It was a bit early in the morning. I’d already been up for over an hour in my hotel room. For all the enthusiasm I show about making my own coffee at home, I never feel like doing it in a hotel room. Instead, I wait for the lobby coffee shop to open. I suppose I enjoy the ritual — grab a cup, sit down, and absentmindedly watch people going about their day. Lobby, street, wherever. It turns into a kind of accidental mindfulness exercise.

So that day too, at 6 a.m., I wandered downstairs and got myself a cappuccino. Just as I was about to settle into my usual lobby chair, I thought I recognized a face. He was about ten yards away. I caught a quick side profile — and then, almost immediately, just the back of his head.

Now, I was staying at a Courtyard Marriott near Yale for work. And this gentleman is a Partner at a top strategy firm. What on earth would he be doing here?

After a couple of seconds of mental gymnastics, I took a shot in the dark.

“Neil?”

No response.

Now, this was actually a very calculated move on my part. Had I called out “Sudipto,” it would’ve been abundantly clear whom I was addressing — we were, after all, the only two Indians in the lobby. If I were wrong, things could’ve gotten awkward very quickly. But “Neil”? That leaves room for plausible deniability. If he turned out not to be my Neil, I could always just peer past him and pretend I was calling out to some other Neil. After all, every Courtyard Marriott is crawling with Neils at 6 a.m., right?

Encouraged by my own logic, I raised my voice a little louder.

He turned around.

Moment of truth.

And… nailed it.

It was Sudipto “Neil” Banerjee. After—what—twelve years? The last time must have been around 2014, when my in-laws were visiting and we dropped by his place. Since then, life had happened — moves to Germany, back again, new house, the usual chapters, you know.

Turns out he was in town with his kids for that inevitable parental rite of passage: college visits.

I didn’t get to meet the kids — they were still fast asleep upstairs — but I did get to spend some time catching up with Neil.

And it reminded me of something I probably don’t act on enough: every time I meet him, I walk away having learned something.

Which is reason enough to not let another twelve years slip by.