
that he had confirmation of the reservation, but to no avail. The hotel manager was called in but also said, sorry, no reservation. As such, we had to leave and went to another hotel.
During that trip I spent a month travelling extensively around the USA - North, West, South and East. It was the year of the Presidential election in the US, when General Eisenhower was contesting. While travelling in taxis, I would talk to the drivers about the election and tell them that General Eisenhower would win. I was watching the results on TV with the Daves in New York. At 4 am, Dave said, "Let's go to Times Square and see the fun when the results are declared." And we did. I got back from Times Square to my hotel room at about 5 am. I had to board the ship (I think it was SS Queen Elizabeth) which was to depart for Southampton at 12 noon. Before that I had a couple of appointments. It was quite a hectic tour. In the US I had spent 19 of my 31 nights in trains. I was so dead tired that as soon as I got on board the ship, I had my lunch and went to sleep. I slept for almost 22 hours at a stretch. The steward woke me up at tea time. I asked him to leave the tea on the table and went back to sleep. I woke up at about 10am the next morning, had my breakfast, had a massage and went for a swim to freshen up.
In UK & Europe, 1954
In 1954,1 accompanied Ba (my mother), sister Jailina and brother Mahesh to UK to admit Mahesh at Dulwich College and Jailina to a medical college for MRCP. Later, my sister Vimla also came to London for her FRCS. We had taken our cook with us on that trip since Ba was planning to stay there for 3-4 months till she was satisfied that Mahesh was well-settled at Dulwich.En route, we had a stopover at Marseilles on way to Southampton. During the stopover, Batliboi's principals, La Farge, had sent their representatives to meet us at the steamer and take us around for the day. A very funny incident occurred when we were having lunch with them in one of the restaurants. While I ordered vegetarian food for us, our French friends ordered non-vegetarian food, which included lobster, a popular dish in Marseilles. When the food arrived, Ba was outraged by the sight of the lobster. She insisted that we shift to another table. I told her it would be very rude to do so and requested her to sit at the end of the table
Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital - Aaron Levenstein