I had not seen Giselle in about 12 years. In fact, the last time I saw her in her office in HSBC was the only time I had or have ever met her. It was not a very relaxed environment for either of us that day. She was my customer. She had to inform me that I was fired. Well, not personally but the business I ran. That was a tough meeting. Not just because nobody likes losing. It was also my personal pride in our products that was hurt. And that is the irony in business life – we tend to have a parent-like protective pride in products we own – that need not be reflective of market perception.

You would think that is where our relationship would have ended – first and only meeting. Then again, there is a reason my wife calls me quirky. I kept up with her thru emails first – just to enquire how she and her business was doing. Then I was able to gain her confidence enough to share her birthday with me.

That established a time tested way of keeping in touch with her – even if only once a year. For whatever reason, she always had a genuine interest in what was happening to me, my family, my career and all those stupid things I do. A few weeks back, during our annual call, I realized that she was going to be in Chicago for a family event this week.

After wrapping up all meetings on Wednesday, I hightailed it to Chicago downtown. Brimming in confidence that she had nothing to fire me about 🙂

When a meeting goes for double the time that you had agreed to, you can only imagine how much we must have enjoyed our conversations. I learned more about Porsches than I ever probably knew was there to learn. Giselle races Porsches and I was simply in awe of her knowledge of mechanical engineering and how a car engine works. In fact, as she talked about how to get the car to pivot the weight to the front tires and control the rear wheel swing at tight corners, I was having flashbacks of my motorbike riding lessons that I am still learning myself.

But the best part was learning about sailing. For all the interest I have in motor boats, I learnt the physics from her about what makes a sailing boat more stable than a motor boat and why a lake is more dangerous than the ocean for sail boats. Have you ever heard of “square waves”? She might have just piqued enough interest in me that I will put sailing in my bucket list. The most reassuring part was that she can’t swim much and hates getting in the water. That makes two of us. Shubu, you might have to stat giving me some Sailing 101 lessons. Avi, are you listening?

That was an inspiring story. Specially for somebody who got out of Cuba at the age of five and landed in New York. And then had to abandon the city since the cold weather got her into a lot of physical issues. The career track she has built for herself is a fascinating story. She has worked in more states in this country than I have probably visited. And she worked for Edsel Ford Jr !!

I met somebody that lives by what is my target for life mantra – except that she has already reached there – “Be different. Make a difference.”

“So, you saw your birth father for the first time in your life?”, I asked
“Yes”, she replied.
“And he was living near you all this time?”
“Yes!”

It was September 2016 when Julio and I had met Paula at the Blind Horse in Sheboygan. She had made one of the best Sazeracs I had had, I remember. That evening as we got to know her, we found out that she was left by her birth mom when she was a few days old. Her wonderful adoptive parents had raised her. Her (adoptive) parents had adopted a brother for her too – who incidentally is married to an adopted girl from India! That day I had asked her if she had any interest in finding out her lineage and about her birth parents. She let me know quickly that she had no interest. (More about that day here: http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=11717)

About a year later, Julio and I were in Wisconsin for a meeting. We were at a resort by Lake Elkhart and guess who had switched jobs to the bar of that resort? There were two parts of the conversation from that day I still remember. First, she had a second daughter a few months back and I had promised to come back and see the baby some time. And that she was warming up to finding out about her lineage. (More about that day here: http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=14517)

We had kept up thru Facebook and she had kept me apprised of her progress with the project to find her birth parents.

“Paula, start from the beginning. You had approached ancestry.com, right?” I asked her as we settled down for coffee at a coffee place near Milwaukee between my business meetings.
“Yes. They did the full DNA analysis”. She then showed me the report they sent her about the various mix of bloods she has.
“I am basically a human mutt!”, she said laughing!
“That is funny! Then what happened?”

“Much later, I got a call from a lady. She told me that she found me on ancestry.com. And she thought she knew me.”
“Were you excited?”
“I was not sure how I felt. Anyways, she gave me a few details from my first few days. That absolutely matched what the orphanage had told me. She then said that she knew my mom and dad. And that she was my aunt. My birth father’s sister. She then said – let me send you your mom’s high school pictures. You two look exactly the same.”
Saying so, Paula pulled out her mom’s pictures from her phone. I have to admit, they looked remarkable similar.

“Then what?”, I asked.
“Well this lady told me my dad’s name and where he lived.”
“Where does he live?”
“Near Milwaukee”
“That is right here…. “
“Yep!”
“Did you go meet him?”
“Yes, took my daughters there. And we have seen them a few times”.

Apparently, that was how Paula got to know her family from the birth dad side.

“Did your dad tell you anything about your mom?”
“Yes, they were both 15 when my mom had me. Her parents kicked her out of their house when they found out she was pregnant. After my birth, she gave me up at an orphanage and my dad and mom split and went their own ways.”

“Wow! What a story!! Where did the story lead to on your mom’s side?”
“My dad gave me my mom’s name. I searched for her a lot and then found her out in Facebook”.
“You too? You will be amazed how many of my own searches found closure in Facebook. In any case, back to your story…”
“From the pictures in Facebook you can see the similarity to her younger pictures”
“Did you reach out to her?”
“Yes. I messaged her who I was. And that I wanted her to know that I am happy. I am not reaching out for any particular reason.”
“Did she reach back?”
“No. She blocked me.”
“She blocked you????”
“Yes, she blocked me!”

