I am often – and of late, increasingly – compared with my dad. Folks who know both of us mention how we look alike, our mannerisms are similar and we apparently, even talk the same way. But when somebody who I have not seen for 34 years, sees me down the street filled with a lot of people and immediately recognizes me simply by how I looked and walked from a distance, I have to believe that there is a lot of truth to what people say.

Yesterday, after all that driving and meetings and getting lost in the trails, it was getting late. But I really really wanted to meet this guy from my past. Unfortunately, I was at least forty minutes from where he was working and he was another forty minutes from his home. You know you were friends with somebody when they say – “Don’t worry. I will be there”. And that meant he had an hour and a half drive back home.

Not knowing how he would look – I had vague memories of Raja (Rajarshi) – I was looking around in the middle of all the boisterous crowds in Reston Towne Center on a Thursday evening – to see if I could spot him. Like I said, I had no need to worry. Even if he did not remember me, he remembered my dad.

The familiar “Bachchuda!” cry (incidentally, Bachchu is what my nickname was in Durgapur – actually still is – but nobody calls me by that name anymore) made me look to my sharp right and there he was – Raja – pretty much looking the same from so many years back. Not losing hair helps a lot!! And his first comment – after seeing me after 34 years – was “Ekabarey Roy-jethur moto”! (“Just like Roy Uncle”).

I was sixteen and he could not have been over ten way back in that February 1982 Saraswati pujo day when I had visited them for the last time. A few years back, we had left the neighborhood. But before leaving the neighborhood, we used to play soccer and cricket together – along with a few other kids from the neighborhood.

I had always wanted to meet him after I located him a year back. In spite of coming to the DC area so often, yesterday was the first time I got some time to meet him.

We told the bar lady that we were meeting after 34 years. She promptly took pictures of us. The rest of the evening, we drew up the neighborhood houses on a napkin and went house by house to see if we remembered everybody from that house and see if we knew where they all were. Many times I would fish out my iPhone, go to my blog and show him pictures of many of those people. In my “Intersection Point” series, I had met them much later, took pictures of and chronicled them in my blog.

The whole evening was like stitching together a rich tapestry of scattered memories from those days. We would recollect something – ask the other – do you remember that? do you remember this? and often would burst out laughing or loudly go – Yes, Yes Yes.

It was a good thing I had told the lady at the bar about our background. Instead of getting irritated every time we got boisterous with our laughter and Bengali, she would come over and take more candid pictures of us on our phones!!

Thank you Raja for taking the pains to drive that long to make it possible for me to meet you. Let’s see if we can pull off that picnic in the same spot from 1980 with all our neighborhood folks one last time in the next few years!!!

A couple of years back, Sourav – who went to seventh and eighth grade with me – had crossed the Canadian border with his family to spend a night with myself, my family and my inlaws when we were visiting Niagara Falls. He had become an instant hit with my inlaws with his traditional Bengali style “jomiye adda”.

He was in Atlanta for a couple of days and I had fixed to have dinner and drinks with him downtown. What he did not know is that I had been working on a surprise for him. There is another friend from our seventh and eighth days – Manbir (Manny) who now lives near Columbus, Georgia. I have met both of them only once after leaving school way back in the early eighties. I took a chance and it looked like Manbir might be able to make it this evening. I, however, kept it as a secret from Sourav.

The confusion started when I showed up at 7:45 at the bar that I had told both of them to come to. I went inside the bar but I could not find Manbir. Instead, i ran into Sourav. Imagine, my situation – I am on the phone with Manbir trying to pinpoint his location and Sourav is right in front of me and of course, I did not want him to get wind of it.

Just when this confusion was reigning supreme, a guy walks up to me saying “Isn’t that Rajib”? And I was like – “Abhijit”? Imagine the scene – Sourav standing in front of me wondering who they heck was I trying to locate in the hotel … Manbir talking to me on the phone that by now I had taken off my ears because I was completely bewildered that I was standing in front of a guy I went to Business school with and have never since 1991!!

