After about 7 years of seeing my parents and inlaws every three months, I had to go on a long hiatus. Unfortunately, we lost my father in law this year. So, Sharmila made the trek two times in the last two quarters. Now it is my turn again!

I have not seen my parents in 9 months. Like I said, the last time this happened, it was 2011. I am very excited. But I also am very confused. Let me explain…

Getting to see my old parents so often – one who got felled by a brain stroke and one who is a psychiatric patient – is one of the best memories I will ever have long after they are gone. I distinctly remember sitting at our Sunday evening bar in Milton, Sharmila had asked what was the big idea about earning money if we could not utilize it to see our own parents. Point made.

But the visits do not come without complications. The condition my mother suffers from, ironically, makes my trips somewhat of a curse. It shoots up her stress levels. Over the years, I have learnt the art of telling white lies. First, I just don’t tell them I am coming. Second, I always tell them that I have eaten outside or that I have some other engagements and cannot eat at home. The overwhelming desire for a Bengali mother to cook food for her son plays havoc with her obsessive compulsive disorder to a point that she just freezes up. But my brother and I have developed a routine around those white lies – that everyday culminates with “We need to order dinner in tonite”. I think my mom is still convinced that the local guy will not sell me wine for the evening if we do not buy dinner too!

That is the routine I look forward to. Last time I saw my dad in April, he was able to grip a ball with his right hand and throw it a few feet. He was walking few feet too with his walker (duly followed by my mom with a chair in hand in case he collapsed).

But here is the confusion. Experience has taught me that when it comes to visits from their son, frequency beats length. Four trips of two days each is exponentially more enjoyable to them than one trip of eight days.

This is one of my longest trip to India. Actually THE longest trip to India by myself. Instead of staying with my parents for eleven days, I intend to make it three tips of a day or two each. Which leaves me with some time to visit places, create intersection points etc.

Except that my ever reliable partner – my brother – is out of town for work and won’t be back till a a few days before I leave. That puts a big cringe on what I can do.

Outside of visiting my parents, I would like to meet old teachers, relatives, friends. old classmates, elderly people – like I always do to remind myself of my roots. And also see if I can dash to a quiet place for a day or two just to reflect on the year that was and how I can be a better person next year.

Do you folks have any ideas on what I can do while in India?

If morning shows the day, this trip should have some good intersection points. Ran into Sudeshna and her son Ishaan at the airport. Turns out they are headed to Kolkata too! They are going from New York to Dubai to Kolkata. And my route takes me to Doha to Bangalore to Kolkata.

It was great to catch up with Ishaan. The last time I saw him was exactly a year back – on Christmas Day again. He was playing on the keyboard while Sudeshna sang at Avijit and Bani’s house!

Off to India now!

24 hours of flying later, one more flight to catch…
Looking at the sign, I suddenly remembered something- why is there a stairway to Heaven but highway to Hell?

That was one hilarious evening. With the cold weather outside, I was huddled with my parents inside the house. I was, in fact, showing them the pictures I had been taking the whole day on my phone. My dad has shown great interest in all the pictures the phone is able to take. Suddenly, I had this brainwave of messing up their brains by showing off Siri to them.

That is when the fun and chaos ensued!

I challenged my father to name some uncommon countries. Siri named the capitals with ease. Dad was super impressed. He had two immediate questions –

“Koto daam etaar?” (How much does it cost? – yes, he is still the one wanting to make sure he is getting value for his money).
His second question was “Exam hall-e niye jetey debey?” (He was curious if kids can take the phone to the test centers).

Then I turned to my mom.
“Ask Siri a question”, I said.
Before she could come up with one, my dad interjected “Abaar manusher golaa-y uttor daiy” (He was letting my mom know that a human voice will answer her questions)

Not sure what was going on in my mom’s head, but the first thing she asked Siri was “How long will I live?”. I stopped Siri immediately and told my mom that she had to ask questions that are knowable. Nobody knows how long anybody will live.

He next attempt was “Rima ki korchhe ekhon?” (She asked Siri what my niece was doing at that moment).

I again stopped Siri. “Mom, ask some general knowledge questions”.
“Theek aachhey. Haatir kota dnaat?” Again, I have no idea what goes on in mom’s head but her idea of asking Siri a general knowledge question was – “How many teeth does an elephant have?”

“26”, said Siri – much to the surprise and distrust of my mom.
“Bhool bollo. hnaatir to duto dnaat”. My mom is under the impression that elephants have only two teeth.
“I think you are thinking of the tusks. Elephants have many more teeth in the mouth. How else can they chew those branches and leaves?”, I pointed out.

Thoroughly impressed, my mom went off with a retinue of animals..
“How about a horse?”. “40”, said Siri
“Lion?” “30”
“Tiger?” “30”
“Dog?” “42”
“Monkey”? “32”

“Dhur dhur dhur. Eto jontu thaaktey manusher sesh kaaley bnador-er saathey dnater mil holo?”. Apparently, my dad did not take it well that humans chose to have the same number of teeth as the simians.

“Siri, what is my mother’s name?”, I asked
“Manju Rani Roy”, she said. Now, my mom was really pleased. As a background, my mom was born Manju Roy. After her marriage, my dad added that middle name of “Rani”. While she went by Manju Roy, most of her official documents carry her middle name.
“Hey! She got the “Rani” part too”, she exclaimed. (Of course, Siri just picked it up from my contact book – but my mom was never the wiser for it).

My dad suddenly piped up – “Gul maarchhey kina ki kore jaanbi?”. He asked how would we know if Siri was just making all this stuff up? I was going to say – Oh! We can cross check with Alexa but I thought the better of it.

My mom was beyond belief at the power of Siri. She told dad – “Dyakh – sob kichhu jane” (Look, she knows everything).

