During the various stages of my professional life, I have been impressed by and immensely admired different folks. I have learnt a lot from them and almost always I found them to be different from me. And it is that difference that I have tried to study and then learn. (and sometimes chose not to learn – after deciding that I am a very different person and not every thing will suit me).

In the first couple of years of my job life, when I was soaking in as much as I could and essentially learning from what I was seeing around me in my first brush with corporate life, there was an unforgettable gentleman that I had come across – Nandu Kulkarni. I was never really part of his team except for the last few weeks when I was on a holding pattern waiting for my papers to come to be transferred to our company’s Latino operations in Florida.

Above all, it was his demeanor that had impressed me. Extremely level headed and soft spoken, I used to marvel at how he used to deal with stressful situations with an absolute calm and unemotional approach. I had sought him out to be my mentor and used to often swing by his office to chat with him. He, in a moment of lapse in judgment, no doubt – had taken me under his wings and used to give me quite a few pointers.

After leaving India, I had tried to keep in touch with him. When I visited my old company in Bombay, he was the first person I sought out to meet. And then I lost touch over time. Eventually, I got back in touch and had called him a few years back. I learnt how he had grown a passion for music and that he had moved to Pune.

I was plenty lucky that I was able to meet him during this trip to India when I landed in Pune. He was in Japan with his wife and had returned around midnight the previous night. Graciously, he had agreed to wake up early and make the effort to come and have breakfast with me.

Just being able to see him and say Thanks for every which way he has influenced me was a great achievement already. But, on top of that, the breakfast session was another learning exercise too. As an example, the first thing that struck me was how young he looked. His stance was straight as an arrow and he appeared to have little to no fat. Mind you, he must be at least ten years older than me.

“What is the secret to your health and young looks? Exercise?” I asked.

Unsurprisingly, he keeps up with a routine of biking, walking and hiking. Pune has quite a few hills around it and he takes full advantage of it.

“How about food?”, I pressed on.

“I have no restrictions on food”, he said.

“Really? Portion control?”

“Not really.”

“Really?”

“Have you heard of Horace Fletcher?”

“Nope”

And from then on, I learnt about Fletcherism, which he swears by. I just downloaded the book today and I need to read it up. But what I liked is it does not ask you to avoid any kind of food. In fact, it encourages you to eat whatever you feel like. This is a little reassuring to me. I have always felt that each human body is too complex and too different to draw a broad brush on any kind of food as either definitely good for all or definitely bad for all. Instead, this focuses on eating only when you feel hungry (not by the time of the day), masticating your food till your saliva has fully processed the food (don’t gulp before it is ready), enjoy all the taste and feel of the food, and stop once you feel you are not hungry any more.

I found quite some similarity with another philosophy of Staying in the Now. One of the practices encouraged there is to slowly chew your food and focus all your attention to food.

After some time of doing this, apparently, Nandu has been able to get off all medicines. (He had a heart attack once before). His sum total medicine intake in a year is about a couple of paracetamols if he runs fever and such.

Another interesting story I heard from Nandu was his trip to Antarctica. The real interesting part was how he took the Polar Plunge. To be sure you have to dive into water at freezing point. And as Nandu pointed out, he can’t even take a cold shower. But apparently, he got over his fear and went for it. And swore that it was one of the most exhilarating and satisfying experience ever. I am pretty sure that the satisfying part was a post facto feeling 🙂 I have a deathly fear of heights. Maybe this will get me to do a skydive once in my lifetime.

One breakfast is too little a timeframe to catch up with Nandu. But I needed to go and he, I am sure was tired too.

“Next time, please meet again. Do not use your algorithm.”

The algorithm he is referring to is what I had explained to him a few minutes earlier. There are about a dozen people I know in Pune. I was going to be there for less than a day. I explained to him that I was prioritizing initially to meet teachers, parents of friends, elders, seniors and people who I had not seen for the longest time first.

I laughed out loud and promised that I will make an exception for him in my algorithm.

