Last time I met him was was a bit over 10 years back!
It was always so great to see the gentleman who had shaped me and my thoughts after I had landed in this country!
It was the final leg of my trip to two cities while not being able to talk. I sat myself in my airplane seat and started checking all the emails from the day on my phone as the rest of the passengers kept boarding. I had already flashed my note to the lady sitting next to me that I am unable to speak. She had nonchalantly gone back to her knitting after reading the note.
A bit later, somewhat errr… chalantly, she tapped on my shoulder. I looked up to see that she was pointing my finger to somebody standing next to us. There was Hunt Jackson – smiling at me. We have worked together not once, but twice beore!! He was aware I could not talk. We had exchanged messages a few days back on his birthday. I smiled back, waved at him and mouthed “I did not know you were in this flight.” Soon, he had move with the queue as he went to his seat.
Back to emails it was. A few minutes later, a message notification came thru “Are you on a Delta flight from Denver to Atlanta right now?” My first reaction was to guess that Hunt’s message was delayed in reaching me. He must have texted me before he asked my next neighbor to call me.
Something struck me as odd – the sender’s name was rather small. In my contacts, Hunt’s name is written as “Charles Huntington Hunt Jackson”. Went back to the message. It was from “Amy Smith”!!! I know her from the place we had worked together before! And recently, we had talked at length during her birthday. (I was still talking then).
I furiously started messaging her back. “Why, yes! Are you too?”
She was. She had seen me. But was not sure if it was me. In her defense, we had not seen each other for over a decade.
“I should have called your name out when I passed you.” she wrote.
I explained to her that he might not have made a difference since I cannot talk. But I wrote that I will wait for her when we deplane.
Which I did.
We walked to the baggage carousel together, she filling me in on her new job!
It was so great to see Amy after such a long time!! I need to do this again though. There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask her but could not!
But, what is the chance that you run into two ex-colleagues in the same flight!
You want to hear the real coincidence? All three of us were in the same company once for some time!!!
I arrived in Newark airport and eventually found my way to the airport hotel. About 400 yards as the crow flies. But it took me an hour in two buses and one train to get there. Finished up my dinner at the bar and was on my way up to the room to get a good night’s rest.
I have two days worth of driving Natasha and Tuey back home in front of me.
On the way up, I got distracted by some stuff in the library corner of the hotel. There was an illuminated globe there. Sharmila loves globes. So, I went up to take a closer look. Loved what I saw. I was wondering if Sharmila might want a bigger one or was this size enough? Unfortunately, I could not estimate the size properly. Yes, the globe always being at an angle was not helping.
Did the next best thing. You know how hotels near airports have printers to print your boarding pass? Grabbed a paper from that. I knew the dimensions of standard US Letter size paper. From that I could establish the size of the globe. (Please do not say 8,000 miles 🙂 )
I could have gone to my room from there. But I stood there looking for globes in Amazon on my phone. Had I not done that, the most important part of the evening would not have happened…
Five minutes into my browsing Amazon standing in the corner of the hotel lobby, I heard a familiar “Rajib Roy?”. Looked up and saw two distinctly Indian looking gentlemen approaching me. Their faces looked familiar but for the life of me, I could not remember their names.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Vasuki!”, he put me at ease!
Of course, it was Vasuki – from the 90s in i2 when I worked in Dallas! I had heard stories of his great career progression from Madhav but I do not think I had seen him in over a couple of decades.
“And this is Chaitanya Pai”.
Immediately, I remembered a young gentleman from early 2000s working at a desk in Munich. We worked in Infineon for quite some time. Turns out he still lives in Germany!
What a brilliant coincidence! We sat down in the nearest sofa and caught up on so many of our old friends and their own families. Both now work with some of our old friends in a different company.
“So, how did you recognize me?”, I asked Vasuki.
“Oh! I see you in the Facebook posts all the time!”
“Ah! There is something to advertisement, then!!”
The irony is, a few minutes back, when I was walking away after dinner, I had thrown a glance at a table on the other side. A lady I had befriended in the hotel bus sitting next to me was sitting there having dinner when I had walked in. I had re-exchanged pleasantries as I walked to the bar.
