4 March 2024

Meet my new friend – William Lopez

Most countries I go to, I tend to make at least one everlasting relationship. It is usually the person who takes me around – unless I choose to drive or rely entirely on public transport. I have about 30 such life long friends from all over the world.

Please meet my new friend – William Lopez from Guatemala. He was my friend, philosopher and guide during my entire stay here. A person with an amazing personal journey.

He lived in Italy and married this most beautiful woman he met there. Except, she died at childbirth. To let him put it … “It was difficult to raise my child by myself at first”. But he did. His son is growing up in Italy as an aerospace engineer.

Life dealt the next unkind deal with his mom contracting cancer. He left his son to his in-laws and better education there to take care of his mom (and dad) in Antigua. His two brothers also leave abroad. Thankfully, his mom is a survivor today!!

He said he had never worked this hard before to get out of debt. And then Covid came!! Had to sell all his cars that he used for touring business. But he is building it up again. His parents and he support an orphanage and run a Spanish-learning school. They are finishing up his house to be a four room bed-and-breakfast for foreign students to come and learn Spanish and stay at their place and eat meals cooked by his mom. The current students have to live by strict rules – no smoking inside the property and you cannot bring your boyfriend or girlfriend in unless they are students too.

For all that hard work, I never saw him not smiling. In fact, the remotest of the villages we went to – everybody seemed to know him. The parking lot guy in Panajachel came running to him, every shopkeeper in San Juan gave them updates on their family (from the barebones Spanish I could understand).

It is like he has touched so many lives!!

The kind of guy I want to be some day when I grow up!

In the meanwhile, if you or your friends every want to visit Guatemala – and I can vouch for you that all you hear about insecurity in this country in Western media is just a minuscule representation of this country – I personally felt safer in all places in Cd. Guatemala than I feel even around my office in Atlanta. No homeless person screamed at me here – and I really encourage you to do so, please feel free to reach out to this young gentleman. He really knows a thing or two about how to deal with people.

16 February 2024

That is a crazy coincidence!!

So, here I am in Puerto Rico. The main reason is to attend the wedding of somebody I know. Much younger to me, of course. I am on the board of the company that he is the CEO of. Turns out I was his mentor for a couple of years before that too. So, I show up with Sharmila at the Bacardi Distillery. It was a small and fairly intimate wedding.

Other than the bride and the groom I did not know anybody. Sharmila and I were intently watching the proceedings of the Indian wedding. All of ten minutes must have passed.

That “I did not know anybody”, bit? Completely unfounded.

Suddenly a gentleman in chic, traditional Malayali dress walks up to me and Sharmila.

“Rajib?”
“Guilty!”
“Hari. Hari Menon!”
“Wow! I would not have recognized you!!”
I knew Hari very well from the 90s. We had worked together. But I could not have picked him up from a crowd. He had however, recognized me in the gathering.

“Hari. Wait. What is your connection?”
“I am Vivek’s cousin”
“No way!”
The groom and I know each other for a few years now. In fact, he and his bride-to-be had gone out for dinner with Sharmila and me too. But we never figured out that we had such a common connection!!

Go figure!!

4 February 2024

“Lucky” intersection point!!

After quite some badgering from Sharmila and a threat from DJPJ that if I did not upgrade my good old, much shattered iPhone 11 by this weekend, they were going to order one for me, I finally caved in and went to the Apple store with Sharmila. Got a new iPhone 15. Spent quite some time debating what color phone to choose. Picked my favorite one. Then promptly got a cover (hopefully less screen shattering) to completely hide the phone color. Go figure!!

Anyways, after all that, Sharmila and I went over to the bar next door in The Hotel. It was pretty empty. Ordered my Old Fashioned and then a salmon dinner.

I had not noticed that a gentleman had come and sat in a chair not too far from me. When Karmen went to him, he said – “I will have the same order as him”.

I looked at him. A young gentleman with head clean shaven and face with trimmed beard. I joked – “I like your hair style. I wonder why?”

We both laughed as he said “Rajib, you are always good with your one liners!”

WAIT!! WHAT?

And then I realized that it was Lucky Gilja!! Remember how I mentioned his head was shaven and he had beard? Well, last time Sharmila and I met him – four years back – it was the other way round! He had a headful of hair and a clean shaven face!!

We used to work together in the same PE firm a few years back. There is an interesting story about how I met him in an elevator and found out he grew up a hop, skip and jump from where I was living at that time!!