It is a sheer wonder that this meeting ever actually took place. That it happened in Lalita’s house was also not something I would have guessed. For all that, the four hours somehow went away without us realizing much at all. Let me see if I can unentangle the whole thing.

First there is Lalita. Last year, I had located her to be in Pune. She and I went to the same school in nursery grade (that is pre-kindergarten). After that year, I had met her twice in my life. On Saraswati pujo day in 1980 (in Raja, Tata and Mithudi’s house) and then on Saraswati pujo day in 1984. When I found her out last year, I had called her up and she promptly let me know that she had no recollection of our meetings or having gone to school together for a year but admitted that while she had heard my name. She was gracious enough not to put the phone down immediately. Instead we talked for a long time about our common batchmates.

The next is Jayita. Again, I had met her only twice in my life. But I have distinct memories of both those meetings. Nishi, I believe, had given me her number last uear. And when I had called her up, she too had no recollection of me. At least, she too, admitted that she had heard my name.

Before coming to Pune, I had asked if Lalita would have an hour to meet up. She, not only jumped at that (did I mention she did not know much about me? 🙂 ) but insisted that I came over for lunch at her place. I threw all my arguments of time being too precious to be wasted on hosting duties and all that at her and somehow convinced her we would meet outside.

She suggested that she call two of her batchmates from Durgapur too. Jayita was one of them. Since I knew her, I called her too and let her know that I was hoping she could join us. Well, I am not sure what happened but I think I got arm twisted into meeting at Lalita’s house anyways and all my protestations were summarily dismissed. Lalita was going to call another batchmate – Manvir.

When it came to Manvir, we were true strangers. Neither one of us had ever met or talked to each other. To the best of our combined knowledge.

The fourth person there Lalita’s husband – Bidyut-da. This is where the real twist comes. Bidyut-da and I are again complete strangers. Unlike Manvir, he was not even my batchmate. And yet, among all of the folks there, he was the one who somehow knew most about me! And he was the one excitedly waiting to meet me. So much so, he took a day off from work so that we could meet!!

Over hours of meeting and some incredible Bengali and Punjabi cooking – thanks to all the three ladies – we found out that these four seemingly strangers were interconnected by an uncanny set of intersection points that. Strange, how the rich tapestry of life can be so unpredictably familiar.

I will skip Lalita and Jayita’s connections with me – since we were batchmates, we were bound to have a lot of common friends from the batch. Also, since I had talked to them before, I had established as many of those connections as I could.

Bidyut-da had heard a lot about me from a gentleman called Swarup-da who was his fellow batch mate in REC, Durgapur. Swarup-da, as it turns out, helped me prepare for NTSE exam during 1981-1983. That was the starting point. And then as we traced down our lives, there were way too many of those connecting points. Of course, Lalita, herself is an intersection point for both of us. Then I found out that his sister lives bang opposite Sharmila’s parents’ place. Who I had visited just a couple of days back.

Bidyut-da talked about another classmate of his – whose brother lives very close to where we were meeting that day. And that gentleman is none other than Ranjan Ghosh – my classmate from fifth grade to tenth grade! I wish I had some time in the evening to go meet him but I needed to head out for Mumbai. I further found out that Bidyut-da and Lalita were particularly close to our next door neighbor from the early 1980s and I had absolutely no idea of that! Got a good update on that family from them. I had lost touch around the early nineties.

Coming to Manvir, other than our common batchmates (although we were in different schools), I could not think of any possible connections I might have with her. Turns out I could not have been any more mistaken. She and I have some strong intersection points that brings us all the way back to Atlanta. Manvir is married to a Bengali. She talked about a couple from US she knows thru her sister in law and how she has met them many times when they have visited Kolkata. She further talked about how she has accompanied the husband for shopping and helped him pick sarees for his wife. And a few more minutes later, I discovered that the said couple is none other than our own good old friends Swapan and Jaba in Atlanta!!!

