Two long days of bank meetings were done. All my friends had left by the late evening flights. I, of course, counted myself to be lucky since all the evening flights out of La Guardia were frightfully delayed due to weather. Needless to say, my friends had the last laugh this morning. Five hours after my scheduled departure time, I am yet to take off in the air.

In any case, after seeing my friends off, I took a chance and called a person I knew long long time back. He was the chairman of a company that I had worked in. I had always admired his ability to understand businesses and in general, his IQ level. Over the years, our relationships were mostly reduced to me sending birthday messages, for he seemed to be always in some other corner of the world jet setting as usual.

I lucked out this time though. He was in New York city and had half an hour. In fact, he was kind enough to push out his meeting for the evening to spend a little more time with me.

It was amazing talking to Frans Van Schaik and learning about his ventures. His life is one of the most interesting ones that I know. He has taken multiple years off from work to chase his passions, he has run large companies, he has led software companies, has led companies that set up manufacturing facilities in Africa, has raised a grass-fed beef farm north of Vermont and so on. All sorts of different expriences in professional and personal life.

It was just great seeing him after such a long time. We also caught up on some of our old friends – Marcia, Jean-Yves, Jonathon, Sean ….

We had just finished our bankers meetings for the day in New York City. Our entire team came back to the hotel and we settled down for a quick drink at the hotel bar. Out of a whim, I called up Vipul, who I recollected had moved to the New York area long time back. Guess what? He was in office and his office was literally a block away!!!

We managed to meet for some time before he left for home. The surprise for him was Anand – who was also with me in our meetings. In fact, all three of us had worked together for a few years a decade and half back…

“That must be him”, said Anand.

I turned around from the table that both of us had sat down at with a glass of wine waiting for somebody I had not seen for nearly two decades. “Sure it is”, I said.

The perennial smile was still there! That facial hair (which, of course is a mandatory feature for males in Portland) was still being sported. And when he opened his mouth – that booming voice was still intact.

Unmistakably Walt Buehring.

You see, this week Steve Martin (remember the gentleman that I managed to meet for a couple of minutes at Atlanta airport a few weeks back?) had helped me find the co-ordinates of our common colleague from the nineties – Walt, in Portland. When I was in Portland this week, after our partner dinner was over, I grabbed Anand – who was also a colleague at that time and we are again team mates now – and went to a bar to meet Walt.

It was a very long evening remembering the old days and it did not seem like we were done when we had to leave. There were a lot of memories to cherish, a lot of fun to ruminate over and lot of colleagues to update each other on. I have a lot of remembrances of Walt from those days – all those nightly builds, regression testing frameworks, porting of software and so many more.

“Do you remember our first story?”, I asked him.
“Which one was that?”
“How you almost lost us a deal with your shorts”.

Walt immediately broke into his big booming laughter. Anand kept curiously looking at both of us.

“Tell the story to Anand. I will get you started,” I said and then turning to Anand I started…

“This was in July, 1995. On my first day in the new company as a developer, the head of development – Dan Stenger – went around introducing me to the various team members. We came upon a room that had the door closed. Dan gently knocked and then opened the door. If I remember correctly, the door was usually kept closed because the developers inside – Walt being one of them – used to smoke inside. I know, these days, one cannot think about doing that.

In any case, Dan introduced me to this bearded, always-smiling guy and said – Walt, why don’t you tell Rajib how you almost lost us a deal?”

And like this day, Walt had laughed aloud then and explained to me as he did to Anand on this day…

“Anand, what had happened was…”, Walt started lighting up another cigarette (yep, that has not changed either), “one night I was working very late. And since it was late night, I had come back to office in casuals – and I mean lime green shorts, when I say casuals – and was pounding away at the code. Completely unknown to me, our company founder had just finished dinner with a prospective foreign (I think European) customer and had come back to the office together with the customer to pick up some of their stuff.