I was going to wish her good night. She was not there. Two Indian guys were sitting there having a drink and discussing something.
I went past them.
IT WAS THEM!!!
Holy macro! I need to start paying attention to strangers!
That was a great start to what promises to be a very long driving weekend!
Sharmila is in India. I had already given Jay Jay a long walk. Needed a place to settle down and read my new book. Went to good old Miltons Cuisines where Sharmila and I were an every Sunday evening feature at the bar making friends with the folks behind the bar and watching the Sunday night football game. Struck a life long friendship with so many of the staff there.
I was not sure what to expect. I had not been there for 7-8 years.
I need not have worried. Nothing has changed! The bar, the furniture, the hospitality is just like it was before. Met Victoria who has been there ever since the restaurant opened.
Also made a few new friends – Eva (in the picture and who went to the same high school as my two daughters), Shelby, Shawna and Daniella to name a few. Best part was Daniella saying “Did you say Raj? I have heard your name from Ben and Roy.” That brought back memories of two young gentlemen from those days.
Another funny incident… Eva and I were talking about her high school. When she suddenly said – “Our cleaner Juan talks about a friend he has whose kids were in Cambridge too!”.
Imagine her surprise when I said – “I am that friend!! He has been cleaning our house for 15 years now!!”
Lovely evening!
I watched the first half of the football game, chatted with Juan for some time (he came out from his cleaning duties), shut the bar down and the valet came in and gave me my keys saying it was time for him to go.
EXACTLY like it used to be those days!
I am sure you remember the scintillating story I had about meeting my first pen friend. This one was a bit more tempered down. For one thing, everybody spoke English when I needed directions. For another, we met in a place we had agreed on in our communications. Yes, I did not spring a surprise this time. It was a planned one.
Marine and I have been writing to each other for some time. One common theme is that she has visited India. And she had first hand experience of discrimination by skin color. We have written to each other a lot about our personal experiences. She was not too surprised when I discussed how skin color of a girl in India often was the deciding factor on your choices of suitors… or the amount of dowry you have to pay.
Today, though, it was all about her work and her family. For the life of me, I never dug into what she does for a living. I would have have a lot more letters to write then – both of us are in technology!
The best part? Talking about our own set of pen pals and experience of writing to them. She was most thrilled by my story of pen friendship with a prisoner! The only pen friend I ever had in the USA. Fortunately, she eventually got released. Unfortunately, I never heard back from her again!!
It was a great meeting!
I will tell you how great it was. Five minutes after we had said good bye, I suddenly realized that I forgot to take pictures. Texted her and she was kind enough to come back from the parking lot to take this picture.
I promised Marine that next time I am in Paris, I will meet her dad. Sounded like a guy I someday want to be!!
Last time I saw Rupa and Vishal, it was way back in 2017. (posted here). This time, I had kept enough time between settling down my nephew and my flight out from Los Angeles to see them. Fortunately, Rupa and Vishal were able to make time for me. And I am grateful to them for that.
For, we had a whale of a time. From memories of hilarious incidents during our MBA days to serious topics of how we are blind to our own biases and our education system is not geared towards opening our eyes to it… it was a really enjoyable evening. In the last post, I had talked about how we did not have many dad jokes (we called them PJs – Poor Jokes in India). I am sure Rupa and Vishal will vouch for my statement that I more than made up for it this time 🙂
Did I say I had kept enough time to meet them? I stand corrected. We could have gone easily for another couple of hours without missing a beat. But I did have a 12 hour flight to catch. And navigating LAX airport is not for the weak of the heart.
Well, with a nephew in the neighborhood, I sure am hoping we will have a few more sessions like this!
Remember how I had talked about a very meaningful conversation I had with Uttara on her birthday a couple of weeks back? I know Uttara, of course, as the wife of my dear friend Kushal from my middle school days.
Turns out, circa 2004, when I had gone to visit Kushal in his house in Mumbai, I had missed her. She was traveling out of the country. But I did meet their daughter Shreya. I also remember meeting Uttara’s dad that time.
