An Office Retirement Party! Well, it placed a permanent and final seal on my decision to retire. The office organised a party to celebrate my decision to retire after some 25 years at the same company and some 45 years in my professional career spanning between Kenya and Canada. The party was held on the evening of Tuesday 2007 April 10 at Bears Den, a famous establishment in Deep River.

Some 63 persons attended the party paying for an expensive dinner and gifts. My son, Sunir, arrived from Toronto to attend the party. My daughter, Nina, and son-in law, Sunjay also joined in the merriment.

I was pleased at the turn out and was especially thrilled to see my old retired colleagues (when I was with Engineering -Plant Design) also attended. It was good to receive a good send-off with present colleagues, past colleagues and fair number of our East Indian community at the party but the most satisfying was to see your offspring present and revel in the thought of their dad finally parking the work tools down and moving into an enjoyable rest and other meaningful contribution to family and community.

The Master of Ceremony of the evening was Dave L. who had been acting for our past boss (Randy ”“see next para) but has now handed over the rein to new boss Garry Y. I am glad that Garry attended the Party though he is new at the company.

One person who was planning to attend but could not due to severe Flu attack was missed badly. Randy is my immediate past boss and is now in other important assignments within the company. He would not have missed the party but severe Flu attack is something that it was better for him to stay home for his good but also not to transmit this Flu to others. He has sent me his speech electronically which he was hoping to deliver at the party. His sentiments and wishes are accepted with gratitude. (see Randy”™s speech after the write-up)

Ken provided the lead /keynote speech .He is my good friend and colleague for many years. We worked together on many projects since I joined the company. Ken has vast knowledge in his field and has been always very professional in his work within the company. Ken is also a key member of our East Indian community here in Deep River/ Pembroke corridor and always very supportive and leader in all social needs of the community.   I am a bit nervous at his speech, as he was very generous in his praise, which I genuinely know that I do not deserve. My humble thanks to Ken and others who expressed similar sentiments. (see Ken”™s speech after the write-up)

Kannan took the rostrum after that and he provided the evening”™s   “ROAST”. Kannan has the ability to liven the party and his “ROAST” injected different perspective to recognise my passion in life. Thanks. I do not have   a copy of his speech .

Sunir then delivered his speech to provide perspective on his dad”™s shenanigans over the yearsin a very humourous way. It was a delight and broke everyone at party in the “stitches”. (see Sunir”™s speech after the write-up).

Dave U. came forward to hand gifts from all those present and others who could not make it to the party. Dave U. is my successor at the company. He is very professional and has good experience in the type of challenges we meet at the company. He provided some good words and his feedback on my handover to him. The gifts contain a painting by a local artist (the description is provided as part of Dave U. speech provided after the write-up)

I”™ve known Pravin Shah for many years now.   We first worked together in the early 90s when Pravin was in charge of the plant-engineering group.   Yes Pravin and I go back “many years”.
Looking back over those years I don”™t know what I would have done without him.   Pravin has been my teacher, councillor, technical advisor, and a very close friend.   He kept me out of trouble on many occasions.
Yes I have many memories of Pravin.   His sense of humour is second to none.   I will always remember the many gifts and poems he would provide us at our work Christmas dinners.   He would have us all in stitches.   He would make us play silly games before and after dinner.   He would even make us blow on noisemakers.   There were times I wondered why we were not kicked out of the restaurant.
If I was to describe Pravin to someone who didn”™t know Pravin, I would say that he is:
·                 A family man,
·                 A worldly man,
·                 A well educated man,
·                 A wise man,
·                 A man with a sense of pride in himself, and in the people around him, and
·                 A funny man who always makes you laugh; even when you don”™t want to laugh.
I will miss the times we”™ve had Pravin, but it is time to start a new chapter in your life.   Knowing you as I do, it will be an interesting time.   Have a great retirement Pravin, friend!!

Ken”™s Speech

I joined the company in 1985 in the Plant Design Division. I was the first project engineer on XXXX- X! Soon after I joined the company, there was a hiring freeze and an Activity Value Evaluation was started to see how they could reduce the cost of support services. This AVA freaked me out as they were talking about eliminating jobs and I have decided to move to Waste Management where they created their own work.
 
Pravin was hired to replace me.   Pravin joined the company one year after I joined in 1986 and life was never the same in the company. There are many attributes of Pravin that are worth mentioning and I would like to touch on a few, limiting myself to 10 of them.
 
1- The Professional Engineer
 
I have known Pravin for the last 22 years as professional engineer and colleague. When I was a project manager of XXXX, he was our project lead engineer. I can say, without a doubt, that Pravin has been a professional engineer in every sense of that word. He has been very good at understanding the technical problems and come up with great solutions. Being a design engineer myself in my previous life with Canatom Ltd, I always appreciated Pravin’s insight and advice on engineering matters. However, I must also mention that he exhibited very little tolerance for incompetence, stupidity or pure bull shit from anyone.
 