My dad disagreed with that. “Sob kichhu jaaney na”.
He continued to argue…

“Taholey to police-er sob subidha hoye jeto. Desk opor paa tuley jiggesh korteo – “Ke chor?” Aar omni ghaar dhorey chor ke jail-e purto”.

His point was if Siri knew everything, the police would have nothing to do. They would just sit in a chair with their feet up on their desk and ask Siri “Whodunit?” And consequently nail all the culprits without much of a fuss.

I had a hearty laughter!!

My mom’s final curiosity was if Siri could translate English to Bengali. Apparently, then she could talk to Natasha and Nikita fluently. Unfortunately, Siri could not.

My dad felt I should make something like Siri in Bengali (”erokom eta tui baaniye fyal. Dekhi himmot koto tor”)
I am on to it. I even have the name ready – “Bis-Siri” 🙂 (Bissiri is a Bengali slang for “terrible”)

Nice, cool morning with slight breeze.

Made friends with some random senior folks!!!

He has surrounded himself with all sorts of religious books. There is the Upanishad, Bhagwad Gita, Bible, books on Ramakrishna, Saroda Ma… and inexplicably – perhaps to drive the messages home? – a HAMMER!!! 🙂

Every year, during my December trip, I give him a calendar. It usually has pictures of Sharmila, Natasha, Nikita and myself. Many of those pictures are taken from our different trips that year and some memorable events of the year for us.

He waits for that calendar every year and pores thru each and every picture and usually has a lot of questions. He then puts it up on the wall and every month flips the page to see the new pictures.

I also put in every family members’ birthdays in the calendar. He never bothers about that part 🙂

When I am in Kalyani, I rarely get a chance to have a lot of time solely with my brother in law. First, more often than not, my brother is with us. As is my sister. This time though, my brother is away in Delhi for work and my sister is down with back spasms.

That gave me a rare opportunity to get some quality time with my brother in law. He is a rock solid support for my dad. My dad gets to see him everyday. Add to that the fact that he is a doctor. For my dad, he is the son that he has grown to rely on every single day.

Spent a lot of time talking to him this time. Over a lot of fluids. If it was daytime, it was over tea. If after sunset, it was over some sort of liquid which had OH molecules!! While not much of an alcohol drinker, Asok kept up with his usual habit of giving us company while drinking. Usually a spoonful of alcohol with three bottles of soda and some sugar to boot… but he insists on giving company.

He is fun to have around…

Also, very handy. Every time I go to a medical store, I introduce myself as Dr. Asok’s brother in law. I am immediately pulled to the front of the queue and also then given a 10% discount!!!

… without the youngest member – the quietest one and the one who does all the heavy lifting for the family.
Chiradeep Roy, you were missed this trip.
Then again, when your professional life takes precedence over your family life – I guess that is called “prospering” in life.

… he came down to say Good Bye to me. (albeit temporarily – I will be back in a few days). On this day last year, he was surrounded by all his grandkids. None of us were even sure what future had written for him. Having suffered a debilitating brain stroke, he lost his right side to paralysis and cognitive abilities to the ether.

From there, he has fought back hard. Physically, he can get up and walk with a walker. Even come down to say Good Bye. That was unthinkable a year back.

His memory and cognitive power is not fully back but enough for him to function.

I work at hospices every week. This would be considered a miracle turnaround there.

Last year, this was the same guy who used to yell thru the night and it would take four of us to keep him from hurting himself thru the night. That was just twelve months back!!! We had all sorts of doom’s day scenarios conjured up. This is not the scenario we had even thought of!!!

Suddenly, saying Good Bye is no more a painful thing. It is a sheer delight that he can even say Good Bye!!

Having said adieu to my parents this morning, I entered Kolkata an hour later. First stop was to visit Mrs. Mukherjee. You might remember this nonagenarian lady who had struck me as an incredibly independent minded, strong willed person in the past. One of my trips in the past to check on her, she was filling up Form 15-H (some Indian bank related stuff) by herself and refused to take help. She had a walker but never bothered using it.

“Bent, may be. But never broken”, is how I had described her.

Recently though, she had been felled by more physical complications and a terrible sodium deficiency issue that threatened to defy my description of her. She was starting to lose her will and independence.

As an aside, I am a little familiar with the sodium deficiency thing. We almost lost my dad to it in March 2005. As a personal observation (and this is my personal opinion only), most people in India are taking way too much medicines. Suffering, it would appear has taken the foreground to Pain. The willingness to prescribe medicines as well as the patients’ willingness to believe that chemicals solve all sufferings has reached a crescendo. (Again, this is entirely my personal observation).

The one downside of taking in all sorts of medications is that those medicines – being chemicals – often react with each other. In US, we are used to doctors being a lot more strict about knowing what all medications we take beforehand to try to avoid precisely this kind of reactions. Precipitous sodium deficiency is almost always a reaction of medicines a person is taking. (you can trace this back to new medicines – sometimes same medicines but different companies).

The good news is that this is treatable if action is taken promptly. And I saw this morning precisely that good news emerging. Mrs. Mukherjee is fighting back. She can hold up her energy till about mid morning. She gets bed ridden after that. And also loses her mental strength. I was afraid that I would just see her sleeping in the bed and after spending half an hour sitting next to her, I would leave.

I was not expecting to see her at the door in her wheel chair and when I asked her if she recognized me, she would say that she did not remember my name but I was Tabun’s (Amitesh’s) friend.

Had some precious moments with her.

I also want to give a shout to her son and her daughter in law. Having seen – up, close and personal what primary care giving is all about (both at the hospices and at home with my father), I have to doff my hat to Animesh-da and Smriti-boudi for the incredible effort. This being a lady patient, I have to believe Smriti-boudi is taking care of a lot of the details that we probably cannot even imagine. May the tribes of women like them – Smriti-boudi, Nilza, Ariel, Lillian – increase!!

