No trip to Durgapur, however short it might be, is ever complete without saying Hi to my long time friend Baisakhi and her family. In the whirlwind trip to Durgapur this time which was mostly to visit four sets of folks in seven waking up hours, I was able to squeeze in about half an hour or so to check on her family. I did show up very early at her house – dragging her husband out of his peaceful slumber on a Sunday morning 🙂

Like every time, quite some time was spent with her son Kintu. We talked about his latest toys – he is a fanatic when it comes to cars and just about any vehicles. He gave me a demo of a car pound as you can see in the picture. The chat with Baisakhi and Sagar was the usual. Mostly about work, family, friends and the terrible heat wave in India.

Long after I had left their home – as we were speeding down Durgapur Highway to Kolkata, I received a Whatsapp message from Baisakhi’s phone. It was actually from her son – you can see the message in the picture.

I don’t recollect exactly when but when he was very young, during my trips to Baisakhi’s house, I used to teach him new, silly stuff – you know like fist bumping, high fiving and such. Somewhere, it became a tradition for us – we would high five each other during every visit of mine. There was nothing particular to celebrate really – just high fiving for high fiving’s sake.

And this time, it completely slipped my mind 🙁 The message from him says “Rajib uncle, I forgot to high five you this time”!

I was absolutely thrilled to get the message. I realized how important that small gesture is to him. Someday, when he becomes as old as I, he will probably remember me as the “high five uncle” 🙂 But I also felt terribly guilty that as an adult I failed him on remembering our tradition. That was my job – not his 🙁

I will have to re-visit him soon…

I waited gingerly after ringing the bell, not knowing what to expect. I was starting to get tired too. This was my fourth stop in a whirlwind 12 hour trip to create as many intersection points as I could that day before going back to dad. Usually my intersection points are about re-uniting with somebody from the long past or meeting complete strangers on the road. This one was a little different. I went to meet them. But I had never met them before. All that had happened was (you can read it here: http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=8180 ) when I met Sudeshna (again for the first time in my life – although we found out she was my sister’s classmate) in Houston, we realized that her parents used to live next door to my in laws. When she called her parents up in front of me, I took the phone away from her and talked to her mom to find out exactly which house they used to live in. And in the process, I promised her mom that I would come by and meet her next time I was in Kolkata.

Eventually, auntie (Sudeshna’s mom) opened the door. I started explaining myself
“Amakey chinben na. Amar naam Rajib Roy”. (‘You won’t know me. My name is Rajib Roy’)
“Rajib to? Na chenar ki aachhey? Ei sedin to katha holo”, she put me at ease. (‘Rajib, right? Why would I not know? We talked just the other day’).

That was all I needed to feel welcome. I opened my shoes and and went straight to the big sofa in the living room. Uncle came out and after the initial pleasantries, drew up a chair very close to me and said “Ami kaaney kom shuni. Tomar khub kaachhey esey boschhi”. (‘I am little hard of hearing. If you don’t mind, I will sit very close to you to talk to you’). There was a very genuine level of sincerity and eagerness to chat that came thru immediately.

And chat we did for forty five minutes about our times in Durgapur, their visits to US, life in US, their daily routine in Kolkata and all things sundry.

Forty five minutes later, I got up to take leave. “Bongo sommelon-e aaschho to?”, asked auntie. I was a little startled. First, as a background, “Bongo sommelon” is the largest gathering of Bengali diaspora in US and Canada. Any Bengali worth his or her bite of Hilsa fish makes a beeline to this event (I am not sure of the frequency – every year? other year?) from North America. With their resplendent clothes and glittering jewelry in tow!

Turns out they will be visiting U.S. (Houston) soon and was enquiring if I would be at Bongo Sommelon (which is in Houston this year in July) like them. Disappointment was writ large on her face when she realized that I have never been to any Bongo Sommelon and that I am not in a hurry to change that trend 🙂 I am hoping against hopes that she is not going to hold that against me from now on 🙂

Next up on our list after I was done at Suparna’s house was to visit another Suparna in Kolkata. This one was my classmate from first grade thru fourth grade and I had not had a chance to meet her ever since 1976. I was sure one of these trips to India, I was going to figure out how to meet her but once I learnt that she had lost her dad a few days back, I figured it was high time I made a few phone calls and check on her

Like most other meetings with friends from forty years back, I expected this meeting also to center around catching up on other friends that we had lost touch with and check on each others’ parents and in this case talk about her dad a little. (I did get a chance to talk to her about her dad’s departure the previous day for some time).

However, this did not go the route of my usual meetings. That is because when I met her son and daughter, I found out that her daughter worked in the same industry (geospatial analytics) as I do now. I was thrilled that I finally found somebody that I could dump the sum total of industry knowledge that I had gained in a year’s time, which, admittedly does not count for much. She was overwhelmed that I actually knew how to spell LIDAR and did not tell her “Oh! tumi map-er kaaj koro” (Oh! you work with maps?) [Geospatial is not well understood in most of circles I am aware of in India and I can see how most would reduce what she does to as drawing maps 🙂 ]. We talked at length of upcoming technologies, job opportunities in India and abroad. Suparna might point out that it was I who talked at length 🙂 Frankly though, I was excited to find out somebody here who could relate to the description of what we do as a business for our customers. I was getting tired of saying we fly planes and take pictures 🙂

Eventually, her kids left and Suparna and I caught up about our parents and school memories – especially teachers. She filled in a lot of gaps I had in my memories – especially mapping out who sat where in a few spots in our fourth grade that I could not remember!! I have to mention that all through the hour, I do not think Suparna ever got over the spectre of my shining bald head 🙂 as exhibited in the picture below 🙂 and her many questions on the said shining topic 🙂 Made all the more shining by the constant sweating in India 🙂

It was good to see Suparna after forty years. I will have to come back again to spend some more time when she is a bit more relaxed.