Happy Birthday Skye Frontier

Birthdays are a time for reflection, as well as getting cool presents. Most years, I'm kind of sheepish about announcing and celebrating. Strange as it may seem to the readers of these pages, I feel a bit uncomfortable with that kind of spotlight on me.

Not this year. Perhaps it is because India 2007 has been a crowning achievement for me, and has boosted my self confidence immeasurably, as it was meant to. All of this has been an incubation period, to be ready for the next stage in life. So this year, in Kovalam, Skye Frontier is letting MANAM go the whole nine yards.

As for recapping, which I have done at various junctures, I look back again at the last seven months (!!) and see Bombay for loss of passports and a new start, and to be a minor Bollywood dancing star.

Then there was unwinding and finding the first real peace in a long time in the Andaman Islands.

Bangalore gave me a taste of hi-tech consulting. Pondicherry bored me to tears.

Rishikesh ended solitary travel with the coming together of the Schedule Sisters, who continued with me to Bhag Aviv.

Then it was Thailand with Francois, at which point, my journey really started; the Vipassana meditation course brought about a seismic shift in my thinking, and in Bangkok I acquired the Hi-Tech Knapsack.

Where most people try to escape Delhi as quickly as they can, I spent three wonderful weeks in Delicious Delhi having the love affair of the decade.

Next came Pushkar, the Enigma Café, being stoned for four weeks, and meeting Mikael in the fifth, and celebrating the Jewish High Holidays at Beit Chabad along the way.

Back to Bombay for two weeks, the second of which was spent with Mikael.

And on to Cochin to meet Nina, reconnect again with Mikael after a week's break, and inaugurate the official formation of MANAM.

Finally we reach Black Sand Kovalam, where Skye Frontier turns 37, on the same day that my great hero Shah Rukh Khan turns 42.

Incidentally, the President of India, that stupid Gujarati woman, has also come to celebrate, basically turning Trivandrum and Kovalam into Yom Kippur. But it was great for getting around by scooter - no traffic!

And it ain't over yet. We have the Kerala Backwaters, Madurai, Cochin yet again to look forward to with MANAM. And then, it's Singapore, Indonesia and in the New Year, on to the coronation of the Sultan of San Francisco. Stay tuned.