Saturday, May 10, 2008

Me Myself & I.

Mohit, Mo, Mojo, Momo, Kunal & Kunu.

Why does one need so many names? Well I do not have the answer to that but I do have all these names. I was born in Kanpur, India Feb 1970. Even at my birth there must have been some confusion probably caused by myself no other & I ended up with 2 names, Mohit & Kunal. All the others have been given to me by close friends & family. The naming ceremony that I do remember the most is how Mohit got shortened to Mo the day I landed in Ireland Sept 1989. Thank you Michael Diskin wherever you are. That name that you gave me has stuck more than any other one.

I grew up in Bombay yes Bombay no mater what they want to call it now it will always be Bombay to me. We had a fabulous childhood & grey up in an amazing environment with tons of cousins & friends. The neibourhood that we lived in was full of children our age & I for one never left the playing field, how I got through school is another miracle. I have a famous well kind of! elder sister Renee & two brothers from another mother Manish & Pappu. Manish & Pappu were our next door neibghours & we all four of us grew up as siblings with 2 sets of parents.

Well my Big sis if famous as she had played international cricket for Hong Kong. I have seen a lot of Cricket in my life & do know the sport well. She is by far the best female cricketer I have seen not just from the playing side but she understands the game far to well. If the sport for women was professional when we grey up she would have been the equivalent of Sir Garry Sobers of the female world.
My Sis, Mom & Nephew Raoul live in Hong Kong, so yes we are a truly international family. My Mom's ability to reinvent & re-educate herself year upon year is an unbelievable ability. Only last year she was learning high school math so that she could teach my Nephew. The biggest gift that she has given me is the ability to deal with people, I pride myself in my people skills & all this is something that I inherited from my Mother.

I went to Jamnabai Narsee school in Juhu & did fairly well there achedemically & on the sports field & stage. The next year after school at Sydenham college was a blur as I could not quite handle the freedom & responsibility side by side. I opted for the freedom & managed to flunk my year even though I attended 3 French lessons the whole year (the french teacher was cute, passion yes for the language no) & played every sport for the college. Only if those 3 lessons had been Math maybe I would not have flunked??? I left my friends there & moved to study arts at St Xaviers College. Two eventful years & a few more lectures, (not many more, did not want to shock the system) a bit of more drama I managed to pass miracoulsly & ended up going to Shannon College of Hotel Management in Ireland.

Shannon was a great education & the people in Ireland were fantastic. It truly is one of the best places in the world to live inspite of all the rain. Honest I went from chocolate brown to white in one year as I did not see any sun for a few months. I graduated form Shannon in 1993 & ended up working at the Holiday Inn in Leicester.

1993 was a strange year for me & all around me. It was a year of 3 weddings & a funeral. Sadly my dad passed away that year & I lost the most important male figure in my life. Few dreams were shattered but I had just got married to Ceris & we had to plough ahead building our lives as best we could. Ceris was a fantastic person & a friend to me over the years however we were not meant to be & we broke up 10 years later. I hope all is well in her life, I do miss her parents Betty & Will a lot.

In 2001 I got my dream Job as General Manager for Lindley catering at Leicester Tigers Rugby Club. I was itching for my first GM's job & being a big fan of the club & with old friends still in Leicester it seemed perfect. The first few years were fantastic & I inherited a few great people & recruited the rest to form one of the best teams I have ever seen in my business. Few of these people have become friends & family for life & will remain very close to my heart always.

1 comment:

renee said...

hi dude am in lax can u believe it after all the time that u were here i get called out. all set for july see u in phx. love u renee