Way back in 1978, there were a few of us kids – barely 10-13 years age that used to gather in the evening to play soccer. It used to be about five or six of us, we played barefoot on a piece of land that could not have been more than thirty yards by thirty yards. None of us were exactly teeming with skill but boy, did we make it up with enthusiasm. The soccer ball had multiple “gattis” (patches to cover up the holes in the stitches where the bladder would be sticking out from) – but who cared, as long as it was roughly round in shape?

In one of those ill fated evenings, we decided to put in our names in a 3-a-side soccer tournament that we had heard was being organized near us. Each one of us contributed a quarter (or about one-third of a cent today) and with the money, we went ahead and got ourselves registered.

Let me tell you how amateurish we were. We had completely forgotten to give our team a name! When the organizers pointed out the obvious flaw in our plan, we pulled ourselves aside and after much hurried debate, christened our team “Sobuj Songho”. That was a brilliant flash of innovation matched only if you hurriedly name your child John Smith! Consequently, the organizers entered our name as “Sobuj Songho #4” 🙂

We were psychologically blown apart when we saw the schedule. We were pitted against a team called “Black Diamond Express”. Most of us wanted to quit once we saw the formidable name. And then when we saw the team, we were struck with awe! They had jerseys on! We had whatever the heck we were wearing that morning still on us!!

While most of us were trying to figure how to get a honorable way out, there was one quiet, very polite teammate who suggested that we should anyways go ahead and play. In the worst case scenario, we would lose. Turns out, we got the confidence from him and actually summarily packed the much vaunted named team home!! We eventually lost a few rounds later but boy, did we get our money’s worth – all one-third of a cent – or what!!

From here, the story of the boy gets a little predictable. One more of those stories where I had been looking him up and down the world without much success whatsoever. After about 20 years of mostly fruitless phone calls and visits to the old neighborhood, about two years back, Facebook came to the rescue. I typed in a few variations of “Ajoy Ganguly” and I thought I found one face that would match what I recollected of him. Even through the bald head and the mustache, I thought I recognized the smile.

Unfortunately for me, he could not recognize me thru my bald head. I must have sent him about ten FB invites and he never accepted any of them. I tried mixing and matching social media sites and looked in Linkedin with that spelling. From the little of the profile that was visible, I could find out the company’s name. Then I shot a few messages to random people in that company (thru Linkedin) explaining that I was looking for such and such person in their company and if they would be kind enough to give him my email id and write to good old “Bachchu”.

Not a single response.

Further digging led me to realize last year that he had updated his FB profile with his home address – but no phone number! Go figure!! Using Google maps and Google Earth, I could pin point the exact building he lived in Jamshedpur. Then I spread the word around to my brother and friends that if any of them ever traveled to Jamshedpur, I had a favor to ask.

Every month or so, I would make another attempt and usually draw a blank. After finding Satabdi last week (see blog entry from a few days back), I got some renewed energy. I was telling Sharmila about the search. Who, by the way, is a big supporter of my searches of old friends. If you recollect, it was one of her prodding that ultimately led me to my first friend of life. In this case, she had a brilliant suggestion – “If you have the home address, why don’t you write a letter to him?” she asked!

After coming back from date night last night, I pulled up a paper and my favorite fountain pen. And then was struggling how to write a letter to somebody who might turn out to be a complete stranger or might not even remember me and may not even be a valid address in India. I decided to give technology another shot. I wrote an email to all variations of common email addresses you come across at his company.com. You know – aganguly, ajoy_ganguly etc etc! And went off to sleep!

I was awake by 4 am, thanks to daylight savings time ending yesterday. Checked emails – and sure enough!! There were two emails from him!! Got out of bed and made a really really long call to him! He was kicked to hear about some of our old friends that I have dug up. I was kicked to get his dad and brother’s numbers. I talked to his dad, mom and brother for another hour or so!

And Ajoy and I laughed out loud – startling the dogs – talking about “Sobuj Songho”!! More people to meet when I go to India next time!!

Here is a poetic irony. Which might explain why Sharmila kept supporting my search. Turns out Ajoy was my brother-in-law’s classmate and remembered him very well!

But you know what the real funny and lucky part was? When it is your time, it is your time, I guess. My original email last night went to a different person in the same company with the same name. Turns out my friend’s sub company uses a different domain name. But his namesake knew him (mind you, this is a company with tens of thousands of employees and these two were not even in the same location) and had forwarded my email!!!

I think I deserved that lucky break!!

This friend and her brother and sister were very close to me and my brother and sister. I am talking about mid seventies when I was yet to get to fourth grade. But, as it happened, we moved and then I lost contact completely. But they have been on my long list of old friends to reconnect with for over 20 years.

