One of the best perks of having a job that requires me to travel (pretty much all my jobs did) and it certainly makes up for all those delayed flights and crazy hotel situations – is getting to meet new people. Different people with different backgrounds, different dreams, different aspirations and most importantly different life stories.

Last week I had finished up my duties as the mixologist at our corporate event when I realized that I was very hungry. A challenge of being a bartender is that you are constantly mixing different drinks and rarely get a chance to grab a drink of water – let alone some food. The other challenge was that I was in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin where everything shuts down after 9PM. Even the room service at the resort we were staying shut down at 9PM.

It was nearly 9:45 PM. Not knowing any better, I hit Google and found a local bar and grill open till 2AM. I was too tired to go there and sit there by myself. So, I grabbed Anand – who was hoping to hit the sack and pushed him to come with me. (with the promise of a glass of beer; he is easy that way 🙂 ).

It was a pretty desolate bar. In fact, Anand and I doubled the population at Lincoln Bar that night. Discounting the bar lady, there was only one other customer. And the bar lady – Rachel – was her name – let us know that the kitchen was closed!! So, the establishment was open only for drinking. Anand, helpfully, let Rachel know about my situation. She went inside and came back with the good news that the frier was still on. So, onion rings, french fries and a couple of gins it was – for dinner. Long time back Jon, watching me have fries and wine for dinner in Burlington, MA had called it “The Dinner of the Champions” 🙂 This one must have topped it.

Once I got some food, I started to make friends with Rachel. What caught my attention was (remember Anand had talked about me mixing drinks earlier in the evening) how much she knew about cocktails. We exchanged quite a few notes. Here is the clincher. She asked me if I knew how to make a Alien Brain Hemorrhage. As luck would have it, I not only know how to make it, it is in fact my signature drink every Halloween. But I have never met anybody else who knew that drink. (Chris, do you remember me making that at the Azul Agave bar?). That was totally fascinating. And if you have ever seen that drink (it is a shot), you will know why that drink is named that way.

Then I got to know Rachel and her personal life story. She has 4 kids. When she told me her eldest one’s age, she must have detected some surprise on my face. “Yep, I married very early”, she said!!

“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”, I asked her.
“I want to go to college and become a psychiatrist”.

Very encouraged by this, I mentioned to her that I have a daughter who goes to college and there was a time she was thinking of psychology and all that. (She is doing journalism now).

“What words of wisdom would you give my daughter if you met her today?”, I asked.
She thought for about a second and said “Do not get married early. Take your time and understand who you are and what you are looking for in your partner”.
“Okay, I will tell her that,” I assured her. “On the other hand, Natasha is on my FB friends list. You can tell her yourself”.

Eventually, Anand took a picture of us and we left the Abode of the Dinner of the Champions!

Next time I make a Alien Brain Hemorrhage, Rachel, I will toast one for you and wish that you can go back to college and grow up to be a psychiatrist soon!!

He has lived all over the country – East Coast, West Coast, Arizona, Midwest… and went back to India a couple of times. But finally, I was able to nail him down – of all places, in Appleton, Wisconsin! The first time I met Qazi was in 1991 in Mumbai when I joined my first job. I think we both joined on the same day. In fact, we started working in the same project.

The way he used to crack jokes (mostly “groaners” or what my daughters call – “Dad Jokes”) and imitate others was hilarious. Clearly the clown prince of our project, he used to keep us regaled most of the days. He even started our own regular journal for the project team – “Dungeon Times”. (We used to work in the lowest floor in the building).

He has not changed much (I saw him for the first time after nearly 25 years). The spontaneous impressions he did of our old project mates had me rolling on the floor in Starbucks last week. And they brought back a lot of memories from that project where I spent about a couple of years.

Since I was never good at coding, I moved away from it eventually. Qazi stayed on the technology side. That led to some good discussions on the evolution of technology – or rather the evolution of programming over the last forty years. More importantly, where it is headed in the future. Thoroughly enjoyed the discussion!

Thank you Qazi for making some time for me in the middle of the day. Would love to continue with our discussions…

About a year back, Julio and I were in Sheboygan, WI for some meetings and I had taken him to my favorite dinner spot – Blind Horse. There we had met Paula who was working in the bar. You might remember her from the post I had put up about her interesting life story.

I remember asking her about her lineage. Which she could not answer. I found out that she was adopted when she was only a few days old. Also found out that her brother is adopted too. And he is married to an adopted lady. Guess from which country? India!! I remember further that Paula wanted to go back and finish her college and that she had never been on a plane.

A week back, I had written to her letting her know that Julio and I were going to be in the area again and would love to come by Blind Horse for a dinner and get an update on her life story. Unfortunately, she said, she did not work at Blind Horse anymore!

“Oh! So, where are you working now?”, I asked. Hoping that if it were nearby we still had a shot of seeing her.
“I now work at the bar in a resort called Osthoff”, she had replied.

