Growing up, one of the things I have been blessed with is some brilliant people I could call classmates. If I add up all the incredibly successful people that I can actually count as being my classmate during the various stages of my life, it will make anybody wonder how come not much of it ever rubbed off on me.

Rahul Guha – met him for the first time on Sunday, July the 10th 1983 around 4 PM when his parents had come by to drop him to start his 11th grade. It was a residential school and he and I (along with another incredibly successful classmate – Pratik Pal) were destined to be room mates.

Over the years, I have sometimes lost touch and then regained the same with this guy. Last week, he was in Atlanta and could squeeze enough time from his busy schedule to have dinner with me. While we talked about a lot of things – including my trips to his house in Kolkata during the early ’80s and a trip we had made together to Dip’s house in New Chumta Tea Estate – most of our discussions were around education. After all, it was education that has brought us together.

Driving back home later, I realized why guys like Rahul get to where they are today. It is not just the intelligence level – which is of course sky high – and it is also not the hard work – that is beyond reproach. The edge people like him have is their ability to reflect. That ability helps them achieve higher learning cycles than most mere mortals like us can.

Some of the reflections he shared with me absolutely hit the mark for me. We were talking about college education. His first point was how in India in those days, we entered college believing the toughest part was over. We had passed Joint Entrance Exam and then we were in college. If we went thru the motions, in about four years, we would get a degree and a job unless we really really messed it up. And yet, that is the time when our brain was the sharpest. From around that time, the brain would go on a steady decline. That was the time to learn completely new things. Things we might never ever use in our lives. But that was the one time our brains could absorb a lot of stuff. And for all you know, we might have discovered who we really were.

This somewhat aligned with my discussions with Madhav a couple of weeks back in Virginia Tech. He was talking about how it was “cool” in engineering colleges in our times to not study and ace the exams. Madhav reminded me how I was one of the so-called “intelligent” ones who never studied and yet aced the exams. But looking back, that was the stupidest thing. I should have been pushing my brain to learn new stuff then instead of not learning and simply letting a letter grade that suggested it was “okay” in life not to learn.

The second thing Rahul got me thinking on was the lack of training we got in how to ask questions. Instead, we were always expected to accept the prevailing norms and ways of doing things. And yet, college was the time we should have been pushed to keep asking questions – even if there were no answers. As he pointed out, sooner or later you will realize that the first step to getting a Nobel Prize is asking questions. Fearlessly. Regardless of whether there is any answer.

Finally, he felt that we should be taught how to communicate with people that we do not agree with. It is a skill that is getting rarer and rarer (we certainly both felt that the echo chambers created by social media has contributed to this problem) and yet no meaningful success can be ever reached without truly understanding the opposite point of view. Groupthink is a dangerous thing, as he pointed out.

Not all of our discussions were this serious. We slipped in and out of some hilarious incidents from school. Somehow, we both got onto the topic of statistics. Rahul and I studied statistics whereas our other room mate Pratik had studied biology. I was explaining the fundamental challenge I have with the concept of probability. The definition is based on a circular premise. Which, rigorous mathematics be spoken, should render it null and void. Rahul went on to explain that anomaly in Bayesian terms and made a hilarious statement. It was hilarious not just because it was true – but also the way he put it. I had to excuse myself and fish out my phone to write it down lest I forgot it later… in his words… “Probability, at some level, is a philosophical question”! Amen to that!!

My own greatest contribution to Rahul was waking him up every morning during our 11th and 12th grades. I was the sleep-very-little guy and he trusted me that I was the only one who could wake him up. It might have something to do with how I used to twist his legs and turn him over to wake him up.

A few minutes of early morning yelling and cursing later, he would calm down and thank me profusely for waking him up.

Oh! What would I not give up to get another one of those days again!!!

Many an engineering college day for me started with a “Babumoshai!” shout from this gentleman. That or “Oy! Bangali Babu!!”. Invariably, the previous night I would have scribbled “Wake me up at 7 AM” or something like that (yes, those days we used to punch on computer cards!) and stuck it on my door. The ever vigilant Madhav would see that card and come around to my room from the other side of the hostel to wake me up.

In those four years, I had become very close to Madhav and another common friend called Rangarajan. Since Madhav and I were both in Computer Science, we became even closer as we took similar courses and used to exchange notes. In a melee of college kids’ unbridled enthusiasm (and some of that admittedly misdirected), Madhav was the voice of sanity and reason. I remember him distinctly for his integrity and his incredible patience!