2- The service minded man
 
Pravin is a service mined individual and he served the public in many ways, such as:
– Member of police board in Deep River
– The writer: Regular contributor to newspapers
– Chair of the Algonquin Chapter of PEO  
– The poet: Wrote many poems:
“Poetry matters. It matters because, when it works, it is the
truth -sometimes beautiful and inspiring, sometimes ugly and disturbing”.                                
 
One thing about Pravin is that he has been passionate about anything and everything he did.    
 
3- The Toastmaster
 
The CRL Toastmasters Club is celebrating 20th anniversary and both Pravin and I were charter members. We got to know Pravin through his many public speeches and stories.   His great sense of humor was evident in all his speeches. He always came up with unexpected twists and turns in his stories that caught every one by surprise and laughing from beginning to end.    
 
4-           The Wise Man  
 
His name “Pravin” means “skilled expert”.   It seems that his parents gave this name to him on purpose.   In our community Pravin is known as the “wise man”.   He got this title because Pravin has an opinion about any topic and he is always ready with an advice if requested.
 
5-           The Patriotic Indian
 
Pravin was born in Kenya. So technically he is not an Indian.     However, without a doubt he is the most patriotic and loyal friend India has ever seen. When it came to any important Indian function such as the Indian Republic Day, he would get hyper and very patriotic.   He will call us to talk about it and even scold us for not feeling the same level of excitement. He will say ‘look I am not even an Indian and I feel so much and what is the matter with you Indians?’
 
He had been to India a few times. Last time he went to India was in Jan 2006.   One of the reasons he went to India was to trace his ancestry. He found a few new relatives in Mumbai. The shahs are very successful business people and his relatives happened to be also very wealthy. He came back with very high opinion of every thing in India. Everything he has seen or heard was great, sometimes to the point where I started to wonder if he is talking about the same India I know.
 
In one of the social gathering, he told us that India is much more advanced than the West. I asked what makes him think that. He said, the houses of his relatives were much more luxurious and technologically advanced than anything he has seen anywhere. For example: he said they have automatic curtain openers! You can stay in your sofa and press a button. Chagoog !. The curtain opens and in the evening presses another button. Chagang!   the curtain closes. What can be more advanced than that? He said even the toilet paper was softer than anything he has seen anywhere. Wow! It is like what you see in TV, the bear cubs experiencing softness. I wish I could find some relatives who have that kind of luxuries.    
 
He also wanted to purify his body and soul so he stayed in a religious resort (ashram) for two weeks. In the first week he was only given lemon water to detoxify him and he told us that lost 10 pounds instantly but gained that and more in spirituality.      
 
6-           The business Man
Being a shah, business is in his blood. Pravin and his capable spouse Jackie ran a successful business in Petawawa for a number of years.
 
7-           The Dancer and Singer
 
Pravin loves “Dancing and Singing”, even though he is challenged in the area of rhythm and/or tune. This is only to prove that God does not give everything to everyone. God held back a bit on Pravin on this aspect. However, this never discouraged Pravin. When he gets into the swing of things in music or dancing, he gets very excited and his long hands and legs go madly in all directions.     It is something to see and admire.
 
8-           The Religious and Spiritual man
 
He is into Meditation and yoga. He has already spotted a place in Nina’s residence for his Yoga practice, however, Nina told me “No way”. He mastered many techniques to deal with protecting himself from suffering. His poems indicate some of the suffering he experienced at AECL during the past 22 years with many things; be it failing infrastructure or bloated bureaucracy.
 
He used many techniques including lift his soul out of his body so that his soul will not suffer. He called this the “out of body experience“. What is not clear to me is how did he manage to get his soul back without let it wander away?
 
9-                                 The consoler: He was always there to console people in their time of loss or distress.   He was generous with his time to provide emotional support. He organized prayers, read appropriate readings from spiritual books. It was well appreciated by all.
 
10-                         The Family man: He loves his family passionately, Jackie, Sunir, Nina and his son in law Sunjay. His caring and talented wife Jackie has always been beside him be it to play background music for his poetry recitals or accompany him on his spiritual retreats.
 
Pravin, I would like to say that we are fortunate to have met you and your family and your friendship has enriched our lives in many ways.   On behalf my family and our community, I wish you a very happy retirement.
 
 
 

Sunir”™s Speech

I never thought I’d be standing here talking seriously about my dad’s
retirement as if it was actually going to happen. Good lord, he’s been
promising to retire for 10 years. Frankly, I don’t really believe it.
He’s still got six days to change his mind. I don’t know who’s taking
over for him next week, but you’d probably be wise to keep the resume
polished just in case.
 