Aha! Want to take a guess where was Julio and I headed for our meetings? It was at the Osthoff resort, believe it or not!! What are the chances of that?

This Tuesday, after our meetings were over, Julio and I strolled along to the bar in the property she worked in and had a great time catching up with her. We talked a lot about her new baby and her aspirations in life. We were very proud of her that she had worked herself out of all financial debts in her life!!

One of the things we talked about was her desire to find out her original roots (remember my very first question to her about her lineage?) Looks like she is getting started to find out the answer to my question.

Best of luck, Paula! We know these kind of processes take a long time.

Before leaving we took a picture of the three of us and we made sure we had aligned ourselves this time just like we had last time (see inset)!!

I think it was around August or September of 1995. Sharmila and I had gone for a dinner party at Sanjiv’s house. He was the founder and CEO of the company I had just joined a couple of months back. We were introduced to some of the other guests – mostly people from the same company but I did not know all of them.

That is where I met Jerry for the first time. All I remember is that he and his wife were excited about moving to Europe (for business purpose) soon for a few years. After that, I probably saw him about a couple of times when he returned to the US and then soon left the company.

It was only during my call to him this year on last birthday that I found out he lives in Wisconsin. So, this week, when I had a gap in my meetings in Elkhart Lake, I offered to drive down to Milwaukee to see him. He graciously suggested that we meet midway in Grafton at Water Street Brewery. I figured – Brewery, Europe, beer in the afternoon – yep! the math works!!

Except that when I finally saw him after nearly two decades and we settled down at the bar, all he drank was coke!!! But we had a great time catching up on each other’s lives, kids and careers. Also, we caught up on our old friends.

Somewhere during the discussions he was talking about his current work and he mentioned somebody called “Buck” who was Indian. “Buck Chintamini, in fact”, he said. Out of a suspicion, I asked him if his formal name is Devasish. Jerry was not too sure about that. So, I fished out my phone and showed him a picture.

What do you know? All this time, he was talking about my classmate from MBA days!!! And as luck would have it, just this weekend, I was in touch with the same Buck for some personal stuff!! What is the chance of that? Is the world really small or what?

Jerry, it was great to see you after so many years. Let’s not wait for that long for the next one…

The last time I saw Suzanne was in the software development offices of a prior company in Dallas when the company was very small and both of us worked in the User Interface team. As I recollect, she then moved further south in Texas and all I knew was that she was following her passion. She had found art to be her calling. She was doing bronze sculpture, painting and what not. Thru Facebook when I had finally tracked her down, I found out that she also is into photography and videography.

I am always attracted towards people who follow their passions in life. I was barely 39 when I came to the moment of epiphany that it is only one life we will have. And even that is perhaps more finite than we are willing to admit. Nobody wakes up with the first thought – “One day less. How should I then spend the rest of my life?”.

Given that, my excitement was palpable when I found out that Suzanne was going to pass by Atlanta in one of her sojourns. Sharmila and I were waiting at home to welcome her. When she finally showed up after having gotten a first hand understanding of Atlanta traffic, I was thrilled to see her – like I said, after two decades. I could pick her up in a crowd easily – she looked so similar to what I had imagined.

We were even more thrilled to explore her van. Sharmila and I spent half an hour checking out her Ford Sportsmobile that Suzanne had personally designed. It has a kitchen, her sleeping quarters, hot and cold showers and her art area complete with storage space. I am sure Sharmila will want one like that soon. Can you imagine going around in the country and stopping wherever you want and start painting once a beautiful scenery catches your imagination?

Suzanne has reached where I want to some day. Prioritize her time to do what makes her happy – bereft of what corporate world or even society at large might tell you to do. Obviously, there was a lot of catching up of old friends that we needed to do. But I also wanted to learn from her and get her perspectives on life.

With that in mind, we eventually went to have lunch by the lake and pondered over a lot of questions. Getting her perspective was very insightful. One of the biggest discussion we had was around the seeming dissonance of what we were built out to be versus what the current society values. The basic hypothesis we agreed on is that as human beings, we are not sent to be highly specialized like a machine. In fact, we are happiest when we can pursue multiple goals – when we are not defined by just one thing. We certainly admire people who are world experts in one area, but we are in awe of people who can do multiple things well.

People we have considered “geniuses” (we need at least fifty years after death to consider somebody a genius to make sure the effects are longer lasting) – Edison, Franklin, da Vinci, Tagore… – all of them excelled in multiple fields. None of them were unidirectional. And yet today’s society and corporate life tends to value you increasingly more if you are a deeper and deeper expert in one field. In fact, there is a saying to downplay trying to have a multifaceted personality – “Jack of all business, Master of none”!!

Great discussions!! I certainly had one of the best times in a long time. There were a lot of things left to still discuss. But we just had one day.

Looking forward to the next meeting!!!