Some of the best experiences of my life on the road have been the interesting people I get to meet while traveling. Take this evening as an example.

I was sitting at the hotel bar, catching up on work emails and enjoying Fortunato’s smoked Old Fashioned. In fact, we were all watching Fortunato at his craft, when I struck up a conversation with the gentleman and lady on my left. I explained to them a little about the drink and the smoking process.

One thing led to the other and we made an evening out of it. Turns out Bruce and Mary-Lou were in the city to watch the game and checked in to the same hotel where I was staying. Found out that Bruce has a thing for cars and a passion for retro models.

We were having a great conversation about all things in life when I finally asked him my now familiar to you question: “What is the life lesson you have learnt that you can impart to me?”

Bruce looked at me for a few seconds and said “Wait. Give me a minute. I need to think before I answer. Nobody has asked me this before.”

And then after thinking for a little while, he said “Follow your passions”.

“Follow my passions?”, I asked

“Yes. Follow your passions. Be yourself.”

“Got it. Can I take a picture of you two? I am going to write about our meeting in my blog”.

“Sure”

After the photo, the West couple excused themselves. It was getting late.

But I needed to follow my passion. So, I started blogging!!

After Chitra-masi, I had to visit another person from Durgapur who had influenced me a lot in my early childhood – Dubey-kaku! As a bonus, got to meet Kakima, Ananya and Blake. And of course little Hanae!! Coincidentally, the last time I met Dubey-kaku (about three years back), it was in the same house in Hayward and with all the same folks as in the picture. Hanae was just a couple of months old then!!

She has grown up so much!! Although still not wise enough to avoid a bespectacled bald person!!

Great chat with the whole family. I think I have convinced Dubey-kaku to do a road trip with me before he leaves for India in December!

One of the wicked smart persons I know – Jacob Zodikoff – unfortunately, had thrown his back during a run and could not make it to our meetings in office. Undeterred, I made him come out of his house and join me for a coffee near his place.

Discussions with Jacob are always incredible exercises in learning for me. I met him first a couple of years back when he was barely 22. I was two and half times his age. (I know, the wrong person is throwing his back while running). But his sheer level of intelligence and wisdom is breath taking. In the last few years, we have discussed a lot of things – some have nothing to do with work – and I have always come away realizing that there were many other angles I had not thought thru on the said topics.

Today was no different. Over a cup of cappuccino, the topic de jure was if our traditional way of thinking macroeconomics is relevant any more or have we gone past some tipping point where our theories around the interconnectedness of growth, interest rates, inflation, minimum wage etc has to undergo fresh thinking.

Good coffee. Great debate. Incredible company!

I was very tight on time with meetings the whole day. But Magesh was kind enough to ride up to my office so we could grab lunch together. Magesh and I have gone to the same engineering college (he was senior to me) and even worked in the same company in Dallas.

But the fondest memories I have – and we talked about them – were those from the couple of years he had moved to Atlanta. There were those motorbike rides during the day and evening whiskeys at Zolas with Sharmila and Priya invariably joining us.

Then there were those intense debates on whether time was a fundamental concept or a man made concept. Not to forget the one time we sat down to figure out which was greater – e to the power of pi or pi to the power of e?

Ever since he moved back to California, I miss his sharp sense of humor (“You can talk the talk. Can you now text the text?” 🙂 )

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.

After a full day of meetings in downtown, made a quick dash to Menlo Park to check in on a friend from the early 1970s. Jayanta and I share a unique connection. While we were one grade apart, we always studied in exactly the same schools!

We went to Benachity Junior High School and then to St. Xavier’s, Durgapur and then to Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission and finally to IIT- Madras!

It was good to see Chitra-masi, Amita and Onamika too!!

“Is this what you do full time?”
“No. I usually drive Lyft or Uber during the weekends”
“What do you do during the week?”
“Oh! I take care of a business we have and the kids”

“What would you like to do when you grow up?”, I pressed on with my Lyft driver Osman
“I want to work in startups. Do you know how I can join a startup?”
“Do you know a lot of coding?”
“No, I can learn though. I also know foreign languages – Russian, Turkish… can that help?

“Wait a minute. You know Russian and Turkish? Going by your name, are you Turkish?”
“No”.
“Where are you from?”
“Guess.”
“I do not know – going by the first name – some place in the middle east?”

