Welcoming Gautam Lewis

August 13, 2016: Today afternoon I attended a luncheon get together to meet and greet Gautam Lewis and also invited few friends to come over and join in. Gautam is based out of UK and his life is an extraordinary story in itself.

Gautam, afflicted with polio in his early years, was abandoned as a child in Howrah. He was taken under and raised at the Mother Teresa’s home for children. Later, he was adopted from Mother Teresa’s orphanage by Patricia Lewis, a nuclear physicist from UK who was at that time based out of New Zealand. Gautam went to the famous Hill House School in London where the rich and the famous sent their children. He graduated from South Hampton University and pursued a successful career in music. But soon quit to set up Freedom in the Air (FITA) flying school for the disabled in UK. Gautam himself is among the few and first disabled commercial pilots of the world. He has also been a Unesco ambassador for the Global Polio Eradication initiative.

I have known Gautam for many years now and had hosted his exhibition some years ago. It was a gathering of heads of prominent NGOs and few selective invitees at the Hyatt’s Presidential Suite. Hyatt did fabulous arrangements for this lunch. Before lunch, I had dropped in at the ITC Sonar art gallery for the charity art exhibition organised by Doel Sen. I also picked up a painting from the exhibition. Tomorrow I shall leave for south India.

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