I cannot exactly call him my benchmate since we did not sit in benches. Instead, we had individual desks. Desks that had a cubby space to keep our suitcase and our prized tiffin box. And desks that had the top sloping in into you so it was more natural for you to read and write at that angle. Except that those slopes would always roll my black and red 2B Nataraj pencil down and then drop off to the floor. This guy – Ajay Lahiri – as I said who sat in the next desk – being the ever kind person that he was, would find the pencil, pick it up, realize that the tip was gone and would go ahead and sharpen it for me with his small steel colored sharpener.

Then he would point to the top of the desk where there was curved dip created in the desk specifically to keep pencils. And for the life of me, I would never remember to keep my pencils there.

Mousumi, if you are reading this, you probably remember that he sat caddy corner from you (you were right behind me) and in front of Sayanti (who, for the life of me, I still cannot locate). And Subir, if you are reading this, you may recollect that you used to sit perpendicular to us, facing the teacher and Ajay and I were to your immediate left.

That was 1976.

This is 2017.

Forty one years later, I managed to catch up with that guy again!! (I left that school in 1976). In New York City!! I had located him a few years back but all our past attempts to meet had failed.

Not this day!!

When I woke up early in the morning, I was super excited that I was going to see Ajay after so many years. So many memories started floating by. I remembered his parents. I remembered his house on Short Road. I remembered he had quite a few brothers and sisters but could not remember how many. And I remembered how frail and fair complexioned he was.

Then something more mundane struck me. We had agreed to have a coffee early in the morning in Grand Central Station before he had to go to office. Now, if any of you have ever been to Grand Central Station, it is a veritable junction point of multiple streams of people seemingly aimlessly coming in and out. To pin point somebody there is not the easiest task.

That is when I came up with a “bright” idea. (I tend to have those before I have my coffee and actually wake up). I was in Central Park. So that was about one and a half mile away from Grand Central. I put on my brightest orange running shirt and shoes and started running towards Grand Central.

I reached about ten minutes early. Milling around the human waves there, I was reassured of one thing. Among all those sharply dressed, skirted, suited, booted and otherwise formally dressed office goers, there was no way Ajay could miss my bright orange colors. I was hoping that he would not ignore me as one of those construction workers with similar orange colors who seem to be perpetually digging up something or the other in the city!

As we sat down over a cup of coffee, we caught up on a lot of things. Thirty minutes was way too short. But if I was going to have to wait for forty one years, I would take even a three minute meeting. Together, we remembered a lot of our friends and teachers (fortunately, I was able to give him updates on their lives to him). It was great to catch up on his kids (two daughters of identical ages as mine), his parents and his brothers and sisters!!! But above all, it was great to see how the guy who sat next to me in his red shorts and white shirt forty one years back has become such a successful and happy human being!

Running back to my hotel, I could not help reflect on how incredibly lucky I am in life that I crossed paths many many years ago with so many incredibly great human beings. And that even today, I am able to bend the path of my life to go meet theirs…

This year, when I had called up Gary Brooks to wish him a happy birthday, I also learnt that his daughter was going to be in Georgia Tech and that he was going to come and help her settle down. We agreed to meet up.

The day could not have been any brighter to meet this colleague of mine from yesteryears. We sat down out in the patio of a local restaurant with some nice drinks and finger food to catch up with each other.

I remember hiring a few people who worked for Gary (he was in a different company) into our company. I also remember having lunch with him, just like the present day, and making a case that he needed to follow his teammates. Which he eventually did – but not in the same group as mine.

“So, how has life been after i2 on the work front?”, I asked after we settled down. Gary laid out an interesting story of how he has been very satisfied work wise by being very clear on what he wanted. Apparently, his criteria was (*) that he would have a good time (*) he would continuously learn new things (*) and that he would earn some money on the way. “That has been the magic for me. By staying true to those criteria, I have always stayed happy professionally”.

To understand the simplicity of his demands, one has to understand his times growing up. Born of two hard working parents who had to toil hard to make all ends meet, Gary, by his own submission was not the model high school student.

“What did you do?” I asked
“All the wrong stuff that you don’t want to discuss”.

One day, as a last resort, his mom got him a job in the local Quaker Oil shop where he worked on daily wage. As he put it, that shaped a lot in terms of what he wanted to be (and not).

Then his mom sent him to college. Much against his wishes. The first day was not the easiest for him. Somehow he had signed up for an advanced course (I forget the subject – was it Physics?). There he was, not having studied much in high school, facing some of the best and brightest in the college. “The teacher talked about 3D vectors and most of the students were used to 2D vectors. And I was the one asking myself – What is a vector?”

That evening was the defining moment for Gary. After college, completely baffled and frustrated, he sat himself down and holding his head in his hands, wondered what was he supposed to do. Above all, the prospect of living the life working at the Quaker Oil scared the beejejus out of him. And from that day, he resolved that he would get back in the game.

It was not an easy fare to fight back. Other than his resolve, he did not have much more going in his favor. But he kept at it. And it seems, had his epiphany during a class in computer science when he suddenly understood how recursion worked. I told him that my theory was that understanding recursion was easy. You first understand recursion, then the rest is easy. (I think computer science students will get this joke). Jokes apart, that was it for Gary. From that day, he fell in love with Computer Science and to this day has stayed true to his trade.

Of course, he must have reached his nadir of computer science when he tried explaining REST Api and higher order languages like Python to me over lunch 🙂

On my drive back, I was amazed how life has its own way of working out if only you resolve to try. I had no idea about Gary’s background. I always thought of him as somewhat of a technical guru and his people had a great opinion of him as a manager. Who knew how much trouble and difficulty he had to overcome to go there?

I need to bookmark this post. Every time I see a kid who might be looking for direction in life, I know who to send them to!

It was great seeing you and getting to know you better, Gary!!