It started at Marlow’s Tavern, moved to Rumi’s and then finished out with the nightcap in our balcony well past midnight!

Last time I met Sameer was over seven years back. I think we were doing college tours for Natasha.

My last night in SFO was spent having dinner with this old friend. He has remained pretty much the same with that ever present smile and the quiet demeanor. The one surprise was his new hairstyle!!

Since he is an Apple executive, I always get a few pointers on some interesting and useful apps on iOS. I still use the sleep app he had suggested. This time he showed me a few that will test my intellect and spatial thinking!

Thank you Sameer for coming out to Burlingame all the way from San Jose.

Both of us had about 30-40 minutes of break during our meetings. We were in the same city but, of course we were in different offices. Made a dash to grab a coffee and catch up.

We had worked together for about 3 years. These were the early days of the current company I work in. As it often happens, we have way too many stories from those early formative days of the company. We even sat in adjacent cubicles before Covid came in.

Have you noticed how when you meet old friends from work after many years – none of your recollections involve numbers or even product names? Almost all of them are about people – and in fact specific interactions with or of those people.

I have a few that Celeste and I are going to talk about – maybe fifteen years from now. The one that I am surely going to mention to her soon to be born son is how we even got to an agreement to work together!!! I am sure she will suggest that it was my version, but I will have Graham to back me up!

Thanks to the effort of Lakshmi, Sharmila and I got together with Anand and his family this evening. Original plan got a bit washed away by the rains but we adjusted the plans and still put in a dinner and a walk. Brought a lot of the old Chennai days (where Anand and I went to undergraduate school together) and the Tamizh jokes back. Now that both their children will go to Georgia Tech, I hope to see more of them!

Tom and I would often see each other in the corridors of Equifax. After leaving the company, I used to run into him once in a while when he would be running too in Fowler Park. Then, for a couple of years we did not met. Other than the birthday calls, in fact, we had not talked much either.

Suddenly, a few weeks back, I got a message from him that his dad has been moved to a hospice. Since I volunteer in hospices, we were going to talk about what to expect and what not to expect. But the next day, I got a message that his dad had transitioned.

Today, we talked a lot about how to cope with a father’s demise and priorities in life in general. It was good to see good old Tom again!

The Aroras and the Roys had not had their progenies yet. Many a weekend lunch and dinner used to be spent just like that picture. Lot of laughing and a little of eating.

For the record, to explain Gagan’s face, I must admit that I had timed one of my jokes precisely at the time he had taken a mouthful of beer. He could neither spit it out (august company and all that) nor gulp it (for fear of choking while suppressing laughter – or worse, snorting the beer out). Had to laugh with a mouthful of beer.

If we had smart phones a quarter century back, I have no doubt, I would have had similar pictures from those days too!

Thank you Gagan and Bharti for driving all the way to the city, buying me drinks and then dropping me where my college dorm reunion was going on.

This weekend, I attended our IIT-hostel (engineering college dorm) get together in Seattle. I will write about that later.

One of those hostel mates who showed up was Ranga (Sampath Rangarajan, if my memory serves me right). He was one of the few that I used to be close to and I even got to know his parents and siblings. In fact, every year, I look forward to my conversation with his dad on his (dad’s) birthday.

This time, Ranga, always the enterprising guy was not only busy leading a lot of activities – dancing, hiking, antakshari (a type of song competition) – he was our lead photographer too. At least, he was toting his Canon DSLR and taking a lot of pictures and then dutifully uploading them on our group website.

No photographer myself, I still started talking to him about his camera with the modicum of knowledge I could muster from yesteryears. Eventually, I got curious about what all lenses and other paraphernalia he was carrying with him in his sophisticated looking camera bag.

And among various other photography related accoutrements, as evidenced by the picture, I found a bottle of Hajmola (look it up) and one of Tylenol!!

I guess it is a case of being better safe than sorry!

Anand, Sharmila and I knew each other before we had any kids. That is a quarter century back! In the meanwhile, Anand and I managed to work in three companies together!

He was in town for office meetings and swung by our house to meet Sharmila. I am fairly sure I did not drink that much but I was seeing two of him most of the time 🙂 🙂