The bar was reasonably empty in the hotel. So much so, the better. It gave me a chance to grab a glass of wine, sit by myself and read a book. The white noise of folks chatting around me, customers joining and leaving offered me the perfect environment to be in my zone.

As I picked up my head from the book to take a sip of the wine, I heard the gentleman next to me say “1505”. Looks like Patrick, the bartender, had asked him for his room number to start a tab. I tried to get back to my book with some mild thoughts of “what if somebody overhears that and charges their drink to his room?”

That though was quickly disabused when Patrick asked “Last name?”. Of course, he was going to match up in his system to avoid exactly the kind of fraud I was thinking of.

“Mukherjee”, I heard the gentleman say as I tried to look for the spot in the book where I had trailed off.

That last name had me immediately intrigued. I waited for him to finish placing his order. Patrick soon withdrew from the scene to take care of other customers. I lifted my head, turned to my left and finally caught the visage of my bar neighbor. Seemed like a young, well dressed, Indian gentleman.

“Mukherjee, huh?”, I asked.
“Yes, sir”.
“That would make you a Bengali, right?”
“Yes. How do you know?”
“Well, it takes one to recognize one. Rajib Roy, by the way”.
“You speak Bengali?”
“Of course!”

As with all my intersection points, the rest of the time was spent exploring connections. Once I figured out he had gone to Presidency and was from Kolkata, I knew sooner or later I would find some common threads.

“So, where did you study in Kolkata?”
“Well, outside Kolkata. Narendrapur. It is a Ramakrishna Mission School”.
“I have a vague idea of it. I went there too!!”

Turns out he was in the same campus as I was – although 14 years later.
“Which bhavan?”
“Brahma. You?”
“Gourango”.

I fished out a picture of Prabasaj-da and I canoeing last Sunday and told Pinaki (that is his name, btw) – “You see this guy? We canoe together. He is from your old bhavan. This guy was All India 2 in IIT JEE”. I was hoping to impress him that I knew some smart people.

As I continued tracing his life, found out that he was in UK for some time. And also that he was into drama acting.

“Did you ever come across a Mausumi Das?”
“She was big time into drama”
“Yes. We went to school – and I mean from first grade – together!!”

And then it was his turn to enquire. I think he had started thinking about folks my age from Presidency or Narendrapur.

“Do you know Subhendu Dasgupta?”
I thought for a while and had to admit – “I can’t say I am remembering such a name.”
“Subhendu Das Dasgupta”
“Subhendu Das Dasgupta?”
“Yes. I think he goes by Das Dasgupta also.”
“Ah! You are thinking of Tathagata Dasgupta.”
“Oh yes! Tathagata. Why am I saying Subhendu? Do you know him?”

“Know him? Let’s see – we went to school together in Durgapur. We worked together in the same company in Dallas. His sister and my wife were classmates. We were in his place in California a couple of months back. And yes! I was talking to his wife Monalisa an hour back to wish her a happy birthday!!”

You can only imagine his reaction!!

We got Patrick to take a picture of us, exchanged our contacts and called it a night! We promised to see each other in Raleigh or Atlanta when our travel takes us to each others’ cities.

Today, I started traveling for work after a LONG time and the intersection points started flowing almost immediately!!

Still love talking to strangers. How else do you make new friends?

The irony is we live in the same city and we have talked so many times every year. Coretha and I worked together many moons back. After leaving our old company, she has been often my go-to person to get ideas and advise on Talent and Culture questions and often referrals for key positions. When Sharmila and I were vacationing in St. Pete earlier this week, we found out that she has a property there and we checked out her building too. But got to see her for the first time after nearly 10 years!!

My selfie skills are terrible and the sun was hitting our faces mercilessly when I attempted to take this picture!

We talked for a couple of hours but I forgot to ask Adam how we had met first. I believe it was in the coffee shop of Ballground, GA. We have met there a few times but we have ridden together only once.

I was aware of his terrific skill in building motorbikes. Some of the ones he built were incredibly beautiful. But, yesterday, I got to know a lot more about him. I had no idea about the adversities he had faced – starting from a bad car accident leading to back surgery which led to dependency on opiods from pain. And that was just the starting of the downhill journey…

It was an amazing story of life that went really really south. This involves multiple felony charges, probation officer, being homeless and penniless, carrying clothes in a trash bag always … not to speak of being spurned away by friends and loved ones…

And an equally inspiring story of how he finally managed to break thru all barriers and pull himself up together. It has been a long journey but he made it.

He is a happy man today – great job, makes extra money from his hobby of building motorbikes, a steady girlfriend, a solid roof over this head… I was so thrilled to be there at the Cigar Bar to hear his whole life story.

A few things I learnt from his story:

(*) Unless you make up your mind to change, nobody else can do that for you. The pain you have to fight (he equated the feeling to like being under water and having run out of air… ) can only come from you wanting to do it.

(*) It is never a monotonically going down or up in life. Even as your life goes down, it takes a few bright turns. And then when it finally pulls itself up, it still throws some curve balls.

(*) There are always a few people – almost always strangers – who step out of their way to help you. Such is humanity.

Now I need some lessons in how to build motorbikes from him!

I also want to put in a word for No Longer Bound – a faith based, residential long-term help to wean people away from addiction that Adam credits immensely for his turnaround!

So, there we were – Jay Jay and I, having a philosophical debate over a glass of wine and a plate of Kibbles (to avoid doubt, I had the wine). The topic de jure was “Who is really whose best friend?” We were at the peak of the debate – what triumphs what – keeping the family safe or cleaning his poop – when I thought I saw a nattily dressed couple walking by. They had not noticed me. But I recognized them from my past.

So, I simply got up, walked up to them and asked “Who let you in here?”

A couple of seconds later, there were yells of “RAJIB???”

And that is how I ran into my two old colleagues from 15 years back – Patricia Rosenfeld and her husband Claudio Brenna.

I had not seen them for over 10 years. Other than the birthday calls, I do not think I have had any other contact with them. They are still working in the same company. It was so great to hear about their progression in life and how the old company has continued in its winning ways.

I did not realize that their son and Natasha actually live very close to each other in Brooklyn. I also did not realize that Patricia and Claudio had moved to Key Biscayne. We agreed to try out some boating when we visit them there.

That was a very nice evening… (and not just because I beat Jay Jay in the debate)

Amit was in town for a family wedding. Thanks to Anand’s efforts, we were able to get together for a couple of hours. Madhav made it too but we missed Karthik.

Back in the mid 2000s, both Amit and I had left Dallas around the same time – he headed to India and I, to Atlanta. His interests in life is more varied than I have seen in anybody. I am fairly sure he is the friend I have that gets the title of “somebody I know with the highest number of followers in Twitter”.

We went over some awesome memories from the past. He and I were next door to each other in office and many a random lunches were spent together talking about stuff. (a safe guess would be complaining about things at work 🙂 ).

Today, there were couple of great debates in geopolitics. Really enjoyed the depths in the arguments from Madhav, Anand and of course, Amit!