Now, normally, Uttara is busy when I call her in the evenings. So, we switch to Whatsapp messages later. This time though, she picked it up. While talking to her, I found out that Shreya was starting her PhD in a couple of weeks. In University of California, Irvine!! Which is about an hour from University of California, Riverside where my nephew is going to join.
So, instead of going to the airport directly to pick up my nephew today, we first made a detour to UCI. Picked up Shreya and went for lunch by the waterside. It was a short meeting but a memorable one. Sharmila summed it best when we dropped her back in her college and headed towards the airport – “She is so well put together!”
Really a very mature, well balanced young adult!
Imagine this… I was getting ready to board my plane – they called out my group and at the same time, my bank called up. I was expecting a call from them and if I missed it, it would have been a problem. Needed to get something done urgently. Additionally and somewhat tangentially, I needed to give some finishing touches to the Board slides so I could send them out while in flight to the Board members to review them.
I scampered down the jet bridge, barely greeted the air hostess and quickly went to sit in my seat. All this time, I was talking to the bank agent and trying to get the laptop tethered to my phone so that I could get to my account while I had her on the phone.
I was totally focused. Once I got that done, I needed to download the Board slides so I could work inflight. Meanwhile, an unassuming young gentleman came and sat in the seat next to me. I quickly acknowledged him while I was still talking to the bank.
In due course, my bank call got over, my presentation got downloaded and the air hostess announced that the door had been closed. I shut off my laptop and threw in the pouch in front – ready to pounce on it moment we became airborne.
Sitting back, my first thought was “Did I bring my suitcase with me? I can’t remember putting it up in the bin. Did I leave it at the gate?”
My second thought was “Who just asked if I am Rajib Roy?” Turns out my neighbor who I had barely acknowledged had asked me – “Are you Rajib Roy?”. Made eye contact for the first time and recognized good old Steve Albert from my past life. We had worked for a few years together over a decade and a half back. I did not remember his last name – but Steve helped me out immediately. I remember him as a really smart young executive in our Strategy group. Later, I was checking his LinkedIn profile and realized that he has built an impeccable career for himself.
Regretted not having kept up with him. Could have learnt a lot.
We talked quite a bit about our old colleagues. They were really good. In fact, we took a picture and I sent it to his ex-boss Laura Wilbanks – who we both have very fond memories of!
The one thing I still did not get… If Steve is that smart – which he is, why did he choose to remember me? Worse, acknowledge it? I guess even the best have their blindspots 🙂
But thrilled that he remembered me.
May your tribe increase, Steven Albert!
I take to befriending strangers like a fish takes to water. Usually, the difficult part is getting started. Invariably, something innocuous happens and then that gets the conversation going. You get into common interests, common locations etc as the exchange progresses. But you need an excuse to get started.
But if you are a motorcyclist, that is a dead give away. First there are tell tale signs all around. There is a helmet or a motorcycle jacket with the stranger or sometimes just the boots clue in to how he or she must have arrived. Second, you can never go wrong by asking such a person “What are you riding?”
That establishes a common connection immediately. Usually the other person then talks about the motorbike make and brand. Now, while I motorbike quite some, I am not an expert in different kinds of motorbikes at all. So, I just nod and make a complimentary comment about the make and brand. From there, the conversation follows exciting paths about how we got into motorbiking, where we motorbike, how many times we have laid a motorbike down (by the way, we never admit that we dropped our motorbike – of course not, we lay them down).
And from there I get to know the person, their life history, where they grew up, their passion, what do they want to be when they grow up (I ask that even if they are in their seventies). Usually, I walk away learning a few new things and sometime some ideas to try out later.
This has never failed me. It did not this evening either when Sharmila and I ran into young Evan Knight at Central City Tavern in downtown Alpharetta. Remarkable history. Learnt about his totally cool helmet and how in his adventurous spirits, he is going to try living out of a camper for some time. In fact, I learnt that he regularly camps out in the North Georgia mountains after riding there in his motorbike. From the pictures, it was impressive that he can pack up all that stuff in his motorbike storage.
The other remarkable thing about Evan is the motorcycle and Jeep event he helps organize in December for raising money for charitable causes. Showed me a video. Reminded me of DC on Memorial Day!
I think I will join him this December!
