I have a niece in India – Shreya – who has some unparalleled God gifted talent in art. She had seen a picture I had posted of me playing the tabla and Jay Jay listening to me. Then she drew this for me and handed it over to Sharmila and Natasha (who are in India) as a gift for me.
I am blown away by how life like it is and the clever use of agitrons in a painting!
Best gift. Ever.
Made a lot of friends in Chiringa today. First, played some of the Nytimes games with McKenzie and Michael. Interestingly, McKenzie used to work in Pig Tales. Her sister still works there. I am sure I will see her one of these boatride days.
Then had a great time with Preet and his family. Exceedingly nice folks!
So, here I am in Puerto Rico. The main reason is to attend the wedding of somebody I know. Much younger to me, of course. I am on the board of the company that he is the CEO of. Turns out I was his mentor for a couple of years before that too. So, I show up with Sharmila at the Bacardi Distillery. It was a small and fairly intimate wedding.
Other than the bride and the groom I did not know anybody. Sharmila and I were intently watching the proceedings of the Indian wedding. All of ten minutes must have passed.
That “I did not know anybody”, bit? Completely unfounded.
Suddenly a gentleman in chic, traditional Malayali dress walks up to me and Sharmila.
“Rajib?”
“Guilty!”
“Hari. Hari Menon!”
“Wow! I would not have recognized you!!”
I knew Hari very well from the 90s. We had worked together. But I could not have picked him up from a crowd. He had however, recognized me in the gathering.
“Hari. Wait. What is your connection?”
“I am Vivek’s cousin”
“No way!”
The groom and I know each other for a few years now. In fact, he and his bride-to-be had gone out for dinner with Sharmila and me too. But we never figured out that we had such a common connection!!
Go figure!!
There are very few things as delightful to me as having a breakfast with this much decorated Lieutenant General. Most of our time was spent discussing geopolitics – from the two conflagrations in the Middle East to the Ukraine war which the American psyche seems to have already forgotten and the cooling down of the sabre rattling between China and America. We also exchanged points of views on where America is headed in the global stage what kind of America our kids are likely to see when they get to our age!
Given his service across all the continents, there is always new angles and nuances I pick up in geopolitics that otherwise would have escaped me.
Can’t wait to come back and have another couple of hours with him again!
After quite some badgering from Sharmila and a threat from DJPJ that if I did not upgrade my good old, much shattered iPhone 11 by this weekend, they were going to order one for me, I finally caved in and went to the Apple store with Sharmila. Got a new iPhone 15. Spent quite some time debating what color phone to choose. Picked my favorite one. Then promptly got a cover (hopefully less screen shattering) to completely hide the phone color. Go figure!!
Anyways, after all that, Sharmila and I went over to the bar next door in The Hotel. It was pretty empty. Ordered my Old Fashioned and then a salmon dinner.
I had not noticed that a gentleman had come and sat in a chair not too far from me. When Karmen went to him, he said – “I will have the same order as him”.
I looked at him. A young gentleman with head clean shaven and face with trimmed beard. I joked – “I like your hair style. I wonder why?”
We both laughed as he said “Rajib, you are always good with your one liners!”
WAIT!! WHAT?
And then I realized that it was Lucky Gilja!! Remember how I mentioned his head was shaven and he had beard? Well, last time Sharmila and I met him – four years back – it was the other way round! He had a headful of hair and a clean shaven face!!
We used to work together in the same PE firm a few years back. There is an interesting story about how I met him in an elevator and found out he grew up a hop, skip and jump from where I was living at that time!!
Lucky was in town for work and did not realize that we had changed homes and now live a walking distance from he was staying!!
We had a great evening!
Officially, the first photo taken on my new iPhone was by Karmen. “Lucky” omen, I say!!
After the 5K run, Sharmila and I went out for a walk. It was good weather to get all the miles and steps in. Except when we reached downtown Alpharetta, all that Indian food aroma wafting from Curry Up Now completely overpowered me.
Had some Chole Batura that was still dripping oil !! And a Frooti drink from India too!
Pilar and I last worked together about 10 years back and I think that was the last time I had seen her. After that, we had kept up thru phone calls. I give her a lot of credit for initiating phone calls to discuss stuff (mostly work related) and that meant I was able to follow her life journey throughout the years. (We lost our dads within a few days of each other)
We missed each other by a whisker in Miami last week. Remember the art show in Brickell Sharmila and I went to? Apparently she was there too with her friends! She is a painter herself and follows Sharmila, I believe, in social media. This week, we got a chance to meet in Atlanta since she was here for work.
That gave me a chance to sit down with her to learn the fascinating journey of her life. She has lived and worked in three different continents and has one of the most in depth understanding of different work and social cultures. I was impressed with her grit in dealing with multiple personal and life tragedies she has had to deal with (two of which were life threatening).
But the best part was – and Sumana, you might want to listen to this part – how well rounded she is. We talked about various aspects of our life – physical health, mental health, spirituality, family, work… in fact all the aspects of Level 10 life. I was captivated by how she takes intentional actions to keep up with all those facets of our being. That makes her a very uncommon lady in my books.
Pilar Bide, we have a lot to learn from you! May your tribe increase!!
You still owe me a crisp answer to the tombstone question though 🙂
It was a cold day but with bright sunshine. And I woke up at 9:30 AM – a clear 5 hours after what I am used to. That is because I did something I have not done in a long time – stayed up till 1AM with our neighbors over some lovely food and wine the previous night.
Since my morning routine was shot, decided to completely throw caution to the winds and do nothing that I am supposed to do on a Sunday per my crop circles.
Picked up Dipanjan and Parijat from their house and drove to Big Door Vineyards. After some great time there, we went to Black Rifle Coffee (one of my motorcycle route coffee shops) to wean off from the wine!!
Came home, skipped our daily evening bar routine and instead went off to sleep!!
