My Stockholm Diary - 17

At Indu & Kulip Chopra´s home.

On August 1, Indu and Kuldip Chopra treated us nicely over a dinner at their residence in Tumba. We could meet a couple of old friends viz. Pradeep Rastogi, Karan Malhotra and others. It was a good evening over a session of Teenpati. Everybody tends to avail of good summer season and arrange good parties. We are the direct beneficiaries of these exceptionally good summer days in Stockholm. My off the cuff interaction with the Indian community over several lunches and dinners indicated that many of the Indian community are not well informed about the emerging political, economic and social scenario back home in India. On one hand I have found that they are genuinely concerned but not well in informed. Many of them are supportive of the new Government of PM Narender Modi and expect that he will do and prove himself good for the country. But many of them and rightly so have their apprehensions because of the wide spread corruption and lack of political will to face the situation head on. My general advise to them was of patience. The new Government should be given time to set things right and we should wish them success. The government machinery including the Indian Embassies should engage themselves with the Indian communities to keep them informed and briefed of the developments back home.

With Preety & Vaibhav

On August 2, we had yet another wonderful evening with Preety and Vaibhav Vyas at their new beautiful villa in Vallentuna. It was the house warming dinner with more friends.  Vaibhav is a senior Executive with the Swedish company Ericsson and has done well in life. Both Preety and Vaibhav are good friends of Anju and Naresh. In fact, Vaibhav and Naresh studied together in Stockholm University in early 1990s when I was working with the Indian Embassy. It remained a busy weekend with yet another dinner engagement today, August 3, with our old friends Neelu and Anil Narula.