“I am from Azerbaijan!”
“AZERBAIJAN?” I said so loudly that he turned back while driving to check what just happened.
“Yes”
“Well, I think you are not going to believe me. But you are only the second person I have ever met from Azerbaijan. And the first one was just a couple of weeks back!”
“Really? In Atlanta? There are only four Azerbaijani families in Atlanta.”
“No, in Providence, Rhode Island. I was there with my daughter. We went to a restaurant by the river. And the lady who ushered us in said she was from Azerbaijan. I remember her name was Shams.”
Then after checking my phone, I went on… “Shams Aliyeva is the full name”
“Yes. That is an Azerbaijani name.”

I told him how I learnt a lot about the country from her. Before that, I had heard about the country for the first time in my third grade while reading Tintin (The Crab with the Golden Claws) back in 1975. And that while I have never been to Azerbaijan, I had once flown over it while going from Istanbul to Bishkek.

“What were you doing in Bishkek?”
“Well, my friend Roger and I were on an adventure trip to Mongolia”
“You should now visit my country.”
“I will absolutely do so. In fact, that is what I was telling Shams the other day too!”
“You will love Baku, the Caspian Sea, the beaches and the mountains!”
“Well, I met two of you in a matter of weeks. That is a sign to me already!”

“But do not go to Armenia and then to my country. We have a difficult relationship.”
“I know. Like India and Pakistan.”
“Exactly”, he said while nodding his head.

By this time I had to get off at my motorbike shop where it had gone for servicing. Before getting off, Osman and I took a picture and agreed to grab a coffee in Cumming, GA sometime!!

Roger, if you are reading this, let’s do a quick trip to Azerbaijan some time. Anybody else cares to join?

Tom Aliff!! I remember the first day I met him – back in July of 2009. I am fairly sure he was still in his twenties. What had struck me was his sheer intellect, executive presence and that constant smile!! I learnt a lot about Analytics from him in the next 4 or 5 years.

But the most exciting part of him is his personal life. In many ways, his is the model I hope to emulate some day. He has varied interests and he keeps up with them. He is a super fast marathon runner. In fact, he was one of the three people who encouraged me to go do my own marathon. I remember taking a lot of tips on shoes and stretching.

He is a skateboarder!! And I am trying to do that myself! I need to get him to teach me that too.

Now he has his own band!!

Last April, he and I had a Facebook exchange to meet after we were all vaccinated and all. We did get that done this week.

Of course, when I am with Tom, there is always one more thing to learn. This time I got to know about Meditation – specifically the type he does. “Positive Nostalgia”. I have to admit, I did not grasp the whole concept. He will admit, I was not too good at Analytics either!!

It almost rings strange to my ear to call him “Anand”. Throughout my Computer Science days in IIT-Chennai, we always knew him as “Sivudu”. I have no idea how he got that name – perhaps it had something to do with his last name – Sivasubramaniam. Nevertheless, like many things from college days, that name stuck!

He left for the USA to pursue higher studies in 1989. Coincidentally, he landed up in Atlanta at that time (Georgia Tech) – which has been our home for the last 14 years now. I proceeded to do MBA in India.

While we have talked a couple of times (at least on his birthdays), I had not seen him over the years. Then one day, he wrote to me that he would be in Atlanta – dropping his son at his own alma mater!

That opened up the opportunity to get to see him. And what a meeting it was!

Rarely – and I mean very rarely – have I seen anybody straddle the academia and corporate life as well as Anand has. Sure, there are professors who start their own company and all that. But to adapt to a different culture and environment of an existing corporation – that too as huge as TCS (about half a million employees?) and succeed there while being a professor in a renowned school (Penn State) is not something for the feeble of the heart.

In fact, Anand talked about how he came very close to giving up once and then managed to prevail and succeed. Today, he splits his time between India and USA – teaching in Penn State and running a large Research Institute in TCS.

That was an amazing story.

“So, Anand, what have you learnt in life?”

“The virtues of patience,” he said. And then thoughtfully added…

“Ignore the small stuff”.

Now, of course, my challenge will be to figure out which are the big stuff and which are the small stuff in life. Maybe we can talk about that when he comes to Atlanta next to visit his son!

Sharmila and I were having a quiet evening over a drink sitting at Alpharetta Main square, when I thought I recognized somebody walking by. Sure enough, it was Kumar Jandalaya! Another Equifax colleague of mine. In fact, today, after Chris Kramer and Eddie Welch, Kumar was the third ex-colleague from Equifax that I met!

Bill, Kumar, Sharmila and I settled for another round of drink as we talked about all sorts of things in life. A lot of it was about traveling!