Thanks to Joe (and I am going to tag his wife Pam on this since I know he stalks her FB account and reads my posts there 🙂 ), I was able to meet the very bright and young CTO of Amtrak – Sovan last evening. On the business front, we work with railway companies and I wanted to see how we might be able to help. But let’s not get into business here.

I got to know of Sovan’s journey from India straight to Minnesota and then how he settled here and recently has moved to DC area with his two very young kids. It was great to get the perspective of a CTO’s vision of challenges for a unique company like Amtrak. Since I knew Joe before Sovan knew him, I could highlight some of my past memories with Joe to him.

Joe and I worked in a previous job and he actually led all the Government sales in our business that time. We have both moved on ever since. But not before we spent a lot of time together on the road. And therefore, I got to know the personal life and the very funny side of Joe. And I made him repeat some of those stories last evening.

The most inspiring one I remember was his upbringing. His dad was – what he refers to as a “blue collar” worker living right outside Baltimore city. (Joe still lives there). But the story was how one of his elder brothers got into Duke and the first time he came home, talked about how Duke would take care of all expenses for financially disadvantaged families for the good students. From that day on, the fourth grader in Joe (I think he was in fourth grade) was maniacally focused on getting into Duke. As he told us, everything he did from that day on was totally about getting into Duke with full ride.

And he did get into Duke.
“How much was the cost those days?”, I asked
“All in, $20,000 per year”.
“And how much was your dad earning?”
“He retired with peak W-2 earnings of $19,500”.

WOW!!

He even talked about how they could not afford long distance phone calls those days and in his entire four year stay in Duke, he got exactly one call from his parents!!!

Little surprise then that Joe has been so successful in life. Under the gentle, funny self of Joe, there is some sheer Grit !! Speaking of which, we talked a lot on the topic of Grit.

I also told Sovan the story of Joe marrying somebody off. I think it was in the last year that we worked together. Joe went to online courses and became an ordained pastor. Yes! Apparently, you can do that. Of course, that Joe would be an ordained pastor – that too thanks to the internet was very funny to me. But I did ask him – “Okay. You are a pastor. But to marry somebody off, you need stuff – you know certificates, seals and so on”.

“Oh! They send you a starter kit”, he had said.

“Starter kit????” I remember taking a few minutes getting myself off the floor. I guess they sent two certificates and all that to give a kickstart to his new career. Seriously though, he has married off four couples. I believe he is headed to Europe to marry off the next one.

Another marvelous thing about Joe is his ten year volunteering in prisons to wean people off recidivism and violence thru faith based teachings.

Again, these kind of meetings always seem short. But there was somebody else from my office waiting for me at the bar in the same restaurant to work on some financial matters.

So, I had to say bye. But I can’t wait to get back with Joe and Sovan again!!!

Nikita was in Savannah for some school program and she was not going to be back till the next day. After finishing up my work around 8PM, Sharmila wanted to know what we wanted to do. Of course, the road warrior that I am, I always vote for staying home. And since she is stuck with the daughter’s stuff during the weekdays, she always votes to go out. And like in every tried and tested marriage, during a one-one vote gridlock, the wife wins. I think there is some kind of electoral college system that defines a marriage.

Sooner or later, we found ourselves at a bar that Arup and Sanjib had introduced me to a few weeks back. This was my second time there. I had settled down but for a few seconds – when a familiar voice behind the bar piped up – “Uh! Oh! There is trouble again!!” It was good old Kay!! She was our bartender the previous time. And her comments were squarely directed towards me.

Sharmila had that “What did you do now?” look at me and I let Kay explain as we placed our drinks. It was a slow middle-of-the-week night. So both of us spent a lot of time talking to Kay. Apparently, the previous time when I was there, I had way too many of my cheesy jokes at her expense! In any case, I was glad it was a slow night since both Sharmila and I got to know her life story and her aspirations in life.

An hour and a half later, it was time to start wrapping up. But, of course, it was also time to take a picture and document in my blog to remember these moments much later in life. As Kay came over to our side, a gentleman who was sitting on the other end all this time and reading something saw us and volunteered to take the picture for us.

Which he proceeded to take. And that is where things could have ended. Not when I am around though. I, of course, had to get to know the gentleman – Rich was his name – a little more. Found out quickly that he was the head of after sales parts and services for Bentley. Since he is a road warrior himself, the bonding was very quick. We talked a lot about life on the road and all that. But most of the time was spent in myself learning about Bentleys.

I was aware of the British roots of the company and the current ownership by Volkswagen but what I was not aware of is how many of these high end and very premium priced cars are sold every year. Apparently only 12,500 or so. About 3,000 of them in US. To put that in perspective, somewhere between 15 to 18 million vehicles are sold in US in a year. I was able to guess the regions of the world that buys most of the Bentleys fairly accurately, though. Learnt a lot from Rich on how to maintain customer identity and customer satisfaction for such very niche markets.

