As you must have read in my previous post, I was meeting Mahnia – a colleague from my past – after a long time. In fact, we were sitting at a table outside a restaurant. We were on the street and literally all the downtown people were milling around us as we caught up with each others’ lives.

During that conversation, I saw somebody go by us who I thought I recognized. But it was too quick and she had big sunglasses on. Ten minutes later, the same lady went past us again from the other side.

I told Mahnia that I thought I knew that lady. If I was not very mistaken, many moons back, she was the bar tender at the place Sharmila and I still go to this day on Sunday evenings. I remember her for teh cute nairband she would always sport and also for the fact that she was a row-er (is that the right word?). She coached folks who wanted to learn rowing in the Rowing Club near us. I had been toying with the idea of rowing for a long time since it would allow me to be with nature and also would be a good upper body exercise.

About half an hour later, that lady went past us yet another time!!! Mahnia insisted that I find out if it is the same person. I gave in and came out on the street and yelled – “Katelyn?” I was half expecting the lady to just keep going. Except that she turned around, recognized me in about half a second and yelled “Raj”?

Well, there was the second intersection point of the same evening!! Last time I saw her was when Sharmila and I visited her at a new bar where she had started working after leaving our Sunday night place. As I talked to her, I realized that she had moved on to great successes careerwise from there.

It was only for a couple of minutes. But it was so great to see her after such a long time again!!!

And for the record, Katelyn, if you are reading this post, you promised to come and visit Sharmila and me at Milton’s one of these Sundays…

Met Mahnia after many many moons since we had worked together. Funnily enough, most of our discussions were around time spent while NOT working. She is in a phase where she is taking time off from her job. Having gone thru that three times in life – and my family will argue the best three times of our lives – we talked a lot about the importance of taking “time outs” in life and pursuing very different goals. And eventually recognizing the mortaility of life – on other words, the finiteness of our life.

As we said this evening – Most of us do not wake up realizing n=n-1 now and live the rest of the day as if n is not a finite number.

I took some tips from her long hiking and long biking trips. Someday, I am sure I will get into those too.

It was great to meet an old colleague and a great human being!!

I think it was around 2003. Thoroughly exhausted after a week of intense meetings in Bangalore – and messed up by the time differences – I finally slouched down on seat 1C on a Jet Airways flight from Bangalore to Kolkata one Friday evening. I had my head down and was just trying to get some of my energy back. Through the corner of my eyes, sitting in the aisle seat, I could see all the people filing into the plane.

I suddenly saw this really cute young girl walk into the plane all smiles at me. I smile back at her. And thru the corner of my eyes, I could see there was a gentleman behind her. All I could see was up to his knees and he was wearing a kurta-pyjama. So as not to be a weird guy, I raised my head with the smile to acknowledge him too.

And that is when I go the shock of my life. The gentleman, as it turned out, was none other than Subhasis Ojha. Fancy meeting him – a guy who lived in Canada and was my team mate – on a flight in India. He introduced his wife Sanghamitra to me who was just behind him. It so happened that it was not the happiest moment for them. Of course, discounting the obvious fact that they had just met me, they had bigger challenges to deal with. Sangha’s mom had just passed away and they were headed for her last rites.

Believe it or not, after that day on the the plane, I actually managed to see both of them again this week, after a gap of almost a decade and a half.

It was a office meeting that got me to Toronto this week. After the meetings, I reached out to some of my old friends to see if they were available. Other than the Ojhas, there was Marty Flemington who showed up. The guy I will always remember as “Mr. Architect” – I saw him after another decade and a half. And what a great day too! It is his birthday today.

As onerous as travel and business meetings are – especially if you have to wait for an hour and forty minutes in customs – there are always memorable moments to create. And I am always grateful to friends like Subhasis, Sangha and Marty who make it so!!

That was a great experience in “What really matters in Life” exactly two years back. Reposted from that day…
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My good deed of the day…
I know this looks like an Italian painting (except for the modern lady handbags, perhaps) but it is a real photo taken with my phone. The backdrop of the story goes in the following way:

Natasha, who goes and stays in a dorm and takes classes in different colleges every summer often makes friends from very different cities and countries every year. I, being a person who values people and relationships over just about anything else in this finite time on this beautiful earth that we have fashionably named “life”, am always a little bothered when she does not keep in touch with many of those friends after summer.

Conversely, you can only guess my excitement when she declared that she was going to meet a friend that she had not seen after one of those summers – I forget whether it was Duke or Brown – when we visit New York. Karina (they call her “Karina with a K”) was going to visit her at our hotel. Except the whole plan fell thru at the last moment due to her dad’s office travel plans.

I was not feeling too good about leaving Sharmila and Nikita to visit Time Square by themselves but I did tell Natasha that I will take her to wherever her friend lived. Which, as it turned out was a two hour hike with three trains involved in between. But, it was okay with me – as long as she realized that life is all about the human relationships. Everything else is too materialistic to be worried about.

The train finally pulled into the Ridgewood station. And we arrived at the agreed upon meeting point. As soon as we started coming out of the tunnel, she spotted her friend at the top of the flight of steps. They ran as fast as they could towards each other and hugged each other hard.

Separated by a year in age, brought up thousands of miles away, they had come together for a few weeks a few years back. Then this afternoon, there was the moment where they saw each other again!!! The tunnel lighting was not good. But that is the best picture I could get of that powerful moment of strength of human relationships.

And here I am waiting at a nearby bar, biding my three hours as they catch up with themselves…