Both of which made him a very popular person in the hostel. Many an evening, I would swing by his room to realize that he was sitting at his desk by the window with that table lamp he had on – trying to study. “Trying” is the operative word here because invariably there were three or four more random guys in his room sitting in his cot and yelling away to glory!!! Rarely did I ever see Madhav kick them away!

Madhav (and Rangarajan) had visited me in Durgapur – way back in December 1986. My folks back home became great fans of both of them. In fact, my mom and sister even to this day will ask about “Rongorajon” and “Madhob” and their whereabouts. (that is how Bengalis would pronounce their names 🙂 ).

Somewhere in our third year or so, our interests in computer science started diverging. Madhav veered towards research and he was very talented at those things (you know those books with a lot of Greek letters in them). He had the rare distinction in those days of having published a couple of papers while still doing his undergraduate degree. Thanks to a summer job I had done a few years back, I grew more attracted towards actual application of computer science in the business / corporate world. Madhav came to the US and continued in his path of research. I stayed back in India and joined a company to write applications for financial institutions.

As luck would have it, eventually, the same company moved me to US. The next time I saw Madhav was in Dallas when he had come over to our place in the context of some professional pursuit. My wife Sharmila’s everlasting memory of Madhav was how thrilled he was with all the features and gizmos of a new mini van he had. (I think it was a rental but I am not sure).

Over the last two decades, he went on to become a very successful professor in the field of Computer Science and eventually became (and still is) the Director of a prestigious Lab in Virginia Tech. And I went on to become, well, regrettably, me !!!

Taking advantage of the time off, I drove thru a few states and up to Blacksburg last week to spend some quality time with this great buddy of mine from over three decades back. We had four hours just to ourselves before his beautiful wife Achla and then his daughter Malvika joined us along with some other VT folks.

You can see us in the top picture what we did in those four hours. Some intense reflections. I was mesmerized to hear Madhav’s take on what he learnt and did not learn from the IIT system (our engineering college) in India and how that contrasts with the American system – especially in the area of research. There were some intense discussions on what happiness meant. Now that we are old enough not to get swayed by the stuff we were force fed – “get big jobs”, “earn more money” etc etc, we parsed what eventually made us (and our classmates) happy and how that vastly varied from what we were pushed to do in earlier stages of life.

I was struck by Madhav’s capability to introspect and independently come to conclusions. Maybe that is what do research makes you good at?

I am just glad that I can still count a guy like him as my friend!!! See! it does not take me much to be happy 🙂

Last week I was in Virginia Tech to meet an old classmate of mine – Madhav. More on him later. The second highlight of that trip was meeting these three guys you see in the picture. I had never met them before but we had one common thread – we all went to the same high school (Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission). All in very different years but the same school, nonetheless.

Rounak, the youngest of the four of us, is yet to reach the half way mark to my age!! He was not even born when I left India for US!! Arindam – the one who insists that not shaving is lower maintenance than shaving everything off like me – is the avid runner in the group. Srijan – the professor – is an outstanding person. His ability to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time and argue both sides of the case is something I have to learn some day.

Like I said, other than the fact at very different points of time, each one of us studied within the same four walls of a particular classroom, we had little in common, at the surface. But somehow, we managed to find ourselves in the same latitude and longitude at the exact same time last week – thanks to some help from Madhav.

The discussions that I had with these youngsters were of varied themes. And I realized how rich the diversity in their thoughts were on a wide range of topics – from social media to statistics to politics. One thing for sure – their thought processes are far more evolved, their perspectives in life far more mature than mine were at that age.

That is why, while many are given to believe that things are getting worse by the day, I continue to conclude that the world is actually getting better and better with every generation. And so much so, the better for it!!

My final stop in Knoxville was to visit the Bhaduris at their house. Lots of memories from the past when the three families – theirs, ours and the Mukherjees used to get together and the kids were young. Now, two of those are in college already and one more threatening to do so in a few months!!

Too many hilarious moments from the past to out together in one post. It was great to see that Budhendra’s legendary sense of humor is still intact! I am sure Anusuya and Amitesh will remember the “chhipi” moment!! We also reminisced how the three wives – Arpita, Sharmila and Anusuya had settled on a 5K race training plan way back in Dec 2010. Out of curiosity, I had checked their chosen training regime to find that the very first day said “Take Rest” 🙂 :- ) I kid you not!!

