I don’t know if you all remember,
Two years ago in September
At a meeting held in this Hotel,
Ashwini kept us in a spell.
All ’s woes were narrated
But some solutions were then stated.
Scholarly speeches are our fashion
But Ashwini added so much passion!
And he has often had the chance
To show them , when in .
In fluent French he can tell
Why ’s doing very well.
If you had a trip to book
At Mercury or Thomas Cook,
Ashwini always showed the way-
How to go and where to stay.
Like me he is an Engineer
But in the arts he has no peer.
There is so much that he knows
He even loves to compose.
I think it is so very right
That Ashwini has been dubbed a knight.
You really have a heart of gold.
We welcome you to the fold.
I’ve ended the felicitation
But it’s not the end of the oration.
On behalf of IFTA and the ,
Two important links with ,
I warmly welcome our CG.
And I am sure that we will see
A surge of new activity.
At the ministry of ecology,
As Directeur de Cabinet
He had a very major say
In an issue that is very strange
Major global climate change.
After that he has been
The head of Press in .
An earlier stint was in ,
A land from which our gallant man
Also found himself a wife.
Such is now the global life.
I sent him my slim book of rhyme
And then he got back, in no time,
With a poem that was á propos.
Some of you, I think do know
I lived in a house by the Bay,
Which was later home to Charpentier,
Who passed it on to Demarquis
When he became the CG.
(I still recall for me he wrote,
All in verse, a farewell note.)
And now of course this home will pass
To M. François Pujolas!
I hope he will enjoy his stay
In the house by the Bay.
I now ask you all to stand
And give them both a rousing hand!
