NO, ADAM AND EVE WERE NOR THE FIRST LOVERS, THE SON AND THE MOON WERE

It was one more day when I was walking drunk in the lanes of Juhu with my photographer R.D.Rai, Juhu looked more beautiful than it is and has been, was it really beautiful or was it the liquor that had gone into me making me see it as a beautiful place? - ALI PETER JOHN

I came across Sagar Villa, the bungalow of Dr. Ramanand Sagar who lived with his five sons and their families under one roof.

I felt like doing some work and walked into Sagar Villa and told Dr. Sagar that I wanted to do a photo session with him in his library and in the different places he wrote and read in.

My photographer was having the time of his life because for him Ramanand Sagar was as good as god especially after he had made Ramayana.

I finished my talk with Sagar sahab and womdered how he couldn't find out that I was drunk.

My mission was successful and I kept walking all over Juhu, till I saw a board on which was written Nature Cure Hospital.

I wanted to take one last chance of kicking away my addiction and went into the hospital.

A strange man dressed all in white and with matching shoes and hair welcomed me and before I could tell him anything, he said ," I know what is wrong with you, but I don't have any cure for you and I don't even have a room for you now, you come on Monday or call me, I will give you a room and you can stay there and if you are lucky you may get cured with our medicines". It was a very big test for me because I had become a slave of alcohol.

It was a Saturday, the next day was Sunday and I thought about the doctor's solution to my problem and took a decision to get admitted, but I needed permission from my editor to go on leave which I had never taken, she was kind to give me the permission and on Monday morning, I went to a bar which opened at 4 in the morning and drank as if I had no future and when I woke up, I was lying on a bed in Nature Cure Hospital with the man in white saying that I didn't even know whether I was going or coming, but he had admitted me on humanitarian grounds.

I spent the next one month in the hospital and was not even allowed to go out of my room ( so much like the lockdown, isn't it? ).

Twenty days later Dr. Krishnatrai gave me permission to go for a walk around the hospital. And what folllowed in the morning was nothing short of a miracle.

I had not drawn to church for seventeen long years, I had forgotten all my prayers, but as I walked around the hospital all my prayers came back to me and I felt like going back to church again but the good doctor said he couldn't give me permission to go to church, but I could to a cross on the beach and pray, I don't know what got into me, but I started going to the cross every morning.

The world renowned wrestler Dara Singh came to see me in the hospital and requested Dr. Krishnatrai to give me permission to attend his daughter's wedding reception and Dr. Krishnatrai gave me the permission but told me that if I even touched alcohol, he would not allow me to enter the hospital again. I passed the first test.

Friends like Feroz khan , Vinod Mehra and writer K.K. Singh met me regularly for the next few days and Dr. Krishnatrai was growing more lenient into his attitude towards me.

And it was finally decided that I would be discharged on May 4, I had completed one full month in the hospital, but I kept writing everyday.

It was just one more day to go before I was discharged and I was going for my last round, it was around six in the morning and I looked up and what I saw still sends me into a world I can't even imagine.

I could clearly see the moon and the sun meeting and then embracing each other, the moon had finished her duty and the sun was about to join his duty, but the way they looked at each other for a few minutes made me wonder what they must be saying to each other since they were going to bid farewell to each other for the next twelve hours.

I have been in love, I have written books about love, I think I believe no one ,not even the great lovers in history have loved like me, but when I saw the moon and the sun meeting and embracing each other just before the night could end and the day used to begin, I bowed before thw greatest lovers of all time and even before time.

After seeing the love of the greatest lovers , my ability to love has grown much more strong and intense and I have started loving the world and its people more than I used to love them before.