Subrata was in town for work. Fortunately he was able to make some time to visit us. Caught up with him after a long time. Monisha, Subrata, Sharmila and myself used to get to see each other fairly often. We were in the same community in Dallas and we had kids of similar age. Then, we moved to Atlanta and they moved to Indianapolis. We talked a lot about those good old days in Dallas.

Hope to see Monisha also some time soon!!

You probably remember from my post a couple of days back how my friend from office – Deval and her sisters Krupal and Rachana gifted me their dad’s vinyl record collection. Well, get this…

Two days later. It was 9:40PM my time…

“Deval?”
“Yes?”
“Are you busy?”
“No. Having drinks with Chris and Celia.”

I felt reassured that I had not woken up Deval. She was out with two more of my friends from work.

“Well… your dad…”
“Yes, what about him?”
“Was he the CA in a factory called Voil Industries?”

I can only imagine the confusion that must have descended her.
“He was a CA alright. I have to ask my mom about that factory.”

“Ok. Let me try this. Did you folks live in a bungalow in Baroda?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a movie starring Snehlata shot there?”
“Yes. The movie was shot in our bungalow. How do you know that?”. Again, I can only imagine her confusion.
“Well, believe it or not, I have found a connection to your dad.”
“WHAT???”

Let’s take a brief pause here. Let’s see what else happened that day.

I am sure you remember my motorbike friend – Rakesh Rao. He is the organizer, the lead rider and the guy who keeps our team of riders together. He has been a veritable source of tips and tricks for a new rider like me.

Well, he sent a very cryptic “The world is really really small” message to me and his wife Priti the previous day.
I texted “What is going on?”
“I will explain to you when we meet”, he responded.

And later that night, he spilled it all to me. He had recognized Deval’s dad’s name from my post. But he waited to talk to his dad first to make sure he was right.

And that is how I got all the information and the connection.

“Well, your dad had a classmate in Tanzania. His name was Jashwant C Rao. His son is my personal friend in Atlanta. We go out motorbiking together.” I kept explaining to Deval.

“WHAT???”

“Yes. His dad owned Voil Industries!! And my friend has been to your bungalow many times. Remembers you folks!!”

Can you imagine that?

What is the chance that my motorbiker friend in Atlanta and an office friend in Chicago are connected by me AND their dads who were classmates in Africa?

Thank you Rakesh for helping join all the dots!

It is really a small small world, as you say! It feels so great to sit in the cross section of all these intersection points!!

I thought twice… I thought thrice…

“Should I call out her name? What if it is not her?”

The moment I saw her walking into the airplane aisle, I thought she looked like my teammate Vicki. But the challenge was she had a big mask on and I just could not see enough facial features to come to a conclusive judgment.

What was even more interesting was that instead of going past me, she stopped near me and started putting her luggage up. And then sat down in my row one seat over on the other side of the aisle. She was trying to put her luggage up. Seeing her taking a few moments, I got up to help her. But by that time, she had already put the suitcase in. I sat down.

She looked at the passenger behind her and apologized “I am not tall enough”. And for the life of me I could not figure out whether the voice matched the one I have heard in Zoom calls and the couple of times I have talked to her directly.

I looked across my row. Her face was against the bright light from the window. The contour of her face did not help me much – I have not spent that much time with her. And then, there was the mask, of course.

My mind kept going back to a couple of months back when in a similar fashion, a gentleman sat down next to me and started talking to me mistaking me for one of his friends. And of course, I was trying to figure out how did I know that person. I figured my memory was failing me. We had a great laugh later and have become friends. In fact, I am friends with his son now too!!

Got busy with some office work and completely forgot about the lady till the boarding was completed and we had to shut down our laptops. Looked at her again. Still not sanguine.

Then an idea flashed across my mind. I texted her. You can follow the text message in the picture.

Turns out it was indeed Vicki Thomas. She was going home from Chicago and was connecting thru Atlanta. I was headed home too from our Chicago office!

Of course we had a great laugh. Took a selfie (which I am terrible at) after getting down.

Meeting Kiran invariably means I need to sharpen my brains. The topics of discussions are usually fairly deep and requires a lot of thinking. This time, the talk was about bias and the importance of being able to listen to the other side of the story. One thing we marveled about was – be it politics or religion or Covid vaccinations for that matter – how we quickly divide folks into one side or the other. But in reality, most people lie in a vast grey zone in that spectrum.

Great discussions!!

For most people, it is usually I who visits them in their town. That is because I am on the road a lot. However, I think Pavan has met me more number of times in my town than the other way round. She is a road warrior too.

Got to see her again in Atlanta during her business visit this week. Coincidentally, in exactly the same hotel as I had met her four years back!!

It was good catching up about our old i2 friends and her family! One of these days, hopefully, she will make it to our house too!

Robb has always been a voice on the phone or a face on Zoom windows. Got to meet him first time since he was in Atlanta for work.

It was a great evening talking about how he convinced his mom not to make him eat tomato (by throwing up all over 🙂 ), his journey thru multiple industries, his adventures in mountain biking and the larger perspectives of life!!

Anand (Iyer) was visiting Atlanta from Portland. So, five more of us from Atlanta got together with him for drinks.

We have all worked together in our past in one or the other company. Guess why did not talk much about the past?

Because we could not decide which company to talk about!! Turns out we have dragged each other along wherever we have gone.