While technologies like cheaper phone calls to India, email, Facebook have made the act of finding your long lost friends easier, it essentially pivots on one assumption – that you know the name of the person you are looking for. While I (and my siblings) spent quite a few evenings playing with Tata (pronounced with a softer “T”) and her brother Raja and her elder sister Mithu-di, I had no living recollection of what their formal names were. As it is, changing of last names after marriage makes finding any lady by name difficult, but not knowing the names makes it hopeless. You will agree that trying to explain to electronic media how a person looked forty years back is not going to take any of us anywhere either. And trust me, you do not want to search the internet for somebody with the name “Tata”  for too long too much. Certainly not in public locations 🙂

Over the years, I had tried asking a lot of people, but like many of my residual searches, I came a cropper. Every time my brother and I go to Durgapur (about four times a year), we invariably spend a few hours going door to door looking for our old friends.

And then serendipity hit last morning. After the run by Potomac in Washington DC, I was casually checking some websites about Indian affairs and I saw somebody’s name mentioned called “Shatabdi”. An hour later, just as I was entering the shower, it hit me – Tata’s name was indeed Shatabdi. That set in motion another set of searches on internet to look for Shatabdi Roychowdhury. The search was more tedious than you can imagine. There are at least two different ways to spell “Shatabdi” and at least four variations of spelling “Roychowdhury” and that does not even take into account that some split it into two separate words.

Came up with a few possibilities. Rejected the first one since she showed up on Sharmila’s FB friend list. There was no chance that I would be looking for somebody for 20 years and Sharmila would have been friends with her on FB all this time. By this time, I needed to get ready to go to office – fortunately, with some hope that I might have a few more leads. The frustrating part of all the searches is not when a match does not work – it is when you run out of leads. You are hopeless at that point of time.

In any case, called up Sharmila to check in with her for the morning and let her know that I was leaving for office. And casually asked if she knew a “Satabdi Roychoudhury” from her FB list well. She confirmed that she did and that they were classmates till her middle and high school. More out of habit than hope, I gave her a couple of descriptions and asked if they matched. To my utter surprise, she said that they matched. I was like WHAT??? All these days I was looking all over the world and simply forgot to ask my wife? Anyways, I was in a hurry and Sharmila said she would get me her phone number. I asked her to ask her friend if she remembered “Bachchu”-da. For that was my pet name. Like hers was …. you know what 🙂

The day was very busy with meetings and then dinner meeting. Finally at 10:30 at night, I came back to my hotel and found out that Sharmila and Satabdi had both sent me messages with her phone number. Very excitedly, I called her and immediately apologized for calling so late. She did not seem to mind.

“So, where is Raja”?

“Oh! he lives close to us”, she said.

“Where is Mithudi?”

“She lives close to us too”.

“Wow! How are your parents? Where are they?”

“Oh! they are here visiting me right now”.

“BTW, where is ‘here’”?

“Baltimore”!!

“WHAT????”

That is when I realized I was not only looking for her in all the wrong places but I was literally forty five minutes from where she was as I was talking to her!

It was a long call. We went from house to house in our old neighborhood and I updated her on as many of them as I have been able to trace. Talked to her mom for a long time. She matched my recollections – event for event – at every step. She remembered the exact day when I had seen her last. She even remembered when I mentioned how she had saved me from impending disaster at home after messing up my sweater (that had been newly-knit by my mom) while trying to retrieve a “cambis” (tennis) ball from the hedges by bringing out her knitting needles and fixing it!

In between, I called up Sharmila to give her a full update. And then called up my brother and sister to let them know. They were super excited. My sister wanted to talk to them then and there before she realized it was past midnight for us.

As a final twist, before going to bed, I logged into Facebook to send friend requests to Mithudi and Raja (I had found out their formal names from Satabdi). It is then that I realized that Mithudi knew a friend from my middle school too. I could not figure out the connection. A few messages with Jyoti later, I found out that my friend and Mithu-di were room mates in college!! Go figure!! We both talked about how kind their parents were. There is a chance – a small chance that Jyoti and I might be in Kolkata in Jan around the same time! Wouldn’t it be cool to visit Mr. and Mrs. Roychowdhury at the same time!!

It is such a small, small world!

Looking forward to coming back to this area so I can meet my friends from forty years back. I will miss uncle and aunt since they are headed to India soon – but like I said, I will fix that problem next time when I go to see my parents!!

