Independence General Elections Turn 50

Tomorrow. The appropriately-named Independence Party won all the three seats in riding numbers 4 to 16. Which gave it 39 MPs out of the 62. The PMSD grabbed the remaining seats. The election results appear to contain some fascinating information on the mood of voters 50 years ago. Will need to play with them one of these days. Couldn't stop from reminiscing my meeting with the second member of Belle-Rose/Quatre-Bornes when I saw his name in there. That Independence thing was so big that he refused to obey the retrograde instructions of his leader of not attending the celebrations. That must have been quite easy to resist.

And a week from now partition of the Indian subcontinent will turn 70.

Madhuri is 50

Tomorrow. That was her comeback movie five years after having moved to the states. The NYT remarked then that the dance queen still got it. Other famous people hitting the big milestone this year include Jurgen Klopp, Julia Roberts, Benicio del Toro, Anderson Cooper, Vin Diesel, Carrie-Ann Moss and The Wachowskis, Bobby Deol, Carla Bruni, Jason Statham, Nicole Kidman, Pamela Anderson and Akshay Kumar.

Plus another 20 million people. I'll try to put their names later today.

We should have a special thought for all of our freedom-fighters this August. And a month later the BoM will turn 50. Hopefully it will not celebrate the event by depreciating our rupee.

2013: The Year in Review (Q4)

October: Ramgoolam sends toxic bean-counter packing. Ferguson is fan of Pele. Mansoor found Mao's cat. Munro may write again, after winning Nobel. Go ahead, make some good mistakes. Rose-Hill Transport takes service to new levels. World's most beautiful woman turns 40.

November: Desvaux says Illovo split switched after meeting. More proof crisis is homemade. 15% flat tax is enemy of good growth. Shouldn't we create a fiscal policy committee? Cricket-crazy nation says goodbye to Sachin. UK Prime Minister sends letter to Forum. How our Standards bureau can save lives. Mozart of chess becomes World Champion.

December: World to mourn Madiba for several days. Bheenick should make Vision 2020 public. Suarez wins player of the year award. Meeting Yvon St. Guillaume. 7.7 milyon malgas vote.

Read the review for Q1, Q2 and Q3.

Meeting Yvon St. Guillaume

That happened after leaving the funeral of Sir Satcam Boolell in March 2006. I was walking Lady Jag! back to our car when our path crossed that of an elegant man who was happily introduced as YSG. That gentleman became instantly interesting to me after my mom told me that he had voted for Independence despite being from the PMSD.

Yvon was beaming while I was being briefed. He seemed all set to go right into the National Assembly and second that motion for Independence again. If need be. Or maybe just for the fun of reliving those extraordinary emotions at the Champ de Mars when our flag was raised for the first time.

We left after a nice chat and I took his mobile number promising to get back to him. Mostly to perhaps get a chance of listening to the IMAX version of that beautiful story. I never did. I got busy. Firing katyushas. Non-stop. 

R.I.P. Patriot!