As my Chicago trips come to an end, I tried to meet many of the friends I had made over the last five years in the bars and restaurants of the hotels I stayed in. Many an evening were spent chatting with them. I will miss each one of them.
Pina was in Westin Itasca and then moved to the Renaissance near Ohare. She came from Sicily many moons back to Chicago and never moved out of here!!
You remember how serendipity hits me when I am expecting it the least during my travels as I run into people from my past? Seems like in a short 7 days’ trip to India, Sharmila got a taste of it too.
First she ran into our old friends – Sanjay and Anita from Dallas (now live in Phoenix) in a hotel. Then she ran into Joydeep (also from Dallas who now lives in Minneapolis) at the airline lounge. Finally, she ran into my friends from early childhood – Nirmalya and Rituparna – who now live in Houston – while waiting to board the flight back home!!!
Without the help of Paola Perez, this trip could not have been this successful. I had no idea what to expect other than the fear of security that I had heard while in the USA. Once I booked a room in the Sheraton, I reached out to them to talk to somebody.
Paola – who is in charge of guest relations – answered all sorts of questions from me – including if it was safe for me to move around with my camera!! She offered all sorts of options of places to visit. Once I explained that I am not into architecture or long dead people, she quickly understood what might be interesting to me.
She also arranged for the car and an English speaking guide and driver. As if that was not all, she also left a gift made by local artisans for me.
Had a chance to have dinner with her and her friend Maria Jose today. Learnt how typical life is for twenty somethings in El Salvador. One interesting fact I learnt is that after high school, instead of going to University – which people find costly – often people go to something called an Academy to learn English to improve their job prospects. It is aa 18 month course, I believe. In fact, Paola Perez was with the local airlines Volaris. But she never got a chance to speak English. So, she switched to the Marriott group – this way, she gets more exposure to English thru the guests!
Congratulations Maria Jose on your upcoming wedding. And I hope Paola Perez, you make it to your dream vacation in Colombia!!
Till next time!
Ever since I posted about my El Salvador trip on Facebook, Gerardo Urias has been desperately trying to figure out how to meet. He was traveling for work and then when he came back he was stuck with way too many meetings at office.
Finally, we managed to see each other this evening. The reason he absolutely wanted to have the meeting is that this is the first time we met! We have worked in the same company at one point of time and all our meetings were over the phone. These were the days when we did not have Zoom or video calling facilities.
The first time I got to see how he looks like was when he accepted by Facebook request – way after I had left the company.
I am impressed that he remembered me. Even went to the extent of accusing me of being helpful when we worked together!! I am sure his standards have improved since then.
Gerardo has a very interesting life story. Both his parents immigrated from Israel to Honduras and then moved to El Salvador which is where they met each other. I was very impressed to hear about his son – also called Gerardo – who at the age of 24 has a flourishing coffee business!
I am so grateful that he made all the effort to meet me. Otherwise, I would have missed seeing this fine gentleman for God knows how many years!
Long, long time back, I worked with a gentleman called Mauricio Flores. I was in Atlanta. He was in El Salvador. Later he moved to Portugal. You may remember him from a post in 2019 November whenI met him while on a vacation with the family in Azores islands and then Lisbon.
He found out that I was in homeland this week. Got an immediate message that his brother was going to drop a local alcohol for my bar!
When I came back to the hotel, his brother and sister in law – Erick and Blanqui – were waiting for me in the lobby.
Now, my Spanish is nothing to write casa about. (Yes, it gets that bad when I sprinkle in one or two words Spanish words I know in an otherwise clear English sentence). And Erick and Blanqui confessed that their English was the same.
Yet we spend one and a half hours together. Over some loud laughs and a great chat. But mostly getting thrilled every time we made a break thru in communicating successfully our message or question. Often resorting to Google for translation, I was able to put the story together of their lives, their siblings, their daughters – Adriana and Daniela, their aspirations, their trips to the US and other countries.
The bar staff who got curious with all the laugh and chat going on often would have fun watching us struggle to find the right word. And then once in a while, they would get so impatient and excited, that they would blurt out the word for us!!!
Blanqui’s sister lives in Knoxville. I will get in touch with her when I get back to the USA. They were excited to realize that I live in Atlanta. Blanqui brought out many pictures from Georgia Aquarium and Coca Cola Factory on her phone from their trips to the USA!!
Like I said, we spent one and a half hours together without realizing that we had absolutely no idea how to construct a full sentence in each other’s language!! It was that good a meeting.
Thank you Mauricio for your gift and most importantly introducing me to two great people!!
“Remember I had promised you in Madrid in 2011 that someday I will come and see you in El Salvador?”
“Of course, senor!”
Today was that day!!
I had kept up with Leonardo – again on his birthdays – thru the years. Then, when he almost died due to Covid two years back (doctors had literally given him another couple of days after many weeks in ICU), I was reminded of that last meet we had.
This January, when I called him to wish him a very happy birthday, little did he know that I had already bought tickets to come and see him.
I always remember Leonardo as the street fighter. He was the ultimate in scrambling. Somehow, in the end, he would pull his numbers thru every quarter.