Speaking of connections in Atlanta, there is of course another Manbir (similarly pronounced but differently spelt). A quick pointer here. For Punjabis it is pretty common to have the same first name be used for boys and girls. Well, Manbir used to live in Atlanta and is now in south Georgia. He and I go back to 1977 – we were classmates for 6 years. And I found out that the two Manbirs’ (or Manvirs, if you will) dads are brothers!!!

Like I said, we were having so much fun finding out all these connections that we completely forgot that we were supposedly strangers. In fact, we were so excited that somewhere, Lalita’s two daughters joined in to observe all the fun we were having.

Eventually, I had to take leave. I do not think we had finished learning about our life journeys yet. Hopefully, we will get to meet again.

The sun was warming up pretty fast on Sunday morning in Kalyani. By 10 am, it was started to get real uncomfortable. The niece was somewhere else, brother in law had gone to work, dad was fast asleep after the morning chat session and mom was busy in the kitchen.

I proposed to my sister that she get dressed up and we go meet another set of elderly couple. She has been so impressed by all my friends and their parents that I have introduced her to in Kalyani over the last few years, that she readily jumped at the proposal. I had barely gotten ready myself when I saw from upstairs that she had already pulled the car out and was waiting for me.

About 10 minutes of Google map aided drive later, we parked the car in the shade of a tree and knocked on a door of the adjoining house. An elderly lady came out from inside and kept looking at me while trying to open the grilled door fence.

“Apni ki Mrs. Ghatak? Dekhtey to Moumita-r moto-i laagchhe”. I asked if she was Mrs. Ghatak and then pretty much answered it myself by observing that she looked uncannily like Moumita.

The said Moumita was married to a team mate of mine from 90s in Dallas – Arindam Banerjee. Arindam and I have met each other a couple of times after that but I do not believe that I have met Moumita for the better part of the last one and a half decades.

One of those years when I had called her up to wish her a happy birthday, I had gotten to know that her parents live in Kalyani. Last year, my brother and I had attempted to visit them – but they had given me the slip and had headed out for America the previous day.

After we settled down, Mr. Ghatak came out. And he surprised me by mentioning how he had met me almost twenty years back in a Durga Puja in Plano area in Texas. The details matched but for the life of me, I could not remember the meeting. Obviously he has sharper memory than I do.

I also found out that he is an avid swimmer. He swims regularly every week!! I cannot think of another person I know in India of that age group that swims regularly.

But the best part of the morning was Mr. and Mrs. Ghatak talking about all the constant domestic tiffs apparently they have. Both my sister and I had a good laugh together with them!!

Sometime around last year, I had traced this classmate of mine from eleventh and twelfth grades (junior and senior in high school) – Debasis to no other place than Kalyani – where my parents live! During my previous trip, I went to his house and met his parents. But he and his wife Joyoti were away on a vacation to Delhi. Some might even suggest that they had caught an early wind of the fact that I might be coming 🙂

This time though, when my sister and I walked in, we were able to meet all four of them! I saw Debasis for the first time after 1985. I remember him as a very studious and easy to get along person from my dorm building – Gouranga Bhavan. I used to visit his medical college to meet some of my other friends – later in life – but for some reason, never ran into him.

It was, as always, very exciting to catch up on an old classmate’s life journey. You probably will not be surprised but I found some intersection points with his wife Joyoti too! Her neighbor during her childhood days in Ranchi was my teammate in a job – much, much later in life. Also, she was classmates in college with a few of Sharmila’s friends from school!!

But undoubtedly, the exhilarating part was talking to his parents. Specially his dad – who, even at this advanced age keeps himself occupied in more ways than I can dream of. Of all the activities that he talked about that he gives his money and time to, the most intriguing was how he has been helping out about 100 prisoners in a penitentiary center by getting them involved in various activities – educational, sports and spiritual.

Unfortunately, my sister and I did not have much time since we had to go back to my dad. But I will be back. Specially since Debasis and Joyoti suggested we should go out for a drink some time! 🙂

I believe that is how I had described Mrs. Mukherjee when I visited her last time.

