If

 The word 'if' is magical. It lends itself to many unknown continuations, many possible endings. 

It's the beginning of imagination, in a way. And we all imagine the world, beginning with if..

If only, my last name was Ambani, or Biyani. I had a student, whose last name was Bihani, by the way..a narrow miss. Right now, Mallya is not a cool name to have, though it was, once.. in spite of the performance of his IPL team.

While growing up, we thought all Anglo-Indian names were cool. No idea why..now, a Nadkarni or Kulkarni looks cool to me. If only we had more sense then,..

If man had been vegetarian, would the Corona crisis have struck? Maybe not, but the plague could still have..rats spread it, I think..and rats and cockroaches are almost indestructible. So there's no escaping pandemics.. and wars are always a good substitute.

In my 60 years on the planet, there were many times I thought of the word if and sentences that started with that word, but now, I am beginning to believe that I really did not need the Ifs. I am quite happy with the way life turned out so far, and the lovely times I have had- even in the current lockdown, because of socialising virtually.