Always impressed by every Mukherjee family member – in Kolkata and in Atlanta.

We don’t need no education that takes nephews away from family members – even an admittedly self-described “amazing” “jethu” (uncle) – because of some stinking tests that one has to ace.

That said, I would not give up anything to get a chance to see these two – even if for a short-lived 30 minutes visit at their place during a break in their studies.

I have gone from relying on these two receiving me at the airport every single time to waiting for them to get out of school so that we can have some free time together again…

Now you know why my life long ambition has been to never grow up. I refuse to do it even now.

Let me see if I can recreate all the ways we are different… In this picture you see…

Two are born Bengalis and one is not…
Two have married Bengalis and one has not…
(for that matter), Two who are married and one is not…
Two have lived in Chennai and one who has not…
Two live in America and one does not…
Two are from Corporate and one is not…
Two studied Economics for graduation and one who did not
Two who are bereft of hair on their head and one who is not…
Two who are from the same dorm in their MBA school and one who was not…

… I can keep going like this…

Not sure what strings thru the three other than having studied MBA together and being in Kolkata fortuitously together today at the same time.

The discussions were as lively as I would have expected in my MBA days. I saw Prakash (man, can I just say “Flojo”? – I struggle to even remember him as “Prakash”) after nearly 28 years. I saw Abhijit (again, “Goofy” is what I remember him as) a few years after a chance meeting at a bar a couple of years back.

Some of our discussions were a little mundane e.g. “How many of our batchmates that went around with other batchmates eventually tied the knot?” (the answer is “1” out of “way too many”). But some were a little more philosophical – “What have we learnt after leaving MBA school?”

There were some personal learnings for me in the discussions. Abihijit’s take on how he has learnt what he is good at and what he is not is something I am going to ponder over for some more time. But Prakash’s point on “it is fun to see the world from the others’ point of view” (he is in Advertising, by the way) is something I could relate to immediately.

Personally, I am still confused what the MBA classes, per se, taught me. What I have no doubt on is what I have learnt from the folks that I went to MBA classes with. Today’s lunch was a great reminder of that.

Abhijit, we live literally three hours of drive apart. Let’s not make Kolkata the only place we meet.
Prakash, for crying out loud, your sister AND your sister in law is in the US. Let’s make that maiden voyage there. I will come out and see you there. You are absolutely worth it!

It was December, 1979. We had just moved to a new neighborhood. I was yet to be a teenager. One of the first kids who came to introduce themselves were these two brothers – barely 5 and 3 years old then. Found out their names were pretty long – so they went by Bhoju and Paku. Also found out that their mom was a schoolteacher like mine – although very different schools.

For the next few years, before I left home at the age of 16, Paku and Bhoju were part of our neighborhood games like soccer and cricket every evening. And during holidays and vacation, we would gather to play in the morning too.

The thing I remember most about Bhoju (the younger one) is how pleasant and uncomplaining he used to be even in those days. There were positions in the teams that were unpopular – goalkeeper for soccer or the one near the boundary line for cricket – since they were not too close to the action. It was difficult to convince anybody to man those positions. Except Bhoju. He was always willing to go stand wherever he was asked to. Never said No. More importantly, he would put in his heart and soul into the game from there!!

I had lost touch with both the brothers over time. And then thru a common friend – Antara – who had moved into the same house after we left that neighborhood too – had helped me get hold of Bhoju.

If you go to my blog – www.rajibroy.com and go to the posts of Nov 6, 2013, you will read about how I had finally cornered Bhoju in a cafeteria of a bank building in London where he was doing some projects and I had stopped by in London for half a day.

From then on, I have kept up with the brothers – certainly with those birthday phone calls. Also got to know about their wives and kids thru Facebook.

Finally, yesterday – lot of thanks to Tathapi (Bhoju’s wife) – I was able to meet the whole Chakraborty family in one place. Both the brothers and their families were there. So was Swapna masi and Chakraborty kaku!!!

As you can imagine – it was a great evening remembering those good old childhood days. We talked about the “masi” (lady) who worked as a help in their house (my neighborhood peeps who are reading this might remember her famous words after she got exasperated with the two brothers – especially Paku – “Bagaaitey pari nai, jhikimiki legey jaay” ). We talked about those neighborhood games… those “pochisey boishak” skits we used to put up and those hilarious non-acting we used to do!

The hours just went by. Eventually, it was time for me to take leave.

It was great to see everybody in the Chakraborty family. But the most heartening was to see that both Kaku and Masi are keeping up with their good health!!

Till next time!

During my trips to India to check on my parents, a must-do is to swing by Durgapur (about three hours of drive from my parents’ place) for a day. Usually, my father in law would enquire about the folks he met when he visited us in the USA and about the various things he saw in our house. (The pool was his favorite). My mother in law and I would, in general, keep arguing about why I was not eating all sorts of food she would have had prepared and sticking to my routine of a cup of tea.

This was the first time I was visiting her after my father in law passed away a few months back. It was a wee bit strange to me to enter the house knowing that he is not there. I was also not sure where my mother in law’s mental state was.

Last month when Sharmila came to check on her, one of her relatives had mentioned about the blogpost I had written about my father in law. My mother in law consumes her digital devices only in a minimum 31 inch screen size (her constant companion – the TV) but when it comes to a phone or Facebook, she is totally a reluctant neophyte. She had asked if somebody could read out the blog to her some time.

This time before I left home, I had collected about twenty of my blogs with my father in law’s pictures in them and printed them out for her.

As you can see from the picture here, she pored over the articles and read them slowly and painstakingly. The article she is reading here IS the one that the relative had mentioned. The story was about me meeting my father in law’s American manager (Charlie from TVA) when he had just entered job life.

