24 March
2023
23 March
2023
Catching up with the Subramaniams from Bangalore
It was six years back that I had visited my MBA class mate from Ahmedabad and my colleague from my first job – as well as my apartment mate from Bombay at his house in Bangalore. The chief goal was meet his dad. Which I did 21 years after I had met him for the first time. But that time, I also met Kavita, Aditya and Saumya for the first time.
Subsequently, Aditya and Saumya moved to the USA for studies. Today, took advantage of Raj and Kavita visiting them and showed up for the evening at the Airbnb they were staying in!!
Unfortunately, missed Saumya who was a good 400 miles away near Philly. Had a good call with her though!!
22 March
2023
Colleagues from the past
As I prepare to bow out of my role, there are a lot of goodbyes to be told. Here is an evening with two of my ex-colleagues – Ken and Alexa. We had a great time reminiscing the formative days of our company. Got to know the personal stories of each one of their lives and once again, made me realize how much personal adversities people often go thru before succeeding in life. While it was hard losing them when they left, it was unequivocally heartening to hear about the professional successes they have had recently!!
19 March
2023
5 miles on a cold day
18 March
2023
We reached a compromise
Every night before we go to bed, Jay Jay engages me in a veritable battle of wits. I try to get him to sleep in his own bed (on the floor right next to our bed) and he makes mincemeat of all my coaxing and cajoling and jumps on to our bed and settles in comfortably.
After a couple of rounds of to and fro this night, we finally settled for a compromise!
18 March
2023
Music is but nostalgia, personified
“Gaye dinon ka suraag lekar
Kidhar se aaya kidhar gaaya woh
Ajeeb maanus ajnabi tha
Mujhe to hairan kar gaya woh”
Poet: Nasir Kazmi
Roughly translated…
“With that sudden hint of long lost past
She came from nowhere; and then vanished – I know not where
It be so strange that a complete stranger like her
Could leave me so utterly listless”
18 March
2023
Saturday evening calming down
An evening by myself with Habib Wali Mohamed. I expect very few listeners today to recognize him. He had focused most of his time on studying and running his family business. But in between, when he recorded some songs, they were golden. Born in Yangon (Burma), he lived twice in India, twice in Pakistan and twice in the USA (first time he got a MBA from Syracuse and the second time was in his sunset years – he died surrounded by his family in Los Angeles).
This rare LP is one more that I inherited from Deval’s dad.
Thank you Deval, Krupal and Shaku : without your magnanimity, this evening would have not happened for me.
18 March
2023
From the bartender’s corner – Franciulli
18 March
2023
Pegasus is back from 4K mile servicing
18 March
2023
Rewind-Pause: Bangalore meeting from 20 years back
While I have not done office meetings in India for a long time, I can still visualize them the way they used to be. Invariably, there would be a water bottle at every chair and first order of the day would be the office help coming around and taking our tea/coffee orders!
Check out the size of the laptops. And the total mess of wires on the table. This was par for the course twenty years back. Wonder how meetings have changed these days in Bangalore.
Geoff has lost a lot of weight from those days. Dilip has lost all his hair on the head (he shaves his head like me now). Willie has not changed a bit. I have not seen Brandon in a long long time. And unfortunately, we lost Chandran way too early.
Geoff, Dilip, Willie, Brandon – do you remember this meeting?
