7 November 2013

Eating gold???

I have a question for all of you…
Last night, my colleague Leigh Ann and I went for dinner in London and we ordered some champagne. You see those flaky stuff in the drink ? Those are not bubbles – those are 23K gold flakes!!!
I have never had any drink with gold flakes in it! The funny part – the price was no different than any other glass of champagne. So here are my questions:

1. What is the root of this practice of putting gold flakes? Is it just to make it seem fancy?
2. Is it not dangerous to health to ingest rare metals like gold? Conversely, is there any known beneficial effect?

It was a little jarring though. I kept having this visual in my mind where I was eating food along with the aluminum foil it was wrapped in πŸ™‚

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18 October 2013

Sindoor Khela

Browsing my Bengali friends’ updates on FB after coming back from India, I have come to the general conclusion that dousing your face with some red powder and posting it on FB is highly correlated with your friends finding you very beautiful πŸ™‚ I gotta try that sometime πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

13 October 2013

Mr. Whitney!

No trip to Dallas is complete without meeting this guy. After our business work was over and we left, I suddenly remembered that I forgot to take a picture of him.
One quick phone call later, both of us pulled over to the side of the street. Unfortunately, there was nobody to take a picture of us. So, we had to make do with a precariously balanced iPhone and a couple of stones on a raised concrete step and a misfiring camera app!!!

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12 October 2013

Thirty years later….

Today was the start of Durga Puja in Atlanta – the biggest festival for us Bengalis. Everyone dresses up in the best traditional clothes and shows up for various events for about three days.
I, too, showed up in my traditional clothes – which is a pair of shorts and a panel shirt. πŸ™‚
The first thing that happened was that I got a dressing down from my wife for showing up in shorts. As I was cowering down and settling in a bench, the second thing happened!
A guy walked up to me and asked “Are you Rajib Roy”? I was almost like “Yeah. Who wants to know?”, when I looked up. And in a fraction of a second, thousands of neurons and dendrons must have connected (or whatever it is that connect when you remember something from the past) – and I yelled “Prabasaj Paul”?
He was one year senior to me in the residential school I went to for junior and senior years of high school. (11th and 12th grade). He was a legend in his academic prowess. So many times, he was my last resort when I was absolutely stumped with a problem and nobody could help me!!!
Last time I saw him was in March 1984!!! Almost 30 years back!!
It was unbelievably good to see him again!!!

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3 October 2013

Remembering a certain David Yankey….

… a week after I heard the “news”

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Poet: Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004)

27 September 2013

David Yankey. You can’t leave now. The meeting is not over.

It finally hit me like a ton of bricks this morning. As I drove away after dropping my daughter at school and headed to office.
He is not going to be there. I will not see him. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Howmuchever I loiter around his cubicle.
I was able to block away the thought of he having died the whole of yesterday. I kept reminding myself about how I walked up to his cubicle to wish him a happy birthday just a few weeks back.
Staring at the road waiting at the traffic light with dawn barely breaking, I realized that his wife will soon be on the road like me – dropping their kid or grocery shopping – and realizing that he will not be home when she went back. Not that day. Not the next day. Not ever.
Remembering how my daughter told me “I will see you in the evening” before she trotted off to school, I realized there is not going be any such evening for his three kids. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. Not ever.
It is the finality of death that quashes all hopes of being ever together – even for a fleeting moment. And it is that snatching away of any hope of being together that I cannot ever deal with.
I am the guy who is still looking for his friends who crossed his path 40 years back.
He crossed my path barely a few days back.
If only – if only – I was given one more “intersection point”, this is what I would say-
“Teach me how to be humble like you, teach me how to always smile like you, teach me how to be a great father like you”.
God, I miss you, David Yankey.

19 August 2013

Finishing the week

Regardless of how my week went – and they certainly don’t go the way I want always, I can always count on it ending on a perfect note. Always a date night with Sharmila at Milton’s. With our old friends at the bar – Nate, Alex, Alexis, Katelyn, Cathy just to name a few…. The special ones are when Brandon sings at the bar. Here he is …

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11 July 2013

“But I have promises to keep…

…and miles to go before I sleep” ( Frost)

Last year Madhumolli (my friend from school days – one of the few that just could not stand me – but that is a story for another day πŸ™‚ ) excitedly told me that her daughter (a year younger than Natasha) had started running. Even more excitedly, I called her daughter up and before thinking much, promised to run with her within one year.
Managed to grab a train after meetings in London today, haul it to Slough, put in a 3K run with her and turned around immediately to haul back to London. We even managed to get her dad to run with us half the distance!!!
Awesome feeling to keep a promise!! Even more awesome feeling was to keep up with somebody one third my age on the running track.

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