During my birthday call to Pinaki in July, we had agreed to meet up whenever we were going to be in the same city. We have way too many interests to talk about. Our interests do not necessarily overlap but we have one common interest – and that is to have a lot of interests.

I have a very vague memory of how I met this gentleman first. We were in the same company and he reminded me that my classmate from first grade – Pratik Pal – had put us together twenty years back. But what excited me most about Pinaki is all the other things he has done outside of work.

He is a mountain climber (the only person I know who made it to Camp 2 in Mt. Everest at 22,000 feet), motorcyclist (just returned form a 300 mile trip) and a marathon runner.

He joined in a Sitar class together with his young daughter five years back. Like the experience of Tom Vanderbilt in his book “Beginners”, Pinaki’s daughter too quit soon. But he continues to learn and play the sitar to this day. Additionally, he haas learnt singing (again, like Tom in that book) and, he does “natok” (Bengali word for stage drama).

He is also a bit of a photographer and an avid reader.

We had some great discussions sitting out in the cold in the middle of a street in Yerba Buena district over some hot breakfast. The topics mostly swirled around the meaning of a true pursuit of happiness in life. And how we often run the risk of losing the bigger plot.

Eventually I had to leave for my office meetings. But, I have to come back and finish up the discussions we got started on.