I cannot exactly call him my benchmate since we did not sit in benches. Instead, we had individual desks. Desks that had a cubby space to keep our suitcase and our prized tiffin box. And desks that had the top sloping in into you so it was more natural for you to read and write at that angle. Except that those slopes would always roll my black and red 2B Nataraj pencil down and then drop off to the floor. This guy – Ajay Lahiri – as I said who sat in the next desk – being the ever kind person that he was, would find the pencil, pick it up, realize that the tip was gone and would go ahead and sharpen it for me with his small steel colored sharpener.

Then he would point to the top of the desk where there was curved dip created in the desk specifically to keep pencils. And for the life of me, I would never remember to keep my pencils there.

Mousumi, if you are reading this, you probably remember that he sat caddy corner from you (you were right behind me) and in front of Sayanti (who, for the life of me, I still cannot locate). And Subir, if you are reading this, you may recollect that you used to sit perpendicular to us, facing the teacher and Ajay and I were to your immediate left.

That was 1976.

This is 2017.

Forty one years later, I managed to catch up with that guy again!! (I left that school in 1976). In New York City!! I had located him a few years back but all our past attempts to meet had failed.

Not this day!!

When I woke up early in the morning, I was super excited that I was going to see Ajay after so many years. So many memories started floating by. I remembered his parents. I remembered his house on Short Road. I remembered he had quite a few brothers and sisters but could not remember how many. And I remembered how frail and fair complexioned he was.

Then something more mundane struck me. We had agreed to have a coffee early in the morning in Grand Central Station before he had to go to office. Now, if any of you have ever been to Grand Central Station, it is a veritable junction point of multiple streams of people seemingly aimlessly coming in and out. To pin point somebody there is not the easiest task.

That is when I came up with a “bright” idea. (I tend to have those before I have my coffee and actually wake up). I was in Central Park. So that was about one and a half mile away from Grand Central. I put on my brightest orange running shirt and shoes and started running towards Grand Central.

I reached about ten minutes early. Milling around the human waves there, I was reassured of one thing. Among all those sharply dressed, skirted, suited, booted and otherwise formally dressed office goers, there was no way Ajay could miss my bright orange colors. I was hoping that he would not ignore me as one of those construction workers with similar orange colors who seem to be perpetually digging up something or the other in the city!

As we sat down over a cup of coffee, we caught up on a lot of things. Thirty minutes was way too short. But if I was going to have to wait for forty one years, I would take even a three minute meeting. Together, we remembered a lot of our friends and teachers (fortunately, I was able to give him updates on their lives to him). It was great to catch up on his kids (two daughters of identical ages as mine), his parents and his brothers and sisters!!! But above all, it was great to see how the guy who sat next to me in his red shorts and white shirt forty one years back has become such a successful and happy human being!

Running back to my hotel, I could not help reflect on how incredibly lucky I am in life that I crossed paths many many years ago with so many incredibly great human beings. And that even today, I am able to bend the path of my life to go meet theirs…

This year, when I had called up Gary Brooks to wish him a happy birthday, I also learnt that his daughter was going to be in Georgia Tech and that he was going to come and help her settle down. We agreed to meet up.

The day could not have been any brighter to meet this colleague of mine from yesteryears. We sat down out in the patio of a local restaurant with some nice drinks and finger food to catch up with each other.

I remember hiring a few people who worked for Gary (he was in a different company) into our company. I also remember having lunch with him, just like the present day, and making a case that he needed to follow his teammates. Which he eventually did – but not in the same group as mine.

“So, how has life been after i2 on the work front?”, I asked after we settled down. Gary laid out an interesting story of how he has been very satisfied work wise by being very clear on what he wanted. Apparently, his criteria was (*) that he would have a good time (*) he would continuously learn new things (*) and that he would earn some money on the way. “That has been the magic for me. By staying true to those criteria, I have always stayed happy professionally”.

To understand the simplicity of his demands, one has to understand his times growing up. Born of two hard working parents who had to toil hard to make all ends meet, Gary, by his own submission was not the model high school student.

“What did you do?” I asked
“All the wrong stuff that you don’t want to discuss”.

One day, as a last resort, his mom got him a job in the local Quaker Oil shop where he worked on daily wage. As he put it, that shaped a lot in terms of what he wanted to be (and not).

Then his mom sent him to college. Much against his wishes. The first day was not the easiest for him. Somehow he had signed up for an advanced course (I forget the subject – was it Physics?). There he was, not having studied much in high school, facing some of the best and brightest in the college. “The teacher talked about 3D vectors and most of the students were used to 2D vectors. And I was the one asking myself – What is a vector?”

That evening was the defining moment for Gary. After college, completely baffled and frustrated, he sat himself down and holding his head in his hands, wondered what was he supposed to do. Above all, the prospect of living the life working at the Quaker Oil scared the beejejus out of him. And from that day, he resolved that he would get back in the game.