To wit, I have worked with Karthik in 2 different companies (and once in different companies but owned by the same PE firm). Anand and i have worked together in 3 different companies! Madhav and Karthik have worked together in 2 different companies! Vijay has worked in one company with Anand and me and yet another company with Karthik!! Anand (Srinivasa) has worked with all of us but Vijay once.

And I am no sure we are quite done!!

That was a great evening!!

“So, what are you doing in Atlanta?”, I asked the Martins as we walked from Avalon to Alpharetta downtown on the Alpha Loop.
“We came to see you!”, said Steve.
“Me?”
“And the pandas!”
“What??”

Turns out Steve and Carolyn travel whenever they can now that they are empty nesters. Before that though Steve worked in Apple. Not coding and all that. That he did when I got to meet him on my first day at a startup called i2. He had shown me all the fan mail he used to get (meant for the actor Steve Martin). After leaving i2, he went to work for Apple at their retail stores. Doing what he liked doing the most… teaching customers one on one how to use the various applications.

You might remember from a story from June of 2017 how a picture he posted on Facebook made me realize that we were in the same airport at that instant and I ran to meet him for a minute just before he had to jump into the plane. I missed Carolyn that time since she had already stepped in. They were on their way to New York that time.

Another crazy coincidence with Steve that also includes Facebook happened the following year. I was on a business trip and had posted a picture from Natick, MA. Steve saw that and let me know that he was born there. On a whim, I found out the address of his birthplace, went to that house, introduced myself and took pictures of the house and sent it to Steve’s mom!! You can read the whole story here. (I found out from Steve this time that we both lost our moms literally two days apart last year).

Going back to the pandas… apparently, the Martins love pandas (who does not?) and they have made it a point to go visit all the pandas in the USA. Turns out only a few zoos have Pandas and Atlanta was the last one on their list!!

And thanks to the Martins, we got a taste of what empty nesting might look like for us. We walked from Avalon to Alpharetta downtown, bounced around three bars, had some interesting drinks (one included smoke and fire) and finally settled down for a nice dinner. And then walked back to Avalon!!

Thank you Steve and Carolyn for keeping Sharmila and me in your minds during your Atlanta visit. We got to do this again soon!!

With some apprehension, I called up Jayita. I was not expecting the phone to be picked up. But it was.
“Jayita?”
‘Who is this?”. That was a male voice. I assumed that was her husband.
“My name is Rajib. Rajib Roy”
“Jayita’s doctor friend Rajib?’
“No. I am calling from America. We are friends from Durgapur”.

****

In fact, I distinctly remember the day I met Jayita for the first time in Durgapur. I was entering my classmate Shukla’s house – B2/75, if I recollect correctly. A girl was heading out of her house at the same time. We met on the path from the gate to Shukla’s house past the perfectly manicured rose beds that was the hallmark of Shukla’s dad’s efforts.

“Rajib, this is Bani. Bani, this is Rajib”, introduced our common friend.
“What is your full name?”
“Jayita”
“Ah!”

Yes, even in those days, I had a penchant to call people by their formal names.

Jayita and I probably chatted for about fifteen minutes before she headed out and I went in to Shukla’s house. That was December 1983.

****

“Jayita, na?” (Are you not Jayita?) I asked the person who I thought I recognized as the same person I had met over a year back. The same Shukla and my best friend of those days – Avijit – had brought me as a guest to their college (Bidhan – as most Durgapur folks will know) for their Saraswati Puja celebrations.

That was the second time I met Jayita. We probably talked for no more than ten minutes that day. That was February 1985.


****

“Dingulo tor mon-e porey?” (Do you remember those two days?) I asked Jayita.
“Ekdom na”. (Absolutely not), she candidly replied.
This was 2017 April. A good 32 years after she had seen me last.

Even this meeting was because of a common friend. I was visiting Pune to meet my classroom teacher from tenth grade. While there, I knocked on the door of somebody that was my batch mate (Lalita) but I had met her only once – that too, back in 1980!! But her husband and I had other connections!! (his classmate was my private tutor!!)

If you had seen Jayita and us (this included Lalita and Manbir) interacting that day – you could be forgiven for thinking that we have been seeing each other every day of our lives. You might remember some of that from this post.

Her vivacity, her ability to keep everybody engaged was simply marvelous. I remember the whole day thinking – “Man! I should have kept up with her all these years”.

She clearly had a gift for empathy and an uncanny prowess to relate to any human being on a one on one level.

Every year thereafter, the birthday call to her became an exercise in truly appreciating what a great human being she embodied in herself.

****

Coming back to the phone call that I was talking about…

“Sunechho to?” he asked if I had heard everything – as I continued talking to the male voice.
“I am afraid I have”.
This was the first time I talked to her husband Bhaskar-da. And the net out of his message was Jayita was fighting a losing battle to cancer.

After a long chat – Bhaskar-da was justifiably frustrated, angry and helpless – he concluded “We are now counting hours or may be days”.

For the life of me, I still have no recollection of how I ended that conversation.

****

Two days later, I have been informed by our common friend Madhumolli that I can quit counting.

****

Life. I tell you.
The regret is not why people move on. I accept that.
The regret is why am I chasing so many meaningless things in life instead of the people that meant something to me at some point in my life.

Rest in peace, Jayita. Your vivacity will remain a beacon for me for the rest of my life.

Till we meet again…

****

I am fairly sure that the last time these 4 Alakites (I think the actual term was Smart Alecs) – Ranga, Aluru, Suman and myself – were together – it was 1989. And it was over 8,000 miles away from where we met last evening!