Lucky was in town for work and did not realize that we had changed homes and now live a walking distance from he was staying!!

We had a great evening!

Officially, the first photo taken on my new iPhone was by Karmen. “Lucky” omen, I say!!

1 February 2024

An uncommon lady!

Pilar and I last worked together about 10 years back and I think that was the last time I had seen her. After that, we had kept up thru phone calls. I give her a lot of credit for initiating phone calls to discuss stuff (mostly work related) and that meant I was able to follow her life journey throughout the years. (We lost our dads within a few days of each other)

We missed each other by a whisker in Miami last week. Remember the art show in Brickell Sharmila and I went to? Apparently she was there too with her friends! She is a painter herself and follows Sharmila, I believe, in social media. This week, we got a chance to meet in Atlanta since she was here for work.

That gave me a chance to sit down with her to learn the fascinating journey of her life. She has lived and worked in three different continents and has one of the most in depth understanding of different work and social cultures. I was impressed with her grit in dealing with multiple personal and life tragedies she has had to deal with (two of which were life threatening).

But the best part was – and Sumana, you might want to listen to this part – how well rounded she is. We talked about various aspects of our life – physical health, mental health, spirituality, family, work… in fact all the aspects of Level 10 life. I was captivated by how she takes intentional actions to keep up with all those facets of our being. That makes her a very uncommon lady in my books.

Pilar Bide, we have a lot to learn from you! May your tribe increase!!

You still owe me a crisp answer to the tombstone question though 🙂

24 December 2023

An “enlightened” family !!

Sharmila and I were having our evening drinks at Lapeer chatting up with Nicol and Jules, when a gentleman came up from behind and called out my name. Turned around and it was good old Paul Gourley! I had not seen him in some time but we had workd together when I came to this city nearly two decades back.

Turns out he was there for Christmas Eve dinner with his family and had noticed me sometime back.

I was a great admirer of Paul. Very quiet but a strong performer. I remember in meetings waiting to hear if he had to say anything. Usually, you could measure his words in gold.

It was such a delight to meet his whole family! Lynn, Adam and Ann Marie!! Hopefully we will get to see them more in the future!

17 December 2023

Israel is not sure I am an Indian by birth

“Rajib?”
“Yes. Israel?”
“Yes, sir!”

And that is how we started our Uber trip in the morning from the hotel to San Francisco airport.

“Where is that accent from, Israel?”
“Nigeria!”
“Are you from Lagos? Abuja? Or the rural parts?”
“Lagos. How do you know about Nigeria?”
“Well, believe it or not, I have a school friend who works in Lagos and another in Abuja.”
“Are you from India?”
“That I am”
“Have you been to Nigeria?”
“No. Actually I have never been to anywhere in Africa.”
“Oh! You do not know what you are missing.”
“I know. The irony is my elder daughter was in your neighboring country Ghana for half a year. And my younger daughter is going to be in Uganda for some time next year. But I have not.”

That started an interesting conversation with Israel. Once I found out about his family – both in Nigeria and in the USA – we moved on to discussions of Nigeria. The politics there – the vast difference in the economies of the north and the south, the religious lines, the recent change in Presidency and so on. We, of course talked a lot about soccer. I told him how we grew up watching stars like Roger Milla from his neighboring country – Cameroon.

What startled me about Israel was his knowledge about India. He seemed to be quite abreast of the economic developments and politics in India. In fact, he was outright in praise of India and what it has achieved in the last couple of decades.

“I love Modi,” he declared.
“You do? Why do you like Modi?”
“He has kept India non aligned. He is not willing to be afraid of anybody – not China, not USA, not Russia. This is important for a country to grow up.”

“What do you think of Modi?” he asked me.
Instead of directly answering the question, I talked about all the positives and negatives I hear from my friends and read in the news.

From there Israel went into the different states of India. He demonstrated great interest in the different languages in India.

“Is it true that all your languages are different?”
“Yes. I have lived in four states. And my mother tongue cannot get me a glass of water in any of the other three states if I tried.”

“Where is Punjab?”
“It is in the north. Bordering on Pakistan.”
“What language to they speak there?”
“Punjabi”

He delved into Punjab for some time. Now, I was getting a little wary. There has been some deep political controversy recently that involves India, Canada, USA and some Punjabi citizens in USA and Canada that India considers as terrorists. Given the depth of knowledge Israel had on economics and politics, I was sure that this is where his curiosity was coming from.