My mother in law would read one line at a time and then lament that my father in law would have been so happy to hear that I had met Charlie or she would ask me all sorts of questions about Charlie (how old is he? is he tall?). I did not let her on to anything.

That slow reading and continuous interruptions continued for a good half an hour. Then it stopped as she started reading up the end of it. Finally, she finished it and looked at me. She realized it was just a dream.

You could see she was choking up too much fighting her tears to say anything.

I sat there quietly.

Five minutes or so later, she got up and quietly said “Lekhata khub bhalo hoyechhe”. (She liked the writeup)

Every family has one of these guys. The ultimate go-to guy. For us, it is my maternal uncle (mother’s only brother). Long time back, my father had helped him get a job in the same company he used to work in and had moved him to Durgapur.

Ever since, he is a permanent feature in our lives. Always the person we turned to when we needed help. I needed to be rushed to the hospital after being felled by typhoid? He was the one who took me. While his wife was having a baby at the same time in the same hospital!

Rushing my dad to Kolkata by train when we almost lost him to sodium deficiency? Again, my uncle was the guy! A total rock solid stand up kind of person. Our family – I suspect like many others – are filled with emotional decision makers with a particular penchant for the drama. Not this guy. It used be fun growing up watching him articulate very logically constructed, see-from-both-sides arguments to any decision making that was at hand.

It has never been the case that I was in Durgapur and I did not visit him. However, over the years, most of the time was spent catching up with my cousins (his three kids) and then when the nephews and nieces started happening, playing with them. Last ten years or so, I have spent most all of my visit time with his youngest grandkid – who is one ball of energy.

Yesterday was different. Nobody was home. My cousin and his family was out for the day. I spotted my uncle walking down the street as I entered. I asked my driver to drop me there and started walking along with my uncle.

We came back home and chatted for another hour. It was the first time after a long long time, I got one on one time with him. It was a great throwback to those years about four decades back. Those logically constructed arguments, that ability to see everything from both sides of a position – everything is still there! Best part was catching up on our common memories of my grandfather and grandmother.

I hope to get many more opportunities in the future…

I had finally managed to track down Smitan – or “Buri”, as we used to call her – a few months back. She is one of the last neighborhood kids that I have managed to find. I spent about three years in that neighborhood and had friends in ten of the twelve houses. I am down to one last house after this.

The last time I saw Buri was when my sister got married – that is a good two and a half decades back! I had received a few updates here and there in between. I had heard about Buri getting married and then about her dad (“Dutta Kaku”, as we call called him) passing away suddenly. But never had managed to talk to her till a couple of months back.

Surprised her last evening by walking into their house unannounced!! We continued with the reminiscing of those days right where I had left them with Bhoju and Paku a couple of days back! Got a chance to meet her husband and daughter too!

I am sure her daughter thinks I am a cool uncle because I told her everything that no other grown ups tell her – like studying to do well in tests is not really that important in life and that she should pursue what she wants to pursue (which is English, by the way) and so on…

I am not terribly sure Buri is going to open the door next time, at this rate 🙂

After reaching my mother-in-law’s house, I had called up my brother-in-law and let him know that I was with her. He, in his turn, decided to come over to Durgapur too. Five hours later, he was there. I went back to their place in the evening. With a bottle of wine and some dinner that I had picked up from one of the restaurants.

Well, my mother-in-law did not partake of any of the wine but you would not have realized that given the amount she was laughing. What was remarkable was that my brother in law mentioned that that was the first time he had noticed her laughing like that after losing her husband.

Tried my best to take a couple of pictures of her laughing without making her too conscious about it. This was the best that I could do…

I used to visit this guy almost everyday if I was in Durgapur. I really liked him. Or was it his sister? I forget now.
But it is true that he and I used to be pretty close at one point of time. Marrying his sister fixed that problem!!
Like clockwork, I would show up at his house in my dilapidated Vijay Deluxe scooter on winter mornings and he would still be in his sleeping clothes. He would just put a couple of layers on and we would sit out in the sun outside their house and talk about – whatever it is that we used to talk about in our twenties. Till his mom would declare that his sister had finished cooking noodles for us.
We did EXACTLY that today. Admittedly, I did not have my scooter with me. And I have gotten tired of his sister… errrrr… I mean noodles 🙂 But the rest of the stuff was as much fun… if not more…

For the Bengali-wise challenged, that Bengali sentence on the top of the back of this pick up truck that could barely move with all the weight it was carrying is asking you not to be too jealous of the truck … the financing installments are still being paid for 🙂

The backside of all these vehicles are usually a smorgasbord of exhortations. This one for example, is leaving nothing to chances and has written messages in three different languages. There is one that is a mix up of two languages – “Horn Maro”. It would mean honk your horn. For some unknown reason, if you get behind any of these vehicles, they want you to raise a ruckus like it is a fourth down and inches situation and the opposing team has decided to go for it!!!

It also wants you to stop. Perhaps it does not like all that ruckus after all.

And that line in Bengali? For a vehicle that is clearly on the wrong side of the road, that sentence is reminding you to obey the rules of the road!

If that was not confusing enough for you, they have put a red traffic light and a green traffic light for you. This would not be Indian hospitality and humility at the end of the day, if they had not put that “namastey” in Hindi in between those two confusing lights!!

🙂

Thanks to Facebook and my insane habit of posting, I found out from Maitreyi this morning that she was in Durgapur today too. My first reaction was – “Maitreyi?” Meaning “Rini?” Of the “Cholo Rini, Cholbe?” fame?

I HAD TO SEE HER.

The story goes back to my previous post. This was when I was to hang out at Sharmila’s place all the time. Mr. and Mrs. Sur was their next door neighbor. They had two kids. One very docile and goody-goody boy called Kunal – probably about five years old. And a firecracker of a girl – around three years old. And that would be our aforementioned Rini.

