One of the few things that gives a better start to my day than running is meeting people who have touched my life in the long past.
Had the privilege of meeting “Roy C” after more than 22 years at a Starbucks near my house today! Just like in this picture, we used to sit next to each other in our bench during our MBA days in IIM-A. (Yes, we had assigned seating and in a stroke of sheer genius, our school sat us alphabetically 🙂 ). The boredom of MANAC 2, POM 3 and such other esoteric classes was made somewhat bearable by Roy C’s smart repartees, ever present wit and continuous pranks.
Fortunately, he has retained all his charm even to this day!!!

Great evening with Robin Fleming who is visiting Atlanta for work and Raj Sundaramurthy.
I last saw Robin nearly 10 years back. I learnt from her more about building quality into software production process when we worked in i2 than she probably ever realized. I don’t remember it but she reminded me that evidently in my first interview with her I had asked her if she had read Microsoft Secrets. Looks like I have been reading books for some time 🙂
And that other guy, Raj – he and I have worked together in three of the four companies that I have ever worked in. And Robin and he has worked in the same company two different times!!!
Connections… Connections… Connections…

“Musafir” – Urdu word meaning a traveller.
Had an early morning coffee at Reston with a very old friend of mine – Pramod Chowbey. We go back to elementary school days.
He is a bigger road warrior than I with all his travel to Asia. One road warrior to another, we both agreed that the best perk of all those travel travails is the opportunity to meet up with people who crossed our lives many moons back… (Speaking of travel travails, my flight out is now delayed by two hours 🙁 ) Last time we met, it was after thirty years. We had promised not to wait for another thirty years to meet the next time. Promise kept!!!
It was great to catch up on our old school mates, teachers and our families. And he also reminded me the nickname we had given him in school 🙂
Hope to see him down the road again….
To quote the ending of an old shayar

“Musafir hain hum bhi musafir ho tum bhi,
Kisi mod pe phir mulaqaat hogi….. ”