“I know a name from Punjab.”
“You do?”
“Durminda”

I could not understand the name he gave. I was not sure whether it was his accent or he was pronouncing it wrong. So, I asked him
“What was that name again?”

“Dh-ur-meen-da”
“Dharmendra?”
“Yes, Yes,” he was clearly excited.

I started laughing out loud. He was talking about the famous Bollywood actor Dharmendra from the 1960s-80s. Bollywood movies were, and still are, a staple export from India to Africa. Interestingly enough, Nigeria has grown a very large movie production industry too. Bollywood today produces the largest number of movies in the world! As luck would have it, Nollywood (from Nigeria) is the second largest!

Anyways, I was laughing my head off, as I mentioned. Partly relieved that we had moved from politics and partly that he remembered Dharmendra.

Israel was still on a high. In a raised voice, he kept saying…

“I know Durminda. I know Sholay.”
“Well, you know more about them than me. I have not seen Sholay myself.”
“What?” Clearly, his enthusiasm was punctured.
“You are no Indian man, you are no Indian”, he kept saying, shaking his head!

And I just kept laughing to myself.

Finally, as we pulled into the airport and he came out to take my suitcase out, I asked him if we could take a picture together.

“Of course. But you have to promise to see Sholay when you go back home. Total action, man!”
“Ok. I will!!”

That was a fun start for the day.

If any of you take an Uber in San Francisco and the driver is an Israel from Lagos, ask him “Have you seen Shree Char So Bees? Asking for a friend!”

11 December 2023

Meeting a true independent thinker

Deepak Rammohan Bharadwaj!

I had not called out that name in a long time. Deepak was one more of those incredibly smart young kids (well, then he was a kid) that I got a chance to work with in the then startup – i2! The first thing that comes up in my mind when anybody mentions Deepak’s name is “independent thinking”.

Even in those days, he would come up with an angle of thinking that would often be missed by the rest of the team. Often ran contrary to the group’s thinking.

Then one fine day, in the middle of his career, he decided to go back to academia and get another degree.

Subsequently, in his career, he has switched fields and domains a few times.

While I have not been as successful in thinking independently and just being brave in taking life decisions as he, I have always wanted to sit down with him and have a long session of understanding what his life lessons have been.

Today was that day! I was in San Francisco for a day. As anybody knows, traffic from the outer cities to SFO is a bear in the evening. I had offered to meet him straight out of the airport before coming to my hotel.

“No. You have never missed in wishing me on my birthday one single year. This time I am coming over to see you!”

The evening started by discussing one of our common loves – mixology. He has stuck to the classical drinks while I have experimented with fruit juices a lot. One thing we both agreed on – James Bond really messed up the classic martini for everybody with his vodka version and that “shaken not stirred” thing. Martini has become Deepak’s go to drink while Old Fashioned is mine. That is how this evening started too – although we switched to softer red wine with our dinner.

“So, what drives you to think independently and act independently?”, I asked him.

Deepak thought for a moment and offered “Trying new things keeps me excited”. We discussed the challenges one faces in following an independent path. The friction (of straying from the herd) that one has to overcome in the society, friend circle, family… and so on.

Finally, before he left, I asked him my tombstone question.

“So, what do you want be written on your tombstone?”

“Just that he was a nice person!”

“That you are, sir! That you are!!”

9 December 2023

Ran into another old friend

I was sitting down at Starbucks trying to catch up on some bill payments and all that when I saw a young lady walking towards me. I wasn’t sure if she was headed for the restrooms or for me. But moment she smiled, I realized she was heading for me!

“Amanda!! It has been such a long time!”, I exclaimed.

“I know!”

Amanda was my dental hygienist for a long time before she left the dentist office I go to for greener pastures. I had not seen her for years. I remember all the chats we used to have during my regular visits to the dentist’s office. I had gotten to know about her family from all those conversations.

Today, I got to meet one of her kids – Avery!

6 December 2023

My meetings with this family are entirely accidental

A few months back, I ran into Manu and Mihika in the airport. Turned out we were all headed to Scotland in the same flight.

Today, Sharmila and I were casually strolling in downtown Alpharetta heading towards one of our usual watering holes when we spotted a lady hurriedly crossing the street. And we thought we knew her. Sure enough, it was the other Gupta family member that I did not meet in the airport!

Keerti joined us at the bar for some time for a good chat!