Eventually, we sorted out everything. Manbir was in the wrong bar. Which was fixed quickly. Sourav was overjoyed to see him for the first time after 1980. Both of them were terrific athletes in our school and there were a lot of stories to remember. In between, I walked up to Abhijit (who was with his friend) to catch up with him too. Finally, before leaving, he came by where we were sitting. I had to ask the bar guy to take a picture of us.

And then we tried to locate some of our old school pictures. Believe it or not, in the lower pictures, the left one is Manbir and the right one has Sourav and me. Did I look nerdy or what?? 🙂

What a great evening it was though!!!

Way back in 1972 – I was barely a six year old, I recollect going to a neighbor’s house with my sister around lunch time. Cannot remember why – but I suspect we wanted to play with her son – Jayanta – that time all of four or five years old. I also recollect Jayanta not being there (he was in school) but Mrs Dey (that is the lady in question) gracefully kept me and my sister busy by playing with us. Eventually, her son came back from school – and he straightway started throwing up. Apparently, he had thrown up at school too. Mrs. Dey checked his lunch box (called tiffin box in India) and the food was found to be completely uneaten. Before even she could tend to him, her first reaction was to give the fresh orange from his box to me and my sister. And then as she turned her attention to her own son, my sister and myself made ourselves scarce. (We had a prized orange in our hand, mind you).

She left our neighborhood soon thereafter, but my entire life, I have always remembered her for her grace.

Much later in life, I got to know her again. We got brought together mostly because her son and I studied in the same set of schools – from my fifth grade – all the way to engineering college after which he left for US and I decided to stay back in India. (I know, eventually my plans had to be changed. You can blame Citibank for that 🙂 ) But going back to her, over time I did visit her house later, and I recollect that Uncle (Mr. Dey) was always busy going out to play cards (he was a much accomplished Bridge player) but she would patiently sit me down and have all the time to listen to all the blabbering I had to do when I was young.

Much much later again, I had found out that she was visiting her son in Boston and I had made some time from my work related trip – barely an hour – to go see her. And then, again, it became very sparse connection, if any at all.

Finally, she came to stay for some time with her son (who recently has moved to Atlanta). I did go see her and we went out for dinner after she came over. But this was with (and I am not complaining) the whole family.

However, this week, I was able to corner her one on one for over three hours sitting outside in a restaurant very close to her son’s house. That was one of my best times ever. Just having that connection and trust level from having played under her supervision was enough to open up much more than I can even dream of opening up to any other adults (frankly, even friends).

There were way too many things we talked about. But here is a real funny thing – I was in touch with a old colleague of hers (I visited that lady in 2014) that she had been looking for for some time and she was in touch with a kids I used to play with that I have been looking for 15 years!! We had an even barter of phone numbers!! She also reminded me of an event that I have only a blurry memory of. My dad had organized a carrom competition in the neighborhood and the graceful Mrs. Dey was to give out the awards. You want to guess who won the competition? Mr. Dey!!!

There are not too many adults of that age group who can make me feel that comfortable around them as she can and consistently has. I am awkward to begin with. But she has a way of making me feel at ease to open up.

I can’t believe that I started my life in a very small town – way back in India – literally at the edges of the town (only two more streets separated us from the cemetery at the outskirts of the town) – just a few steps from this lady and many a year later, almost on the other end of world, we are again so close in the same city. (although she pops in and out of US and India).

Here’s to a few more of those three hour sessions!!

After meetings in Colorado Springs and then in Denver West – and that made for a looong day, I needed to get some dinner. That presented a good opportunity to catch up with good old Manajit Sengupta from Narendrapur days. I had promised him multiple times that I would visit him when I came to Denver – this was the first time I was able to follow thru with that.

It was great to meet him and his wife Neelanjana. Needless to say, within a few minutes I had already found out some common connections from their college days. One of them happened to be the couple – Joydeep and Swapna that we vacationed with in Coeur D’Alene three months back!!

We had a great time talking about our school days, growing up, our teenager kids and all that good stuff. I came away distinctly with the impression that the goody goody boy image that Manajit had of me lost some of its sheen last evening 🙂