Upon seeing light in my office, they had swung by to say Good Night. Everything went hunky dory.

Except we found out a couple of days later that the potential customer had decided against us. Apparently they thought that employees coming in lime green shorts to office (mind you, this is very late at night) was not the sign of a professional company.”

As Anand grinned hearing the story, Walt looked at me – “Do you know the other reason why the customer was against us?”

“No”.

“Apparently, our founder had not offered wine while sitting down for dinner. The customer had to ask for it. That did not go down well with them!”.

Now, it was my turn to laugh. You see, we were a start up those days. We might have been very passionate about what we did – yes, even in our lime green shorts – but we were not the most sophisticated folks then.

We did mature over time. And we did get that customer back. And the company did succeed a lot.

“Too funny,” I said, as all three of us were trying to wipe off the grins from our face!

And that is how life always turns out. The small incidents, the side stories of the intense times that you spend together with somebody almost always are the lasting recollections you will keep with yourselves.

It was great to see the good old Texas boy living life on his terms. He is singing in multiple bands, writing songs, enjoying the North West landscape and weather…

Good for you Walt! For all the cheerfulness you brought to our office two decades back, the hard work that you put in and selflessness you showed, you deserve every bit of the best things that life has to offer you.

And more, I might add.

Magesh and I have crossed paths multiple times in life – we were in the same engineering college, we have worked in the same company once and we have now lived in the same city twice. In fact, I see him often now since we work out of the same executive office facilities.

Once in a while, we get a chance to grab a drink in the evening. And those meetings are invariably invigorating for the few grey cells that I have left. I remember, a year back having a beer with him and arguing about how to prove which is bigger – e to the power pi or pi to the power e.

Today’s long friendly banter was around whether time is a fundamental concept (he supported this) or an imaginary concept (supported by me). Debating with Magesh is always about learning how smart people like he thinks… I got some great lessons today…

About a week back, you might have read in my blog or in Facebook my feature on Jessica (“A profile in courage”) and her own writeup (as my first guest writer) on her travails and how she has fought back every inch of life.

Many of you showed your support for her quietly, some by putting comments in my blog, some by voting that you “Like” her fight back story and some more put in encouraging words for her in Facebook.

She has taken great inspiration from your thoughts and words of support. I got this card from her recognizing how much your words have meant to her still ongoing healing process.

I know I post too much. Guilty! Too many of the running pictures, not so funny jokes and what not…. But the realization that my readers and I together, made a difference to somebody wonderful like Jessica, makes it all worthwhile for me.

Allow me to name all the ones who put in encouraging words on my blog and Facebook…

Shout out to all of you that made Jessica’s day and many more of you who did it quietly…

Sri Ganesh (my senior from my first job), Mrs. Bhowmic (my geography teacher in middle school), Sharmila (the one who reminds me how much I post 🙂 ), Amitesh (my alter ego in Atlanta), Ranajoy (my junior from middle and high school), Anushree (my classmate from elementary school), Subho Nath (my runner friend in Atlanta), Sumana Rao (my colleague from i2 days turned personal friend), Geeta Bhandari (my colleague in Mumbai from my first job), Vicky (one of my first colleagues who had the tough job of keeping me honest as my exec admin in i2), Moniruddin (my actual first friend of life), Brandee (my colleague from previous job in Atlanta – who also say right outside where I sat and was the brunt of a lot of my terrible jokes), Nita-di (our friend from Knoxville and my elder daughter’s heroine), Vineet Seth (my colleague from i2), Raja-Gautam (my friend from Atlanta), Debbie (Jessica’s friend), Tracy Fitzpatrick (my colleague from early start up days – another victim of my terrible jokes), Monolina (better half of my classmate from eighth grade), Swami (my peer, friend, philosopher and guide from yesteryears), Sibapriya (classmate from my middle school – and the first one to throw in his words of support for Jessica), MRs. Gurung (my home room teacher of eighth grade), Baisakhi Chakraborty (my friend from school days and a survivor by her own right – from an accidental incident and somebody who I consider lucky to be still on her friend’s list), Dipita (my wife’s classmate), Karen (my colleague from i2 days), Jayanta Biswas (another classmate from middle school), Jyotiswar (yeat another classmate from middle school), Shernaz (my colleague from first job in India), Amy Swotinsky (my colleague from my job in Boston), Sonali (spouse of my frind from middle school), Michele (colleague from my first job in Atlanta) and Lisa (colleague from my job in Boston).