Truth be told, it’s half my fault. You see, I’m a software developer.
I graduated in 2002 just as all of you were moaning about how Nortel
was only in a bit of a slump. Now, here I was, on the short end of
the stick trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life at
age 23. Well, I made the only natural decision. I decided to retire,
and I told my dad he couldn’t because he had to support me.
 
He laughed at that joke the first 30 times, and then he kind of
stopped. Probably a good thing then that I decided that retirement
wasn’t for me. When I politely *informed* him he was free to retire,
he said, “thank you.” Or at least I think he said *thank* you. It
was kind of mumbled.
 
I suppose I should say a few words about his career. On one hand,
when I was young and he brought his work home, I used to look at
all the schematics and what not and go, wow, that is really cool
and complicated. My dad is a really smart engineer. On the other
hand, I still have to fix his computer every time I come home.
Heck, he only learnt how to set the clock on the VCR last month,
so I’m a little dubious.
 
Nonetheless, it is true he has done some really interesting work
over his life. When in Kenya, he designed cable cars and water
systems, and became the top civil engineer in the country. He’s
done geotechnical surveys in the middle of an insurgency. He’s
worked on the IAEA protocol on cleaning up after a nuclear disaster.
 
But the one story I think stands out was one day as a young engineer
he was surveying the Tana river in northern Kenya. As they were
floating down this uncharted river, their boat got stuck on a rock.
Now, the thing with Kenyan rivers is that they are filled with
crocodiles, and the thing about my dad is that he can’t swim.
 
So, here they are, three engineers, frantically trying to rock the
boat free and not getting very far. Finally, they resolved that
they had to swim. My dad made a quick prayer and put his life
in his guardian angel’s hands. Serenely, he said, well if we have
to swim, we have to swim, but let’s try to shake the boat once more.
With one little jump, the boat shook free, just like that, and disaster
was averted.
 
The moral of the story is that it pays to have an engineer on staff
with a personal connection to the real powers that be. Of course,
he’s leaving. So, if I were you, I’d call in sick the day after he’s
gone. Without him, there’s likely to be a meltdown.
 
(Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll keep you in his prayers.)
 
Thanks!
 
 

Dave U”™s   Speech

Knowing the energy, passion and vitality that drives Pravin ”“ retirement was a difficult decision. To retire is to give up work and although we now say farewell to him we know that his many other passions in life will fulfill his richly deserved retirement.
 
Although I have not known Pravin as long as most people here , I have learned to value his opinion and know that simple words are not able to properly describe the depth of his achievements.
 
Warm, friendly and approachable Pravin has been a popular member of our leadership who always displayed his professionalism and passion for his work and like a dog with a bone, would never give up on his convictions.
 
I can tell you that Pravin has affected the lives of those people he has worked and has developed individuals who later have taken on greater responsibilities elsewhere in the organisation.
 
And it with this development of people and character that makes this gift so appropriate- let me tell you a little about the artwork by Sharon Girdwood, a local artist.
 
The story behind it is as follows:
 
The eagle soars high on the wings of strength and wonder of spirit. As we look up we can see the strength, we can sense the spirit but in order to have it for ourselves we must follow the path. We must climb the waterfall. We start having patience like that of the deer. This will lead us to find courage like a cougar. The bear can offer us respect and combination of these traits will allow us the wisdom of the owl. If we take what we have learned to the wolf he will give us loyalty. Patience, courage, respect, wisdom, loyalty and at long last ”“ we have reached our goal. We now have strength. We now have spirit.
 
 

My Response

Dear friends, colleagues and family.

It good to see you all to-nite. I am thrilled to see Alan, Charles. Don and Hardy who had been my colleagues when I joined the company. They are retired for sometime and I am glad to join them. I am also pleased see many of my colleagues from PEO/CNS also present with whom we have many programs to carry forward. I am really touched by the presence of many of my East Indian community members .   Of course, the presence of my recent colleagues provides me boost.

I just turned 67 in age and Congratulations to myself on that achievement.

I really would like to   thank you all for this memorable send-off to next phase of my life.

I am leaving with more satisfied and   achievement in my work in the profession.

I would say that I am okay financially but if need arises you may see the first panhandler at the Deep River Post Office. Just a joke!

Really, I had great time at the company. Good people to work with. Have worked on many exciting projects and other assignments. You may come across me many times in future as you will find my name or signature on many drawings or documents.

I like to thank you all again for this memorable party but I have special thanks to organisers ”“ Lesley, Ann (Anjani), Bonni and Karrie. Also many thanks to both Daves,(Dave U. & Dave L.)

 Pravin Shah