[Music] 100 percentage foreign motivational foreign India okay ready foreign his father was in officer at the Royal Air Force he rode his first novel The Room on the roof at the age of 70. he got the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Lifetime Achievement Award otherwise in the year 1999. languages foreign foreign foreign the Magnificent old Banyan Tree was mine chiefly because Grandfather at the age of 65 could no longer climb it um though the house and grounds of our home in India were grandfather's domain the Magnificent old Banyan Tree foreign foreign to tease him about this is about this and would speak of a certain Countess of Desmond an English woman who lived to the age of 117 and would have lived longer if she hadn't Fallen while climbing an apple tree the grandmotherapy is [Applause] okay the spreading branches of the Banyan Tree which curve to the ground and took root again forming a maze of arches gave me endless pleasure branches foreign foreign magnificent numbers the tree was older than the house and as old as the town of Dera nestling in the in a valley at the foot of Himalayas foreign entry Universe characters my first friend and familiar was a small gray squirrel foreign Monica and sniffing into the air sniffer he seemed that first to rescind my invasion of his privacy at the first are they okay he seemed to resend resend environment dislike a little bitter feeling is foreign shoot ers foreign and finally became familiar enough to take food from my handsai basically okay friendly okay ready before long he was delving into my pockets and helping himself to whatever he could find investigate CBI investigated and helping himself and helping himself foreign he was a very young squirrel and his friends and relatives probably thought him had strong and foolish for trusting a human is most probably Amanda friends and highly determined and foolish Ed foreign foreign when the Banyan Tree was full of small red figs Pigs Birds of all kinds would flock into the branches [Applause] [Music] cheerful and greedy gossiping Rossi pastors and parrots and grows squabbling with each other all the time foreign I had built a small platform on which I would often spend the afternoons when it wasn't too hot Village foreign made up my bag of very mixed treaty basically again okay okay friends I could look down through the Banyan leaves and at the world below and about um at grandma grandmother hanging up or taking down washing grandmother okay quarreling with a fruit vendor um foreign [Applause] foreign [Music] foreign foreign usually nothing very exciting happened while I was at the Banyan Tree but on one particular afternoon I had enough excitement to last me through the summer I had enough excitement to last me through the hour and I chicken time um that was the time I saw a mongoose and Cobra fight to death in the garden while it sat directly above them in the Banyan Tree fight to death in the garden okay okay it was an April afternoon it was in April afternoon okay afternoon and the warm breezes of approaching summer had sent everyone including the grandfather indoors I was feeling drowsy myself and was wondering if I should go to the pond behind the house for us foreign gliding out of a clump of cactus and making for some cooler part of the garden at the same time whom I had often seen emerged from emerge from the bushes foreign foreign foreign behind behind his long sharp fangs were full of deadly venom it was to be a battle of Champions hissing Defiance defines another disobedience huh his forked tongue darting in and out now the Cobra raised three of his six feet from off the ground and spread this broad spectacle Hooda the Mongoose boost his tail Mahal Tati the long hair on his spine stood up in the past is very the very thickness of his hair and had saved him from bites that would have been fatal to others thickness of his hair thickness mechanism okay ready foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign [Applause] and yes I deciding trying to Mesmerize mesmerized in order to have one's complete attention the mongoose into making a false hypnotizes okay but the Mongoose knew the power of His opponents glassy unwinking and refuse and digging eyes and refuse to meet them hypnotic abilities foreign just below the Cobra's hood and opened the attack s foreign foreign [Music] foreign foreign moving forward quickly until he was just within the cobras reach he made a faint to one side foreign Fane to one side immediately Cobra struck [Music] um came down so swiftly that I thought nothing could save the mongoose the little fellow the little fellow jumped neatly to one side and darted in as swiftly as the cobra mongos swiftly as the Cobra Justin English foreign biting the snake on the back and darting away out of fridge okay and out of freeze and again out of fridge foreign foreign foreign a few drops of blood clies in on the Cobra's bags the coke the cobras struck again and missed again the Mongoose prying as I jumped in and bites again the birds died at the snake bombed into each other is other instead and returns waking to the safety of the same career already the third round follow the same course as the first round which is but with one dramatic difference The Crow and the miner still determine to take part in the proceedings dived at the Cobra name but this time they missed each other as well as their Mark cooperation foreign foreign entity I saw the bird flung nearly 20 feet across the garden second course for a while it lays still cut away the minor remain on the cactus plant very wisely refrained from interfering very wisely foreign raised himself on the short links and with lightning snap had the big snake by the snout Bongos in a frightening Manner and even coiled itself about the Mongoose but all to no avail today on until the snake had ceased to struggle is foreign when I had also made I when I had also made a cautious decision is from the tree and return to the house I told grandfather of the fight I had seen your grandfather he was pleased that the Mongoose had won grandfather says he had encouraged to live in the garden to keep away the snakes foreign foreign from the Banyan Tree I often saw the Mongoose patrolling the four corners of the garden and once I saw him with an egg in his mouth and knew he had been in the poultry house and once I saw him with an egg in his mouth foreign [Music] the wide rad was grandfathers he had bought it from the bazaar for four hours but I would often take it with me into the roots and branches of the old the old tree branches Banyan Tree where it soon struck up struck up a friendship with one of the squirrels they would go off together on little excursions on the branches okay then the squirrel started building a nest squirrel At first she tried building it in my pockets and when I went indoors and changed my clothes I would find straw and grass falling out pockets grandmother's knitting was missing foreign foreign and amongst the wool were three baby squirrels all of them white color squirrels basically I don't know is grandfather had never seen the white squirrels before white squirrel either um okay uh grandfather had never happened we were puzzled for some time but when I mentioned that white rats frequent visits to the tree grandfather told me that the rat must be the father ah um foreign foreign foreign okay Indiana foreign result [Applause] foreign foreign till then bye bye and take care and all the best to all of my children thank you