I am really really proud that people like you who made a difference to Jessica count me as your friend!!

There was no way any of us would have ever guessed on the day after our tenth standard when the three of us went three different ways that we would actually come together under the same roof thirty four years later. With our spouses with us! In a country on the other side of the world!! In a winery up in the mountains!!

We were barely sixteen years then. The gap in between has been more than twice the number of years we had lived till then!!! As you can see from the middle picture, there was a lot of catching up to do!!!

That was a great afternoon with Manny (Manbir), Virginia, Subrata, Sharmistha, Sharmila. We also got to meet Manny’s daughter Simran and his niece Harneet!!

“Rajib, I have decided to leave the company”, confided the young lady – Jessica – who worked in our group. I was not very close to her, but was aware of she being a rising star in our group from the Talent Development meetings I used to have with my team leaders.

It was obviously a little disappointing to hear that message from her. I took her out to the nearest Starbucks to see if I could argue her out of it. But first, of course, I tried to understand why she had decided to quit. Clearly, I was not doing something right if one of our rising stars was not aware how much we valued her.

I remember most of the discussions from that day. And I actually never tried to dissuade her from her decision. But that is mostly because I was totally confused about her primary reason to leave the company and in fact move to a different city. I remember she was trying to explain to me logically her thought process. But I eventually gave up. I let her know that she could come back any day she wanted to. But it was not adding up in my mind.

That was in 2010.

“I remember you telling me that it was not adding up in your mind”, said the same Jessica when I met her for dinner last Saturday when I had gone to visit Nikita in her college campus. I had arrived the previous night in Charlotte and got together with her for a quick drink and dinner.

You know how sometimes a few seconds can completely change your perceptions and opinions? Well, then get ready for this…

Jessica volunteered the real reason why she left Atlanta. I have her permission to say this to all my readers but she had become one more of those helpless victims of sexual assault by a stranger. I must have stared at her for a full minute in disbelief. Too many things were going thru my mind. In fact, I am such a softie, I cannot even get myself to use some of the words she used to explain what was done to her.

I was completely numbed not knowing what had hit me. I had flashbacks of my wife and my daughter who was in Dallas that day and the other daughter who I was going to see the next day. I had flashbacks of my last meeting with Jessica in front of the Starbucks.

Frankly, I had no idea what to say. What are your first words to somebody who just tells you that they had gone thru the worst nightmare of a woman?

Thru the evening though, I got some of my strength back as she kept talking about how she has fought back. Emotionally, physically and mentally. One day at a time. One step at a time. I intently listened to her – about every step she had taken to get past her initial phase of just being sorry for herself and then picking up her broken pieces.

She has today turned it to a very positive energy by throwing herself to philanthropic causes. She has resolutely worked on converting the worst crisis of her life as a stepping stone to being the best person in the world. On the professional side, after some initial adjustment process after moving, she has gone from pillar to post in one success after another. In fact, she wanted my opinion on two great opportunities in front of her and what to do about them.

Driving back to my hotel, I felt so humbled by a young professional – twenty years my younger – in how she has succeeded in her career life. But I felt really really inspired by how she has fought (and frankly, still fighting) the odds to make a success of herself.

Gave me hope and strength to be a better man myself.

[I am going to see her again next week when I go to pick up Nikita. I will request her to write about her experience as the first guest blogger on my blogsite. Watch out for that in this space…]