Because of her spinal cord weakness she cannot sit up straight. But she refuses to be dependent on others. She was filling up some bank forms by herself last time when I saw her, as I recollect. Yesterday, on my way to visit my nephews, I swung by her house for another visit.

“Chintey paarchhen?” (Do you recognize me).
“Mon-e thaakbey na keno baba? Bubun-er bondhu Rajib to.”. She had no difficulty remembering me.

She is in the threshold of being a nonagenarian. In fact, in a few months, she is going to hit 90. For that age, The picture here can be very deceptive. She  looks and in fact, is, frail. But under that frailty lies an uncommonly determined lady. In the hour  or so that I was with her, she talked about her late husband, her grandson, their family’s craze for soccer, her last trip to US and many other details of her life.

“Nijey nijey hnaat-tey paarchhen?”. Remembering my dad’s condition and her spinal cord, I asked her if she was able to walk around. She reaffirmed that she can walk if she needed to (like going to the restroom etc).

“Walker nichchhen?”. I asked if she was using the walker.
“Na”.
“Laathhi?” How about the walking stick?
“Na”.

I remember that streak of independence last time I saw her. She was determined to walk as long as she could without any help. And this is in spite of having fallen down a couple of times.

That will has not waned a bit. Hope to see her with that same unflinching will on the other side of 90 when I see her next.

I could see the gentleman walking towards where I was near the luggage conveyor belt from a long distance across the other side of the airport. It was supposed to be a complete secret trip to Kolkata to see my parents. Except that I had told this gentleman beforehand.

In January, when I called this very old school friend of mine (he left school in the ninth grade) to wish him a happy birthday, I found out that he works at the airport that I use to go see my parents!! Then and there, I had promised to see him when I was going to be in Kolkata airport next.

“George Williams Pratap Singh Bara”!!! That was the gentleman with a clean shaven head like me who was approaching me with that unmistakable permanent smile on his face!! “How long has it been?”, he asked. A quick math in my mind pointed to 36 years!!!

I still remember his wizardy on the soccer field. In fact, together with the curly hair he used to sport those days, “Pele” was his common nickname that was not hard to guess. I learnt today that has he kept up with his passion for soccer. He has played at a pro level in Kolkata – the Mecca of soccer in India and that is how he scored his first and only job with India Airlines (now Air India). He has represented his employer and other clubs in various tournaments in Europe and Africa. “But never in the US”, he told. Might be some day though! Because he still keeps up with his soccer!!

But most of the time was spent discussing his kid. When I had called him to wish him on his birthday, we talked about his twins. One of whom is completely autistic with high ADHD. I had thought about sitting with him and understanding how they deal with it as parents.

Today was that day. I had a lot of questions. The first thing was to even find out how do you realize that a young child has autism? As first parents, how do you know “normal”? Turns out that was easy for them – since the other twin was a convenient control experiment. The rest was very tough though.

Both the kids are 20 now. But when some body says that one of them has finally learnt how to manage himself in the bathroom, you can only begin to understand the journey of the parents for 20 years. Hearing from him some of the long, tedious process they had to follow to get a hyper active child with no ability to concentrate and because of autism, very limited ability to converse to sit down when told to sit down was eye opening for me. And they had to go thru this just so that the child would sit down for a moment to take a few bites of his meal before he would run away again.

What was amazing thru all those descriptions was the realization how much sacrifice he and his wife has made to raise this child and continue to do so. His wife gave up her job. And he wakes up at 3 am every day to come to office by 4 am so that he can leave by noon and give company to his kid and give some relief time to his wife. Apparently, one of the daily routines for dad and son is to go out for a ride on his motorbike – come rain or storm.

And just when I thought I might have started to understand the tip of the iceberg, I realized another perspective. And that is thru all this, they had to continuously balance the other kid and ensure that he got as much of a normal upbringing as he possibly could.

When we finally hugged each other to say good bye I had to tell him the following:
“Pratap, you are a good man. A really good one. After hearing your whole story, you know what I find the most amazing part?”
“What?”
“That you always have that smile on”.

We hugged each other one more time and left for our days…