After a few seconds, I asked her “And how did that make you feel?”
“I was okay. I do not know what life she lives. Plus my mom is my real mom.”
It took me a second to realize what she was saying. Then it dawned upon me – she was talking about her adoptive mom. I had completely forgotten about that wonderful lady.

The rest of the time was spent talking about the new job she was going to start soon and playing with her younger daughter. That was an old promise kept – to come and see her daughter.

Thoroughly missed Julio though!!

“Where are you from, Leo?”
There was no way Leo was going to escape my usual question with which I commence my conversations with every Lyft driver after getting into the car.
“Kazakhstan.”
“Really? You are the first person I know from Kazakhstan. The only thing I know about your country is your capital – Astana”.
“Well, it has a new name now – Nur-Sultan. But how do you know the name of the capital?”

I proceeded to explain to Leo how during Roger’s and my trip to Mongolia, on our way back we got stuck for 13 hours in UlanBator due to a massive sandstorm. The plane to take us to Kyrgyzstan could not reach us till the sandstorm had subsided. One of the gentlemen who also got stuck with us was a mining consultant and he was headed to Astana. He told us about the city.

“When did you last go to your country of origin?”
“Two years back”, Leo replied
“How would you describe your capital?”
“Have you been to Dubai?”
“Yes”, I replied.
“Well think of Dubai at a much smaller scale. And then put it in the middle of Kansas!”
That was a somewhat funny but fairly effective way of creating a picture in my mind.

“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”, I asked Leo who was in his mid-twenties.
“Photographer”, he said.
“Photographer?”
“Yes”

During the rest of the trip Leo told me about how passionate he is about photography. We exchanged a lot of notes on Nikon camera bodies and lenses. He has moved on to Sony now. We also talked about the pros and cons of going mirror-less now as opposed to waiting for a few years.

“When did you know you had a passion for photography?”
“When I had a near death experience”.
Well, that was not what I was expecting.
“Tell me more”.

I learnt that during one of his trips in Kazakhstan, he was traveling in one of the local transport vans. It was an old Russian Gazel. I remember seeing a few of them in Mongolia. Leo was sitting in the front and of course, there were no seat belts and all that. They soon met with a head on collision. Two passengers died instantly, one is paralyzed and one is still recovering. Amazingly, Leo walked away with minor injuries.

However, as he described, his first instinct in those few dazed moments after the accident was to take pictures of the vehicle. That was an instinctive reaction and there was no good reason for it. Much later, when he reflected on the accident and the aftermath, he realized that his inner instinct is to capture moments thru the lens of a camera.

Four days later, he flew back to USA and started his journey in photography.

“What if you cannot build a career in photography?”, I challenged him.
“Well, I am going to keep trying. And if nothing works out, there are so many ways to make money. Perhaps I will go back to school and learn about IT”.

“That is the spirit! This is what I tell my daughters too. They need to do what they are passionate about. Everything else will follow from that. I am sure you will be a world class photographer”.

We had reached my hotel. I got down and he showed me pictures of the mangled van and some of the photos he has taken with his cameras. He loves high speed car racing pictures but some of the near-macro stills (bokeh style) were outstanding.

He took a selfie of us and sent it to me. We became Facebook friends and decided to stay in touch!

My Kazakhstan friend count has jumped by 1 (admittedly from 0)
But my inspiration to follow my passion has increased manifold!

It was the second day of the conference I was attending in Orlando. I knew I was in a conference since my pedometer was clocking 20,000 steps every day. (Well, either that or New York city).

In any case, I was milling thru the booths in the exhibition floor talking to the companies that had come there when I suddenly heard my name being yelled out from behind. Now, as a background, I joined a new job six months back and this is a completely new industry for me. There is nobody from my past that I can think of that is now in the same industry that I would expect to run into in a conference.

But there was Arthur Altman! Thanks to Facebook, he had recognized me straightaway. Then again, there was not another shaved head Indian in the whole conference either.

Fancy meeting Arthur in Orlando! We got to know each other i2! That was in 1995 in Dallas. We worked together for a few years – even had a common boss for some time and then split in the early 2000s. The last time I saw Arthur was about 15 years back or so.

After that, it has been those annual chats during my birthday calls. And then finally, yesterday I ran into him!!

We caught up over drinks about our old company, some of our old friends from work as well as his family.

Arthur still is – as he always was – bubbling with energy, full of ideas and always quick on the draw. It is like nothing has changed at all. Well, the beard has decidedly grown longer. There is always that 🙂

Business found me in Baltimore today. As the Lyft driver kept cruising along, I suddenly realized that we were going past Johns Hopkins University. I knew two students there. In fact, I took a picture and sent it to both their dads. Later, texted one of those students if she had some free time in the afternoon. She gave me a time frame. She thought we were going to talk. In the past, we have talked a couple of times over the phone about subject selection, peer pressure in college and all that.

Once my meetings started wrapping up, I realized that I had about 45 minutes to an hour tops to spare and would still be able to catch my flight. So I texted her “Meet me at the library”. Guess who was surprised to know that I was in Baltimore?

Had a great lunch together. Got to know a lot about her college life and we talked a little about how perspectives in life change over the years.

It was great to see you Paroma! Thoroughly enjoyed the discussion.