Little did I know as I sank into the luxury chair in John’s plush office that I will actually come up with another intersection point. This was a few months back. I had shown up after office in John’s renowned company offices to discuss some unrelated business and get some pointers around talent. John, being extremely well known in Atlanta circles, was, as he always is, tremendously helpful that evening.

“Tell me about your new company”, he asked.

“Oh! We are a big data and analytics company specializing in geospatial data….” and I proceeded to give a two minute version of what our company is.

“Where are you based out of”?

And I rattled off the large offices we have in Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, Oregon…

“Oregon?”, he interrupted, “My sister lives there”.

“Where?”, I enquired. Half expecting him to say Portland.

Instead he said “Oh! it is a very small place. You would not know”.

“Try me”

“It is a small town called Corvallis”.

“I have a office there. With 50 or so people!!!”

You can only imagine his surprise. I was not sure whether he was more surprised by the fact that I knew exactly where Corvallis is or that there are actually 50 people in Corvallis. In any case, that evening as I walked away, I asked him to send me his sister’s contacts. And promised to visit her next time I would be in that part of the country.

Which I did. Yesterday. Over a cup of coffee.

And boy, am I glad!! Otherwise I would have missed another fascinating person with an incredible personal story. I don’t think I have ever met somebody who knew Bill Gates and Steve Jobs that well personally. In fact, Jean – that being her name – sold the first Apple computer that the retail store ComputerLand had. (Anybody remembers ComputerLand from the seventies and eighties? I think they shut down in the nineties). I was fascinated by her contribution to Open Source movement and her personal association with Ritchie (of the Kernighan and Ritchie fame). Eventually, she sold her start up in the Bay Area and settled down in the quiet pastures of Oregon. She actually lives 45 minutes away from Corvallis in the Coastal Mountains in a 92-people town called Alpine. She followed her passion and love for nature. She is deep into wines – in fact, we found some common connections we had in a few owners of wineries around the area that we both knew. 

We spend a lot of time discussing what would be some great places to retire in. I strongly pushed for the case of Costa Rica, Chile, Portugal and Bulgaria. Unfortunately, I had my meetings starting in office soon and so I had to take leave after an hour. I have to come back and finish off our discussions…

The drive from Corvallis to Monmouth last evening was a short one, but a very beautiful one. As I went up 99W thru the quaint towns amidst beautiful wineries and fruit orchards of Oregon with the sun setting behind the Coastal Mountains as a backdrop, my mind floated back to an early morning of an August day in 2007. That was the day I had met Lia Knower in our running group for the first time. Ever since, she and I have run together many times. I got to run with her husband Matt once and a few weeks back, you may recollect the story I wrote after running with her daughter Lynette. 

After wrapping up a hard week on the road, on a Thursday evening, my normal route would have been to drive for a couple of hours to Portland and check into a hotel by the airport to catch the first flight home the next day. But not yesterday. Because I had a very important meeting set up. I was going to make a new friend. A 94 year old friend!

After the run with Lynette was done, over a cup of Starbucks coffee, I had explained to Lynette how her mother had found out about my trips to Oregon from Facebook and how, I got to know that her dad was from Oregon and that her mom spent quite some time there. I also told her that I found out her 94 year old grandmom was still in Oregon. In a place quite near to where I go. Excitedly, I let her know that I was actually going to show up at her grandmom’s house one day and make friends with her.

That day was yesterday. Last week, when I was trying to get my co-ordinates settled down, I found out that coincidentally, Lia was also going to be with her mom. In fact she was right there outside the house flagging me down as I pulled my car in to her mom’s street. And soon, together with her mom, her sister and herself, I headed out to another town which had a nice Italian restaurant.

The evening, in short, was a blast.

At 94 years old, Lia’s mom is unbelievably sharp and active. (I picked up a couple of figs from the garden she tends to). She was full of interesting stories too. And very graceful. At least she laughed heartily at all my jokes!! In any case, i got to learn about the history of how her dad (that would be Lynette’s great-grandfather) – who was in the First World War – eventually came to US from a small island sandwiched between mainland Greece and mainland Turkey! She was excited to know that I will be in Greece in a couple of weeks’ time to attempt my first marathon race. She even taught me how to say “Good Morning” in Greek!

What was even more fun was to watch the two sisters – Lia and Marcia – getting caught up in the history and excitedly starting “Did you know tht….” and then they would realize that they were learning a bit more of their own history from each other!!! Reminded me of how my own brother and sister often go thru those moments when I am in India to visit my parents.

I thought we had barely gotten started when we were told that the restaurant was closing. I had no idea where the two hours went. Reluctantly, we all headed back. After dropping them at their house, I started the long drive back to Portland.

That was one of my best evenings in a long long time!!!