Willie Weng!! Or as we Bengalis are prone to pronounce it – Billie Beng!!! (and to the veterans of that character building exercise called Toshiba project from i2 days – simply Wiilie-san!!)
A pleasanter person I have never met in my life!
Since my first meeting with him in 1995, he has been the example of personal humility that I have fruitlessly toiled to emulate…
Business trips to Dallas always means opportunities to quickly reconnect.
Ran (barely managed to keep up is a better way of putting it) 5 miles with Subrata. I had met him way back in 2001 – and they promptly left for China! (Yeah! I kind of have that effect on people 🙂 ) Our original connection was that my sister and his wife were elementary school classmates.
Next time I met him was in 2010 – Jan 1st when a bunch of us Bengalis went out for a run in Dallas to welcome the New Year.
Today, after the run, we sat down at the Starbucks to get to know each other a little more. Like me, he was born in a very small village! Unlike me, his rest of his growing up was in the same village. (That village got electricity after he moved to US).
Now get this. There is another small village nearby from there. Both our sisters are married to two guys from that other small village!! Same age group! We are trying to find out if they knew each other!! His brother-in-law’s dad was the headmaster of the school that my brother-in-law went to!!!
Go figure!!
Remember my point about intersection points!!! 🙂
What a great clash of brilliant lights!
Above is Mother Nature with one single star out of its billions of stars – long set over two hours back – last dying rays looking askance at the clouds – and lighting them up in resplendent hues.
Below is the indomitable Human spirit trying to match – light for light, ray for ray – with its innovation in electricity, halogen lamps, fluorescence, reflectors….
What a great similarity. What a great contrast!!