Rini, as was her wont often, would find herself into Sharmila’s house and just park herself there and talk up a storm with any and everybody who would give her attention. One of those days, I guess, she had stayed on for too long. Mrs. Sur sent Kunal to retrieve her sister.

Kunal, if not anything else, was surely mortally afraid of her younger sister. Asking him to tell her to do something against her wishes was like sending him to the gallows. I still remember that day – Kunal gingerly walking up to the front room of Sharmila’s house and almost bleating out to his sister – “Cholo Rini, cholbey?”. Roughly translated, he was fishing for her overall take on the concept of going back home when it was too late. No points for guessing but Rini pretty much told him exactly what she thought of the concept of telling her to go home when she was not ready.

The rest of the day has always been a blur to me. Till date, I cannot stop laughing remembering that event. For ever that brother and sister was tagged with that “Cholo Rini, Cholbey?” identity in my mind.

You can see their picture in the inset. Rini was literally as old as her son is – who I had the fortune of meeting and befriending today. I think he figured that I matched his IQ and warmed up to me quickly.

Mrs. Krishna Sur has been the original inspiration for Sharmila to venture out of her educational profession (architecture) and pursue her love for paintings. Being an unparalleled artistic person herself and one of the most successful entrepreneurs Durgapur has produced till date, she has been a great influence on Sharmila during her formative years and later.

It was absolute the icing on my Durgapur visit cake to see the Sur family. Thank you Maitreyi for reaching out this morning. Memories of a lifetime gathered today.

It is barely 5 hours into the new year and I am already at an airport jumping on to a plane…

Let’s hope this year too shall pass with “flying” colors!

That too 46 years later!!
I recollect it was 1973. Somewhere in the middle of the academic year, I suppose. Our favorite Bengali teacher – Mrs. Dhar – had given a class test. One of those words was “Aam” (meaning “mango” in Bengali). In my infinite wisdom, I had forgotten to put a small vertical line – thereby making it “Am” – which has no meaning in Bengali. Even I knew that! However, that ill fated missing vertical line cost me a mark and I scored 9 out of 10. I distinctly remember coming back home and facing my dad; it was – well, let’s just say an extremely unpleasant experience! I am sure I started putting extra vertical lines all over my Bengali answer sheets thereafter – because, you know, who wants to get thrashed by their dad? 🙂

Well, that spelling mistake is my first living recollection of Mrs. Dhar. I vividly remembered her visage and I also knew that she had triplets – Rinku, Minku and Tinku. (triplets were pretty uncommon in Durgapur).

I had come dangerously close to finding her a couple of years back when I had traced Rinku-di in California. I had even sent her a Facebook request explaining that I was trying to get hold of her mom. Not sure if she ever saw that but I hit a wall on that trail. Eventually, last year I found out Mrs. Dhar’s phone number. Which led to one of those awkward – “You won’t remember me – but I was your student in 1973” phone calls. I was afraid that she would take it to be a crank call. So, before she could slam the phone down on me, I threw the kitchen sink of my memories from those days at her including naming all my other teachers and exactly how the classroom roof looked (it was a crazy semicircular roof).

Having thus established by bona fide purpose, I had the chance to talk to her a couple of times more – all the time looking for a chance to go to Pune. By the way, in a complete twist of fate, I was in Pune a little over a year back to meet Mrs. Biswas – my English classroom teacher from tenth grade – from a different school. I had no idea that Mrs. Dhar was in the same city. Better yet, I never realized Mrs. Biswas was related to Mrs. Dhar. All I had to do is ask!! Go figure!!!

Well, what do you know? A flight to Bombay and an exhausting drive to Pune later, I was there ringing the bell at Mrs. Dhar’s door last morning. For a near-nonagenarian, she looked great and seemed to be in even better spirits. Very active socially and physically, she is an example to me on what I should be when I grow up.

We caught up on a million things – our old school, her daughters, my daughters, our old teachers, some of my batch mates and what not.

I am not sure I will get a chance to see her again (I sure hope I will). But I am just tickled pink that I was able to see her again after those Bengali class days of first grade – a full 46 years back!!

Like you have heard me say before – I am not sure I have ever made something of myself. Or, for that matter, ever will. But whatever it is that I am, a big part of it is the cumulative effect of some incredible influences of elders, teachers and friends around me from my formative years. I hope Mrs. Dhar will accept my visit to see her as a sincere form of saying “Thank You” for that influence.

Woke up at 3am this morning to catch a very early flight back to Kolkata to re-visit my parents. Sat down in my seat and was patiently waiting for us the pull out of the gate when this lady boarded the plane, sat caddy corner from me and then put her bag down near her feet. The stewardess came by to remind her that she is in an exit row and the bag needs to go in the overhead bin.
The lady promptly gave the bag to the stewardess (to put it in the bin) but not before she took out a whole bunch of freshly made paratha (kind of Indian bread) and put it right in the seat pocket in front of her!
First time in my long life of flying, I have seen this happen. Can’t wait to see what will happen once are air borne. I am sure the “achar” is still sitting in her purse in the overhead bin!!! 🙂

Maneesh and I met each other for the first time when we found ourselves in the same project in our very first job way back in 1991 in Mumbai (then referred to as Bombay). He was one of those very sincere, very sharp in software coding and a very shy kind of person. (As an aside, he is still very sincere and super sharp in technology – maybe not as shy; but hey! two out of three counts!!)

We came to US together – again, for a common project. Citibank had shipped us to Florida in the same flight. Eventually, both of us were shipped to Dallas together. And at some point of time, I left Citi but he continued. Over the years, we have some contacts (after all, who can escape my birthday calls 🙂 ) . The thing I knew about him was that he had started a company – Sena – which was into online security. As online banking took off, Maneesh and Sena did extremely well. Eventually he sold the company. By then he had moved back to India.