And one more half an hour rolled thru just like that while talking to Rich!! We exchanged our business cards and then of course, came the mandatory picture!! And the hope that we will run into each other on the road again sometime!!

It was going to be a late dinner for me but it was worth the wait. Pavan was going to be in town for business and the only time I had to meet her was that evening after 8. Eventually, she showed up after ploughing thru Atlanta traffic in the rains – and not a moment too soon! I was so hungry that I had already made a clean plate of chicken wings and some Old Fashioned.

We got to see each other after a long time. I think I had seen her once in California. But most of our memories are from the startup that we had worked over 20 years back (she was a consultant, I was an employee). Caught up with each other about our old friends, some of the Nusrat songs we used to listen to in those days and all the drama we used to have in office! And we talked about our old friend Al Blake a lot – not sure why – but I hope Al you are reading this. We also talked about the bar a few of us from our “SDG” team (that was the name of our team) used to visit after work late nights. I still remember that in those days, I would only drink Kendall Jackson’s Chardonnay in that bar called Humperdinks. (The bar, much later, I found out had burnt down and was replaced with something else).

We went next door from the hotel she was staying in to a restaurant called Bricktops to have dinner. We decided to sit at the bar and finish off dinner in an informal setting. At some point she went to take a bio-break. And I started chatting with the gentleman behind the bar. Come to find out that Tony Moody was his name. By the time Pavan was back, I had already learnt the history of Tony’s life; that he was a single dad and his 23 year old son is abroad and would soon be posted in Alaska. Even after Pavan came back, I continued chatting with him. And guess what? Found out that he used to work at the Four Seasons right behind where Sharmila and I used to live during the period when I worked with Pavan. Even crazier coincidence – his favorite spot to go for a drink with his friends was – Humperdinks!! We checked the years and turns out all three of us used to go to the same bar during the same time period!! For all you know that was not the first time we saw each other.

And I thought I was done for the evening. Came back to the hotel to drop Pavan and head back home. Pavan was actually meeting up somebody else after our dinner. She insisted that I said Hi to her friend before leaving. I thought it was going to be a quick introduction and off I would go. Nothing like that. I, of course, have to find some connection points with any new person I meet. Once I got to know a little about Jaideep Majumdar’s background – I asked “So, you know Ashok and Crissy Vasan?”. Sure enough, they were classmates!! Ashok and I were colleagues from the past and I remember visiting him and Crissy in their Singapore house around 2003 or so. And there was something else I knew about Ashok – India’s film superstar Shah Rukh Khan was his classmate. “So, you were Shah Rukh Khan’s classmate too?”. It took Jaideep a few seconds to figure out how I knew about it. As if that was not enough, we found out more connections at two other companies!!

That night, very late, I came back just trying to put the whole thing together. That was a lot of coincidences for one evening!!!

This is why I like to reconnect with anybody who has ever crossed my path before – birthday day calls, dinners during business trips, going to villages in India to extract somebody I knew half a century back… And make some new connections on the way too… Because you never know if you will ever meet them again…

It was hardly a year back – in fact, March 2016 – that I found out that this gentleman – father of somebody I know in Atlanta – was in an old age home not too far away from where my parents live. Last May, I went in unannounced. He did not know me. But that was okay. It did not take me too much time to make friends with him… or the many other old folks who came by to talk to me (their moment of pride? – “my son/daughter is also in America like you” – the irony of they pushing their next generation to a better life in America while they get relegated to a distant old age home with total strangers weighed very heavy that afternoon on my drive back). [“The Gift of Time”] (top two pictures)

During my next trip last year – and that would be June 2016, I brought my sister with me – who is a far more compassionate person than I am – and we spent about three hours with the gentleman and more people of his age group at that old age home that time. I remember he mentioning that it would be great for him if I could drop by for two minutes every time I came to visit my parents. [Revisiting an old age home”] (bottom left picture)

In my next trip (last year end/this year beginning), I was running very short of time. On my way to the airport, I took one more detour – after some debate on whether I will miss my flight – to see him for about fifteen to twenty minutes. His last words? “Ok. Go now. But come back again. It feels good to talk like this”. An overwhelming sense of guilt had gnawed into me on the trip back – Why was I even thinking whether I had time to meet him? If I did not have time for old folks like him who have made folks like me stand up in life, aren’t all my priorities all messed up? [“One last unscheduled stop”] (bottom right picture)

What I did not know is the following – that meeting on Jan 4 was to be the last. A friendship of 10 months has come to an end. Mr. Lodh is no more. I will go past that old age home to visit my parents every year. And I will just be staring at the home as my brother speeds past it. That one human being I got to know a little is no more…

And I will be wishing that I had gotten to know him earlier… that I had visited him a few more times…. that I had stayed for a few more minutes….

He was, above all, … a human being!!! A kind and considerate one at that too!!