You can also consider this as a desperate attempt to outsource my query after all search engines failed me.
Okay – for all you English gurus… You know how at the turn of the new year, we often write the wrong year for a few days (the previous year) (e.g. on checks)? There is an actual English word for that. For the life of me I cannot remember it.
What is it?
Lufthansa (from Frankfurt to Atlanta) had to change their airplane equipment because of oversold situation. The upshot is that they upgraded two of our tickets to First Class. Tasha and I volunteered Niki and Sharmila to take those seats. As I got them settled in their seats, as a parting shot, I told Niki – “Don’t get too used to these luxuries. Once you are on your own, you will have to start from basics like all of us did”. She immediately retorted “Dad, I have flown coach in Delta. I can do anything”. Even the air hostess burst out laughing 🙂
Some of you who are close to me are aware that one of the bucketlist items I have is to work in a bar. I am fascinated by the art of mixing drinks. I have even figured out couple of courses to take in Atlanta during my next sabbatical.
This is one of the reasons I make friends with the bar persons everywhere in the world. One of my absolute favorite mixologist is Bensan at Arola bar at JW Marriott Mumbai. He makes some of the best martinis I have ever had. He is a master at his art.
I had this goal of getting Sharmila to his bar and get him to show off his trade. Last night, Sharmila and I went to Arola. Bensan did not disappoint me. Made some memorable cocktails with great flair!!
Here are a few snaps of the master at his game!!
A few days back, I called up an old friend Anamika to wish her happy birthday and she told me that she was out having lunch with her neighbor who also has the exact same birthday!! That got me thinking about what is the probability of such a coincidence happening. Here is a puzzle from that thought process.
If you are mathematically oriented, try solving it. If not, take a guess and see how it compares with the right answer. My guess is that the guess is going to be much larger than the actual number.
Simply put, what is the minimum size of a class where the probability that there is at least one birthday that is shared by two students is more than 50%?
Put in details, if you have two students in a class, the chance they will have the exact some birthday is 1/365. If a third student comes in, there is a higher probability of two of them having the same birthday. If a fourth student comes in, the probability increases further. At what size of the class do you have a 50-50 chance of a birthday being repeated?
Napoleon was not as short as he is made out to be. In fact at 5′ 6.5″, he taller than an average Frenchman. So, where did the misconception of he being short come from?
This is for my American football fans. In the very first Super Bowl, at the start of second half, Packers had to kick off the ball twice to start the game. Do you know why?
What is the longest English word that does not repeat a letter?
Once before, we had talked about English words which have all the vowels in the proper sequence – e.g. Abstemious. Now can you come up with words that have the vowels in the reverse order? (First u, then o….)
The phrase “two plus eleven” and “one plus twelve” are interesting in that both give “thirteen”. They have another relationship. Can you find out what?
There is a debate on whether “I am” or “Go” is the shortest English sentence. It depends upon whether you believe you have to have a subject stated in a statement. Do you know what is the longest sentence in English language?
I will give you the answer – “Marriage” 😉
Okay, that was not a trivia puzzle. Try the other ones….
Had a brilliant time over a drink with Milind last evening after a full day’s worth of work. I had the opportunity to work together with him – nearly ten years younger to me – in i2 many many moons ago. There were some 10,000 employees that had worked at some point of time in i2. By my experience – and feedback from those thousands of i2ers who went and joined a lot of other companies – it certainly was an exceptional place in terms of an unbelievable number of really really smart people coming together under one tent with an incredible “whatever it takes” attitude.
Most all of them have moved on to other companies following great careers. However, I have always wondered whether we created enough entrepreneurs who would go on to start their own companies. For such an entrepreneurial environment, it strikes me as though we might not have had our fair share.
Milind is certainly the most successful entrepreneur I know of from i2.
Having created a company which, in its short history of seven years (last five have generated revenue) has reached an annual revenue generation of nearly $200M, he probably produces more revenue than all entrepreneurs from i2 put together.
What a great success story at such an early age.
We talked a lot about the challenges of growing and sustaining a company. The challenges of building coherent teams and a deliberate culture. Great discussions. Very inspiring.
Hope to see many more young men and women from my past create value in this world like Milind has.
Then he floored me with something.
I did not know this but early in his career, apparently he worked for a Swiss gentleman named Mr. Hertig who had moved to Mumbai and had created an eponymous company to make fine writing instruments and sell there. Milind has a few fountain pens saved from those days.
He had read about my fascination for fountain pens in a previous post and guess what? Since that day, he had saved a pen set for me waiting to meet me some day. That day happened yesterday!
Here’s to many more successes to you, Milind. So much so, that none of my fountain pens can ever finish writing about them!!!
So, here I am sitting in a much delayed flight to New York. Hope to take off at some point of time. Time for a quick quiz question. I was discussing this with Sharmila during our date night yesterday. And no, she was not referring to me as king of Hearts… We were talking about cards.
What is the one distinctive feature of King of Hearts (physical feature) compared to other Kings in a deck? Try guessing without seeing the cards. Then look at the cards and see if you find it.
Do not post the answer in the comments section.
If you notice carefully there is another distinctive feature of that card compared to the other three kings. Can you find out what it is?
In an absolute nose thumbing to the traditional Bengali fear of “Thanda legey jaabey”, the Chalupa group showed up to run in cold AND RAIN!! What is amazing is that our two youngest members – Ilu (two or three years old?) and Stuti (five or six years old?) showed up and got out with us in the rain!!!
I missed taking a picture of Arup before he left early but the coffee “adda” at Starbucks made up for the misery of running in the rain. Check out the picture of Stuti playing on her phone and Ilu painstakingly trying to see what she is doing. She was standing on her toes watching her sister all the time. What a great sisters’ moment!!
Also, note the disapproving look on Joyjit’s face watching Baisakhi eat a cake. Eventually he could not help himself admonishing her “Porey bolbey na omuk jinista dhukchhey na, tomuk jinista berochhe na”. (roughly translated – “don’t complain later, this thing is not going in and that thing is not coming out”). I took a few seconds to realize what he was trying to say – then I almost spilled my coffee I was laughing so hard on the floor 🙂