Ever since, he has focused his time and effort in social entrepreneurship (something he has grown a deep liking for after getting his MBA from Stern) and investing in start up companies.

I missed Maneesh last time I was in Pune. Not this time!! In fact, he was waiting downstairs at my Bengali teacher’s building to pick me up and settle down at a coffee shop. I obviously had a lot of questions for him. I am not an entrepreneur. That bug never bit me. Ergo, I am always intrigued by people who do that. I am curious about how their brains compute the risk-return curve.

Learnt a lot from Maneesh last afternoon during our meeting for a couple of hours – specially, the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.

“What have been the key learnings in the last few years, Maneesh?”, I asked.
After a few thoughtful moments, Maneesh offered – “Probably two”.

“First,” he explained “is the important of sticking to something. You may be good at something. You may not be. You may have early successes. Or you may not. Regardless, if you continue to persevere – eventually, you are going to succeed. May not be exactly the way you thought – but you will definitely succeed”.

He even suggested that not having early success might be a boon since that tends to wean out the competitive field quickly.

“And second learning?”
“The importance of networking. Whatever it is that one tries to do in life, one cannot do by oneself alone. You always need people who can give you that extra push or get you that all-important break. You need to cultivate your network assiduously. Conversely, you should help out people who reach out to network with you. Most people start networking when they need help not before. That is a mistake”.

In other words, your network can be your net worth.

It was not all work. We wasted no time picking on our great buddies over funny incidents from the past. No point taking names – but let’s say Srini, for example 🙂 🙂

Maneesh, thank you for making time for me. I have always admired you for building your own path. But I am even more in awe of you realizing how you are spending your time today helping others!

Till next time!

Last time I was in Pune, I came tantalizingly close to meeting my classmate from fifth grade (thru tenth) – Ranjan Ghosh. In fact, I was close to his house meeting somebody else but his office schedule could not match up with my flight schedule. He was therefore very high on my list this time to meet.

Thanks to his and his family’s graciousness – they decided to visit me in my hotel since I was dog tired after all the road travel from Mumbai and then in the Pune traffic – I had an outstanding time with the Ghosh family last evening. In a somewhat of a coincidence, his younger brother has moved to Atlanta recently and I managed to go check on him when his parents were visiting him from Durgapur a couple of months back!

The last time I saw Ranjan was in 1983 – more than three and a half decades back. Funny part is that he has remained pretty much the same. The same athletic build, head full of hair, mustache and all that. I could have picked him up from a crowd any day. It was great to meet his wife Munmun. She is from Rourkela. I rattled off the names of all my friends from Rourkela hoping she would recognize somebody. Unfortunately, she is too young to know my friends.

But I persisted in finding some intersection point and eventually it paid off. Turns out her younger sister is married to an ex-student of my mom. We, in fact, called up her brother-in-law Samar Sarkar and I chatted with him for some time. Sure enough, the network got thicker and thicker. He is a good friend of none other than my good old runny buddy in Atlanta – Samaresh!!!

That was not the only connection. Remember Mrs. Biswas – my tenth grade English teacher? I had made my last trip to Pune to meet her. Well, a little poking and prodding and we found out that Mrs. Biswas was Ankita’s (that would be Ranjan’s daughter) English teacher and Vice Principal in school (St. Mary’s, I believe). You should have seen the look on Ranjan’s face as he realized that all these days he was oblivious to the fact that his English teacher from St. Xavier’s, Durgapur is the exact same person as his daughter’s English teacher from St. Mary’s, Pune!! How cool was that?

Ranjan’s son – Ani – took a great liking to me. (Young kids can easily jump to wrong conclusions that way!) We exchanged some puzzles and riddles. Before we said goodbye, he walked up to me and said “Tumi khub interesting uncle”. (he accused me of being an interesting uncle). Now, that is something that should some strutting rights!!

It was great seeing the Ghosh family from Pune!

Everybody is all smiles!
Well, somebody might be laughing aloud!!

Running from pillar to post – or rather LIC office to Post office to straighten out some paperwork for our parents. To be fair, we are not making it easy on them. My dad is living but cannot physically be present or even sign any paperwork. My mom’s fingerprints never come out well (for whatever reason, Sharmila has the same issue) to match identity and none of the iris systems work in Kalyani.

All that said, we were able to get everything squared away after quite some
patience and running around..

… till a few kids showed up with a soccer ball. As you can see, two more kids joined them for some street soccer in decidedly unsoccer like uniforms…

My brother and I sat in the sun to get some office work done. Seeing us, he came over with his book and quietly started reading it!!

While Somshekhar and I went to MBA school together, I did not know him much. In fact, our face to face interactions could not have been more than a couple of times. Over the last few years, I got intrigued by his comments on others’ posts on Facebook. What absolutely got my attention was his fascinating knowledge on very diverse topics. In fact, he is the only person whose book suggestions have been a 100% hit for me. It is more a reflection of similar interests. Also, we share common interest in groaners. Admittedly, his puns are more witty and wicked.

We had promised to sit down some time to exchange notes on life. I certainly felt I had a lot to learn from him and his life story. The new year started rather auspiciously for me with the first activity being sitting at a coffee bar in Bombay with this gentleman. What fascinated me in his life story is how he has often taken the road less traveled.

When all of us went after big jobs all starry eyed clasping an MBA degree under our arms – from IIM-A, no less – Somshekhar went back to his home in Lucknow after opting out of placement. He wanted to figure out what he wanted to do and be. I think for about four years he was in this state of self discovery and also thinking about going after Civil Services (he comes from a family of multiple Civil Servants). It was during this time that he tried out a lot of things.