It was not an easy fare to fight back. Other than his resolve, he did not have much more going in his favor. But he kept at it. And it seems, had his epiphany during a class in computer science when he suddenly understood how recursion worked. I told him that my theory was that understanding recursion was easy. You first understand recursion, then the rest is easy. (I think computer science students will get this joke). Jokes apart, that was it for Gary. From that day, he fell in love with Computer Science and to this day has stayed true to his trade.

Of course, he must have reached his nadir of computer science when he tried explaining REST Api and higher order languages like Python to me over lunch 🙂

On my drive back, I was amazed how life has its own way of working out if only you resolve to try. I had no idea about Gary’s background. I always thought of him as somewhat of a technical guru and his people had a great opinion of him as a manager. Who knew how much trouble and difficulty he had to overcome to go there?

I need to bookmark this post. Every time I see a kid who might be looking for direction in life, I know who to send them to!

It was great seeing you and getting to know you better, Gary!!

Last week, I had an overnight layover in Minneapolis airport. What would have been an otherwise humdrum evening with catching up on office work and all that turned out to be a memorable one because this gentleman was gracious enough to drive for quite some time and come meet me near the airport.

Back in 1998, I had gone to my alma mater (IIM Ahmedabad) to recruit for our company. We had pretty much wrapped up for the day at 5:30 and had already notified most of the students who we had selected to show up for dinner at a very nice place (Vishala?). It is one of those places laid out like a traditional Gujrati village and a great place to spend the evening.

SK was running so late with his other interviews that he did not expect at all to have any chance so late in the day with us – but he showed up. And we did put together an interview for him and guess what? He sailed thru with flying colors. We landed up adding one more to our dinner reservation!

And that is how a great relationship began. SK came over to the USA in 1998 and if I recollect correctly, came over to our house once for dinner in Coppell. A few years later, both of us went our own ways and our contacts were pretty much reduced to my birthday calls every year.

Till last week!!

As always, it was great to catch up on the great career progress a smart guy like SK has made in his life. I promised him to come by his house next time and make friends with his three kids…

I reached the Marriott Baltimore lobby and immediately settled down on business stuff with my colleague – Kurt. An hour and a half later, I took a temporary break to get on to a call with our investors. I was on the call, pacing up and down the lobby when I thought I heard my name being called out. I looked around very quickly, still talking and generally ignored it. Till I heard my name being yelled out – this time more clearly and loudly.

I look around and what do you know? Good old Ajit was in the lobby meeting a customer. My history with Ajit goes back to the late 80s. He was a junior of mine in engineering college and we both lived in the same dorm (hall). Another connection I have with him is that he eventually married Soumya – who I got to know later in a completely different part of India as a friend of Srimathi. Srimathi, in her turn, was one of my closest friends in management school. Unfortunately, we lost her to cancer. The only solace I have is that I was literally one of the last persons she saw and talked to before passing away. I had taken a flight back to US after seeing her in Cancer Institute in Chennai. By the time I landed in Frankfurt, there was a message for me from her brother that she was no more.

Too many memories floated by my mind when I saw Ajit. Yet, I had to take care of the call and Ajit himself had to leave. So, we spent only a few minutes together – but promised to catch up for a longer time later…

BTW, in college, we used to call Ajit “Singapore”. Hence the title of the post. I do recognize that was a terrible stab at poetry 🙂

You might recall from my blog (or FB updates) that early this year, I visited my third grade class teacher (home room teacher) Mrs. Chobi Bose in Kolkata. I had traced her after a lot of help from others and then finally met her after over three decades!! I wrote how lively she was. And how I was struck by how she had set her house up very tastefully just like she had done her house that I had visited in 1975!!

Thanks to her that evening, I found out the whereabouts of my second grade and my tenth grade class teachers. Last month, I talked to her and she helped me find my first grade class teacher!! It is like the gift just kept giving to me!!!

Thru my class mate Niladri Datta and that second grade teacher Mrs. Shastri, I found out today that our dear old Mrs. Bose, is unfortunately, no more.

As you grow older, you get more humility (and I certainly have long ways to go there) and realize that you are who you are, in many parts, because of the people who have influenced you. Outside of your parents, nobody can possibly influence you more than your teachers. And that is why it is such a noble profession.

But as age and humility set in for me, I continued to struggle to find out how to say Thanks to those teachers. It is not the case that I have made much out of myself – but whatever little I have done, I owe my gratitude to many people. Certainly the teachers.

In this age of Facebook, Whatsapp and cut-and-paste email, a Thank You message probably would not cut it, I had argued with myself. Nothing short of seeking those noble human beings out in real life and looking them straight in their eyes and say “Thank you for helping me who I am today” can possibly tell them what they meant to all their students.

And that is when the quest began to seek out my teachers and say Thank You to them. In that journey, I learnt an important lesson today…

… I better hurry up and avail of the first opportunity. Because, you know, you never know if you will get a second chance.

… and therefore, Mrs. Bose, even thru your departure from this earth, it would appear, you left another lesson for me.

… Now how do I get to say Thank You to you for that?

Not fair, I say, Not fair!!