Budhendra is absolutely the kids’ favorite uncle. Both of mine had learnt fishing and boogie boarding from him and they are hooked on to it now!!

It was great to see Budhendra, Arpita and the twin brothers!!

For the ones who are surprised to see us drinking coffee – that surprise is understandable. Actually, last evening we chatted so much over quite a bit of wine that I forgot to take the picture. I had to make amends this morning!!

… if you ever find me someday teaching high school students or even middle school students – specifically Maths and/or Physics – you can certainly hold the lady on my right responsible for transgression 🙂

I was in Knoxville for a couple of meetings. Swung by Nivedita-di and Ranjan-da’s house for the first time ever. I am totally glad that I did. The Gangulys are one of those couples that can be great friends with toddlers, teenagers, thirty somethings as well old folks like me with equal amount of ease and grace! Ranjan-da’s humor and passion for art (including some incredible cartoon drawings) is met and matched by Nivedita-di’s, poise, intellect and gravitas.

Ever a cheerleader of the Roy family, Nivedita-di and I actually discussed the possibility of me switching to teaching as I think thru what to do with my career when I get back to working again. I have to say with all due honesty that I am a wee bit tempted!!! Of course, there is always the worry of being the wrong model to highly impressionable kids…

This was a very long standing promise that I finally got to keep. After almost 10 years!! I remember making that promise when Hari and Usha had visited Sharmila, the two young daughters and myself in our then-new home in Atlanta. I remember having a great time talking about everything and sundry. That meeting itself was after another ten years since I had visited them both in their house in Randolph, New Jersey.

Since I have some time these days in hand, I got into the car and pressed the gas after pointing the car in a generally north easterly direction from Atlanta. The idea being to catch up with some old friends. First stop was Roanoke, VA. Thoroughly enjoyed the solo trip. Took a lot of stops to enjoy the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Eventually showed up at the Pulijals’ abode around 7 PM. It was almost a throwback to that evening I spent at their Randolph house. Non stop chatting. We talked about our old colleagues from US and India, about the kids, about Usha’s passion for dancing, growing plants and trail walking and Hari teaching young kids yoga and Bhagwad Gita! I am not sure how we got there, but we also talked about the reverse osmosis process while softening water!!

It was just like the good old days!!

It took me quite some time to get to the promise I had made them that I would visit their then-new digs in Roanoke. Finally, I got around to it last night!!

Loved it!

… should I try to be an entrepreneur like him or a poet like him!!

My last recollection of meeting Avinash was during a recruiting drive in IIT Kanpur. That goes back nearly 2 decades. He always struck me as a very bright young guy. I remember Raghu and I discussing a couple of times about the potential of Avinash.

Turns out Avinash became a very successful entrepreneur. But since he stayed most of his time in India, I rarely got to see him. We have interacted multiple times during the last two decades but just could not put ourselves together in the same city at the same time.

Till last evening.

It was one of those great conversational evenings. There are successful entrepreneurs and there are successful entrepreneurs. I have never seen any entrepreneur – frankly too many leaders – who have internalized learnings from experience as well as Avinash has. His insightful commentary on the mistakes he has made and how that has made him a better leader is material for a great leadership book. If not for anything else, just the display of humility itself is awe inspiring.

One of the great concepts he talked about is “organizational debt”. In a full circle, he gave full credit to Raghu – the same Raghu that I used to discuss about Avinash two decades back – in opening his eyes to the concept. I am going to skip the details here but it deals with the difficulties any “people person leader” will always have in getting over personal biases and subjectivity.

Another item that Avinash and I have common interest is shayaris and old Urdu poetry. In fact, we spent some time discussing the vagaries of ascertaining gender of inanimate objects in Hindi. His knowledge of Urdu and Hindi is far superior to mine and he has promised to help me translate some the poetry I struggle with from time to time. In that context, a memorable statement from him… I told him how I struggle to translate to English even after I understand what was in the poet’s mind. His words were … “That is to be expected; for poetry is defined as that which is lost in translation”. That was sheer poetry defining poetry!

Yet another memorable quote. I forget the exact context. But he backed up the famous quote “To give up ego, you have to have an ego first” with a Hindi poem which basically means – Only a poisonous snake can forgive. A non poisonous snake forgiving means nothing!!

That was a great evening! Raghu, we missed you!! Let’s get all three of us together soon!!