I was amazed by how much Western classical and Indian classical he grasps. And when I say Indian classical – both Hindustani classical as well as Carnatic classical. In fact he took me thru some real in depth concepts that differentiate Hindustani and Carnatic classical music. I am completely out of depths in Western classical music – so that part was a short discussion.

Our discussions then veered towards books and his love for reading. Apparently, during that discovery period, he started reading up all sorts of books. We exchanged notes on what one or two books have influenced us most. For him, it was “Aztecs” by Inga Clendinnen. We also debated the pros and cons of reading books the traditional paper form (his preferred mode) and the electronic form (what I do today).

“Any learning from the life choices you have made?”, I enquired.
“People will respect you for who you are”, he said. He reflected on the fallacy of human beings missing the opportunity to discover themselves and being genuine rather than follow the precepts set by others on what “should be”. The deep irony he felt, was that eventually, respect and recognition from others come from being who you are rather than what others might have wanted you to be.

We decided to have lunch at this place. I wanted to see his collection of books as well as meet his wife and two daughters. I was glad that I did so because I found out a lot of intersection points with his wife Debanjana. First, she is from Durgapur (much junior to me). That evening I was to meet a school mate of mine – Debabrata – who had to back out at last moment due to a gall bladder surgery. (I know, the extent people will go to avoid meeting me 🙂 ). Guess what? Debanjana and Debabrata grew up as next door neighbors!

Remember Mrs. Sur who I went to visit in Durgapur before leaving town? Well a couple of houses down – literally on the same street – is where Debanjan’s folks (now, only her mom) live! We found many more common friends – Paromita in New York (who is the sister of an old friend of mine; Sharmila and I are now very close to her), Jay Vikram’s sister and so on. When I mentioned to her that I was going to meet Mrs. Dhar in Pune the next day, she knew her too!

But the best part was that she is a runner. She is much faster than me (10Ks in forty something minutes) and puts in more miles than I do now. Regardless, we had a good time exchanging notes on our running experiences. Maybe we can get Somshekhar to run someday and we can participate in an organized race together!

I truly should have become closer to Somshekhar much earlier in my life.

… running this morning could not have been too far behind. The one challenge with running with my brother is that he makes me clip at least a minute per mile faster than my comfort level. I usually take my revenge by making the distance shorter.

Family get together over snacks of the champions!! “Aloor chop”, “vegetable chop” (potato and vegetable fritters) with red wine!!!

(Sharmila Ghose, for the record, no more scaling of water tanks on the terrace to drink wine 🙂 )

This is in Halisahar near Kalyani.

His facial expression says it all…

On my way from Kalyani to Kolkata, the first stop was at Mrs. Basu’s place. This was my foray into North Kolkata after a very long time. It is still as crowded as I remember. Seemed to be much cleaner than what I could recollect.

I had heard a lot about Mrs. Basu from her son – good old Avi – back in Atlanta. During our motorbike rides to grab a lunch or snacks to places around north Atlanta areas, Avi had talked quite some about his mom and all the places she has lived in her life.

What my brother and I found very refreshing in our conversations with Mrs. Basu was her very different attitude towards life – than most other octogenarians that I know of, anyways. In all the time that we spent together, she came across as a very purposeful and independent minded person. Further, she did not complain about one thing. Instead she talked about how she is happy with her lot – even with the fact that she lost her husband and her two sons are abroad and so she lives all by herself.

“What is the secret to happiness, then?”, I asked her.
“Managing your expectations of others,” she reflected very quickly.

Over our chat, I got to learn a lot about Avi himself – especially as he was growing up as a child. I think we need a few more motorbike rides to lunch places to discuss those. Of course, I will be sure to keep a safe distance from his arm’s reach when I do so 🙂

In addition, she mentioned about how she is very close to her daughter in law – Bani in Atlanta. Bani, if you are reading this – I think I am going to count that one thing against your mother in law this time 🙂

We left promising to meet again during my future trips.

What do you think might be the purpose?

… or “Haimanti miss” as we used to call her during our ninth and tenth grades. Made a second foray into North Kolkata (in one day, that too) to meet Mrs. Sinha in her college in Shyambazar. (Maharaja Manindra Ch College). She is probably the only remaining teacher of ours who is still teaching. The journey to go to see her itself was unique. I ditched the car given the crazy traffic in north Kolkata and walked from South City Mall to Rabindra Sarovar Metro station – about 2.2km and took the Metro train (after about thirty years or more). To cap off the walking spree, after meeting her, I also walked from Shyambazar to Salt Lake City – about 3.5km – for my next meeting!

When I asked her about her life lessons – she gave me two examples. One – intriguingly – enough was something she said she learnt from a classmate of our batch – Prasant Kelkar. The story she told me would be difficult for me to narrate here without putting somebody else in a somewhat negative light. So, I am going to skip that part. But I have to say this – I was impressed by Haimanti Miss’s modesty and open mindedness to remember an incident and admit to learning from a 14 year old!!!

The second learning involved Father Gilson. Somebody who I never had a teacher for myself – but was considered by one of those unparalleled teachers one can possibly have while growing up. It involved the concept of “what is yours”. Very interesting take on the concept of ownership. The summary of the story Mrs. Sinha told me was that just because one created something does not necessarily mean one owns it. If one has a need for it too, that is fine. But if not, it belongs to others who need it.

Sitting in the cafeteria of the college (the staff room was too crowded), I picked up the life story of Mrs. Sinha, her father, her mother and all her siblings. I was also excited by some of the causes she wants to pick up to give her time after retiring at the end of this year. I am personally inspired by those causes too.

As you can see…

Double Egg Omlette: Rs. 14
Chicken Roll: Rs 30
Meeting Haimanti Miss: PRICELESS !

… one evening is always kept for my brother’s family. The nephews are growing up and time spent with them has become progressively lesser what with all their homework and class tests and all that.

The fun continues unabated though when we meet.

