That’s just some nonsense that I wrote when I had just come back from Ihla Grande. I went there in 2008 for only two days with a friend I had just met in Rio. The island, just off the coast from the city, proved to be a paradise. An absolutely stunning place.

But the best part of our brief stay at Ihla Grande weren’t the never ending white beaches, the colourful fish, the crystal clear water, or the wild monkeys in the jungle. It was the evening, when we sat in a room in a guest house where we seemed to be the only guests. We were playing mind games and “what would you choose, if you really had to choose?” games until we got stuck on animals, and on deciding whether it would be more great to be a dolphin or a falcon. The debate literally took us hours. Until we finally agreed on the fact that a falphin probably is the best animal one could be.

Happy falphin birthday, Nishant.