So, against that mental picture, it was a little jarring for me to realize today that he has made two visits to India – a month each – to spend time in Sai Baba ashram. I did not realize how deep he is into meditation. And Buddhism too!
It was also a little jarring to sit in an upscale restaurant that he had booked in surrounded by Valentine couples at every other table!!
The evening was spent reminiscing the old days of work and the many friends from those days. At the end of the dinner, he took me around to show the city. On a Saturday evening, the city looked vibrant with all sorts of American branded retail and food shops.
1991 June. I was sitting with the rest of the new entrants in the training room in an air conditioned windowless room in SEEPZ, Mumbai. Presently, somebody came and announced which project each one of us would go to. Mine was “CPC”.
Subsequently, I met my super boss (my boss’s boss) – Raj Sundaramurthy. That started an incredible journey for both of us. We are extremely different persons – well, other than the curious penchant for dad jokes. He is an accomplished cricketer and bridge player. I am decidedly not. He is a movie buff. I had once asked Salman Khan who he was (we were sitting next to each other on a flight and everybody was staring at him). He is the best software manager I have come across (and I have come across a few). I became a software manager because my coding skills sucked.
And yet, through all that, we have stuck together as thick friends. We have run together. We have laughed together. We have had sinful amounts of alcohol together. We have been each others’ support system during our darkest days in personal lives. And we have always tried to outdo each other with our dad jokes. He inflicting his ill-gotten knowledge of Bengali was more than met by my staggeringly poor Tamil (for a person who has spent 4 years in Tamil Nadu).
One of those low days in life involves his wife slamming the phone down on him. We were working late at night. His poor wife, in advanced stage of pregnancy with the first child, had to come down from her flat and walk to a nearby telephone booth to call him. It was VERY late at night and she had no idea what had happened to him. Sensing imminent danger, Srini and I flung ourselves to his service. We took an auto rickshaw and accompanied him so that his wife’s anger would at least partially melt upon seeing us.
Upon seeing us, the only thing that melted was Srini’s and my presence as we high tailed it from his door. I do not think we even bothered to wait for the elevator as we scampered down the stairs to find the nearest auto rickshaw.
Well, that aforementioned wife – Viji – now calls me their “forever” friend. Never seen a lovelier – or for that matter, a more gullible couple 🙂
Being the glutton for punishment that he is, he let me work with him in not one more, not two more but three more companies with him. (There is only one company I have worked in where we did not work together).
He went from pillar to post on his engineering skills. I settled for a less demanding CEO job.
To this day, through that interesting, intriguing and invigorating life journeys, our paths have intertwined in a double helix like a DNA. If you discount that DNA bit, he is nothing but an elder brother to me, thata I never had.
Thank you Raj and Viji for letting me live yet another of those brilliant evenings together.
I raise my drink this evening to many more of them in the future.
It was early 2006. I had finished a few months with the company I had joined the previous year. The CEO – who was my manager – took me out for a lunch to my favorite dinner place. When I say my favorite dinner place, I mean the TGIF that was next to the Courtyard I stayed in because I did not want to venture out too far in the Boston cold. I lived in warm Dallas and trekked to Boston every week.
My dinner those days were two glasses of wine and some French Fries. Or as the aforementioned CEO lovingly called it “Dinner of the Champions”!!
After reviewing my performance, he dropped a big surprise on me – “I want you to move to sales and run sales. I think you will be good at it.” I was fairly taken aback. While I had run service sales before, this was the first time running product sales. And those breaks do not come too often.
I cannot speak for him how it worked out for him, it certainly worked out great for me. I can honestly say that in a big way that break made me who I am today professionally.
After many a moon, I got to meet that gentleman – Jonathan Colehower today at a Starbucks. There was a flurry of memories from the past that came back. The people, the customers, the investors and all the fun we had. I had not seen him for a very long time.
Of course, we had kept up thru phone calls in between. Thru his health crisis and his wife’s. It was heartening to see how the Colehower family trumped over the vagaries of life. It was especially encouraging to hear how his three daughters have grown up so successfully.
Jon still lives with his health crisis. And the conversation today of how he deals with it was another reminder to me about life being so much about what you make of it and not playing the victim card.
It was so good to see him doing well physically, professionally and most importantly, emotionally. He seemed happy with his lot. That, above all, is what we all strive for!
May your tribe increase, Jon!!
Lynette, her mom Lia and her dad Matt were my running partners when I used to run in groups. Lia was undoubtedly the one in the family with who I ran the most. One unique quality about Lynette is her love for reading, literature and books. I remember discussing P.G. Wodehouse with her those days. Not too many people who have grown up in the US is aware of this incredibly humorous British author. Google “funny lines from PG Wodehouse” to check me out!
Two and a half years back, Lynette got married to Nathan. As luck would have it, he teaches English !!
During our conversation on Lynette’s birthday a few weeks back, we talked about learning new languages. She inspired me to pick up a new one. I am thinking Arabic. We also promised that we will have a coffee together and I will get to meet Nathan soon!!
Today was that day!! Wonderful conversations!
I wish this young couple all the best that life can offer to them!!!