In the top picture, my sister in law was trying her best not to have the wine glass in front of her for the picture (my brother had quietly exchanged her cup of cappuccino with his glass of red wine) and in the bottom one, I believe there was some silly joke at the expense of the elder nephew!!!

(Jethu = father’s elder brother)

Last evening, I was with my brother’s family in the lounge of the Westin hotel in Kolkata. There weren’t too many guests and the staff there were pampering us with all sorts of ill-deserved attention. Pinaki and Sumana went out of their way to make us feel comfortable. Chef Rubai kept special food coming our way the whole evening.

There was another sharply dressed gentleman who kept checking in on us to make sure we were comfortable. In fact, he was the one who had ushered us in. Found out Rishav was his name.

As is my wont, I started chatting with him. Eventually found out that he had been to Dallas when he was 13 years old. A little more digging and I found out that he had gone to visit his uncle (mom’s brother). That uncle, it turns out, is our very good friend – Sunny!!

Could not believe my luck that I would walk into a hotel in Kolkata for the very first time in my life and the person who would usher us in to the lounge would be our Dallas friend’s “bhagney” (nephew). Rishav and I have some common interests in drinks, as it turns out. I am more of a mixologist (on the cocktail side) and Rishav is more of an oenophile – on his way to become a renowned sommelier some day!

Neither Dipti nor I could recollect how we got reconnected. She was my junior in IIM-A days and after about 1992, we had lost touch. At some point of time – we got reconnected. I had told her that I would meet her in Bombay when I visit the city. There were some interesting aspects of her life that I wanted to get to know more of.

As we settled down in the coffee bar of the Courtyard in Bombay, I was the first to start – “So, I remember that you joined the same company as I was in back in 1992 but we were in different projects and locations and never met much. Other than the one training class I had taken, I believe. I left for the US the next year. What happened to you after that?”

Over a couple of hours and a couple of cups of coffee, I got to hear about her life story. The part that was most intriguing to me is that she has an adopted child. As you probably know, I think the world of people who adopt kids. Experience in volunteering at a center for physically abused kids has taught me that there are more kids than caring parents in this world.

What I did not know was that Dipti had adopted a child with learning disabilities. I was fascinated by her taking me thru how she had to retrain herself completely to be able to educate her child. It was amazing hearing her talk about specific incidents on how she had to think of communications in a different way. For all the education we had, we were never trained to deal with these kind of situations.

If that was not enough – and she is a single mom raising the child – she also is a successful entrepreneur. She founded a company and has been building the business rather successfully.

For all that responsibilities and efforts, she betrayed no sense of stress. In fact, I was a little taken aback by how calmly she has taken her challenges and worked thru them. Did I mention, she helped raise her sister’s daughter too?

I was so excited hearing about Dipti’s great strides in life that it was only after seeing her off, I realized suddenly that I had completely forgotten to take a picture of us. A few frantic calls later, she graciously agreed to turn around in that crazy Bombay traffic and came back to the hotel I was staying in.

Thank you Dipti for spending the time that evening with me and then coming back so I could keep a picture for future.

Hope to run into you again!

… I can inflict my terrible sense of humor willy nilly.
Make no mistake. When she says “very funny”, it is like when she says “fine”. I know she has found it anything but 🙂

The trip started with running into an Atlanta Bengali friend (Sonia) in the airport, if you remember.

Looks like I am going to finish the trip the same way. Walked into the flight in Doha and just as I was about to settle down, I thought I heard a voice behind me that I thought I knew!!

Glad that Jaba had noticed me. Apparently I had walked past them in the plane without noticing her or her husband Swapan!!!

Instead of coming to Bangalore late evening to catch my flight to US in the early hours, I decided to come earlier in the afternoon. Got myself checked into a hotel in Whitefield. Also remembered that Austin used to live in the Whitefield area. I had not seen him since he left i2 in 2004. As luck would have it, Austin had time in the evening to meet, Further, he grabbed another old friend of ours – Nathan – from the good old days of our first start up experience. (Nathan and I actually got to work in two start ups together).

After leaving i2, both of them have had illustrious careers – Austin has done organic farming and then has put in a lot of time with NGOs and Foundations (like The Gates Foundation) for social causes. Nathan has stayed true to the supply chain domain all these years.

It was inevitable that we would talk about our learnings from i2 days. We were together for over three hours talking about what went well and what did not go well from those days. What was very interesting was that our learnings themselves have changed as we have grown up. Talent was a great point of discussion. We always had a very strong – and very commonly held (amongst i2-ers anyways) – view of talent in i2. Today, I realize that our views – at least for the three of us – are far more nuanced.

We further realized that things that we look back and think we should have done differently is far easier to say today. Living at that moment, we had no other data to go by and would therefore probably make the same mistakes all over again. That said, we agreed that making the same mistake twice was probably preventable. And we believe we did make same mistakes twice.

We remembered fondly some of the really outstanding colleagues that we had a chance to work with. And some who, unfortunately, are with us no more.

It was like good old times. I used to be somewhat in awe and somewhat a little scared by the sheer amount of IQ power I was surrounded by. As one of the friends we remembered had said then – “In i2, being considered average is an accomplishment”. Like those India Palace dinner meetings. I was there last evening to bring down the average IQ level at our table.

… it has the most impatient folks I have ever seen in the whole world. The plane barely touched the ground and everybody got up to get their stuff from the bins when the plane was still moving. The plane was yet to start boarding and everybody had crowded out the gate. A mere ten minute delay in the flight and everybody was trashing the airlines.

That is the not the fascinating part.

The fascinating part is that it is also the country that has given us yoga, breathing techniques, meditation and all those stuff designed to manage stress 🙂

This is the panel on an elevator bank in a hotel in Durgapur.
Why are the signs for both the buttons identical? Why have two buttons then?