SPIRIT OF MUMBAI

Every person has a unique, sensational story in his/her life which is just waiting to be told and his / her dedication, passionate living transforms that story into a mind-blowing , grand novel. Novels : Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less . Shall We Tell the President?, First Among Equals, A Matter of Honour , As the Crow Flies, Honour Among Thieves, The Fourth Estate, The Eleventh Commandment, Sons of Fortune, False Impression, A Prisoner of Birth, Paths of Glory. Kane and Abel, The Prodigal Daughter ,  Prison diaries : Hell- Belmarsh , Purgatory - Wayland , Heaven - North Sea Camp . Short Stories / Collections : A Quiver Full of Arrows , a Twist in the Tale , Twelve Red Herrings , The Collected Short Stories , To Cut a Long Story Short , Cat O'Nine Tales , And Thereby Hangs a Tale , The New Collected Short Stories Clifton Chronicles : Only Time Will Tell , The Sins of the Father , Best Kept Secret , Be Careful What You Wish For , Mightier Than the Sword ...... And s...

" Congratulations Sujata, you are the winner of Jeffrey Archer contest. You will be meeting Sir Jeffrey Archer in person at Trident , Mumbai and you will receive an autographed copy of ' Only Time Will Tell ' as a prize from EBay ."  This is just a tip of an iceberg and a chip off the old block - mother's version about my winnings. Since time immortal my mother kept on reciting to me stories of Mahabharata, Ramayana as well as Dadayana. Dadayana means my father-Dada's glorious achievements as a student / social activist / inspector / publisher / editor / founder and philanthropist. My mother, my first Expert in motivation , inspired me to be a Winner .  " Like Father, Like Daughter " , mother used to remind me whenever I was depressed from a setback. She used to bring me back on the right track, if and when I suffered a failure. Her reasoning to move on and forget the fall is : this is a trifle, you must aim higher as per your st...

The year was 2009 ; the aam-junta was still busy scrapping on Orkut. I too had an Orkut account but I was more committed to my Blogger Account, ‘ Spirit of Mumbai ’ . After receiving a prize for a blog post, ‘Tapori Mumbai’, I posted the photograph of my prized Chopper-ride on Facebook . Facebook was a novelty then. Most Facebook_DPs boasted of fancy cars while my DP showed-off a ritzy Helicopter Raven in its full glory, ready to take off at Juhu Aerodrome. I was bombarded with Friends-requests and queries regarding the Chopper-ride. Suddenly I was having more than 1000 FB-friends, who were active in various extra-curricular activities. The most fascinating and challenging extra-curricular activity, I loved on FB was the Contest. These online contests conducted by various prestigious organizations challenged the creativity, general knowledge, technical knowledge and artistic skills of the participants. The 1 st ever Facebook-contest, I won was Valentine day con...