After the 5K run, Sharmila and I went out for a walk. It was good weather to get all the miles and steps in. Except when we reached downtown Alpharetta, all that Indian food aroma wafting from Curry Up Now completely overpowered me.
Had some Chole Batura that was still dripping oil !! And a Frooti drink from India too!
Pilar and I last worked together about 10 years back and I think that was the last time I had seen her. After that, we had kept up thru phone calls. I give her a lot of credit for initiating phone calls to discuss stuff (mostly work related) and that meant I was able to follow her life journey throughout the years. (We lost our dads within a few days of each other)
We missed each other by a whisker in Miami last week. Remember the art show in Brickell Sharmila and I went to? Apparently she was there too with her friends! She is a painter herself and follows Sharmila, I believe, in social media. This week, we got a chance to meet in Atlanta since she was here for work.
That gave me a chance to sit down with her to learn the fascinating journey of her life. She has lived and worked in three different continents and has one of the most in depth understanding of different work and social cultures. I was impressed with her grit in dealing with multiple personal and life tragedies she has had to deal with (two of which were life threatening).
But the best part was – and Sumana, you might want to listen to this part – how well rounded she is. We talked about various aspects of our life – physical health, mental health, spirituality, family, work… in fact all the aspects of Level 10 life. I was captivated by how she takes intentional actions to keep up with all those facets of our being. That makes her a very uncommon lady in my books.
Pilar Bide, we have a lot to learn from you! May your tribe increase!!
You still owe me a crisp answer to the tombstone question though 🙂
It was a cold day but with bright sunshine. And I woke up at 9:30 AM – a clear 5 hours after what I am used to. That is because I did something I have not done in a long time – stayed up till 1AM with our neighbors over some lovely food and wine the previous night.
Since my morning routine was shot, decided to completely throw caution to the winds and do nothing that I am supposed to do on a Sunday per my crop circles.
Picked up Dipanjan and Parijat from their house and drove to Big Door Vineyards. After some great time there, we went to Black Rifle Coffee (one of my motorcycle route coffee shops) to wean off from the wine!!
Came home, skipped our daily evening bar routine and instead went off to sleep!!
My first trip day before was unsuccessful. But, I had decided to keep trying till I left the island. So, there I was today again – pulling into this parking lot of a small food shack called “Diane’s Roti Master”.
There was nobody at the front. Decided to go inside the kitchen. There was a lady working by herself.
“Hello? Are you here to pick up food?”, she asked.
“Not exactly. Can I talk to Diane?”
“I am Diane.”
“Oh! I had come yesterday to meet you. You were out.”
“Sorry. Do you want to order something?”
“Ummm… no. I came to meet you.”
“About what?”, she asked wiping her hand as we both walked back to the front.
“Well, I am a friend of your granddaughter in New York. She could not say enough good things about you. I had promised her that I will visit you and send her a picture of you when I come to the island.”
“Oh!”, she was a bit relieved and confused.
So, I laid out the whole story to her.
“See Diane, I have a daughter in New York City. I was visiting her a couple of weeks back. I was in a coffee shop. And this young girl made my coffee.”
At this point, I pulled out a picture from my iPhone.
“Oh! that is my Tsuni!” she exclaimed.
Two weeks back, I was in New York to drop Natasha and Tuy in Brooklyn. I had stayed over in the city for a day. I had befriended the young lady (you can see in the bottom right picture) who made the coffee for me.
“What is your name?”
“Tsuni”
“S-u-n-i?”
“No, T-s-u-n-i”
“Oh! Where is that name from?”
“I grew up in St. Croix”
“REALLY? I will be there two weeks from now for the first time in my life! Is your family there?”
“Well, my dad lives in Atlanta …”
“That is where I am from!”
“… oh! and my mom is here in New York. But my grandmother is in St. Croix”
“That is awesome! Did your grandmother grow up in St. Croix?”
“Well, she was born in Trinidad. She has a restaurant in St. Croix now.”
“Do you know the name?”
“Her name is Diane. I think the restaurant is called “Diane’s”
“Let’s see if we can find that place,” I said furtively looking into Google Maps. I thought I got a hit – “Diane’s Roti Master”.
“Is it called Roti Master?”
“Yes, yes, that is the name!” she said excitedly.
I flipped thru the images in Google Maps. There was one with a lady in it inside what looked like a kitchen.
“Is this your grandmother?”
“Grandma!!!” she said visibly energized looking at the picture.
“Ok. I will tell you what – I will make it a point to meet her there two weeks from now. And I will send you a picture of her from there!”
We took a picture together that I was going to give her grandmother and exchanged our contacts. Then I left.
Coming back to today…
“That is Tsuni indeed!!” I told Diane as I told her the story of how I met her.
Diane pulled me to the next store (which also belonged to here) and all excited about showing the picture of Tsuni to another lady sitting there. Later, I found out that was her sister in law.
We sat down and I got to learn her life story.
Born in Trinidad, she had moved to Louisiana. Tsuni’s mom – her youngest child was already born by then. In Louisiana she had three more kids – two of them twins. She then moved to Miami. And once the twins finished high school and left home, she was not sure what to do. She came to St. Croix where her parents were. As a single, she lived with her parents and was trying to figure out what to do in life.
Then she got herself a red truck (you can see it in the picture) in 1999. She and another lady (turned out later to be her sister in law who I had just met) started making food out of the back of the truck and selling from one construction zone to other. Slowly but surely, that hard work paid off. Eventually she had three small stores and finally consolidated everything and built out this food joint that I was sitting in. She got featured in one of the Youtube Influencer’s video too (the URL of which is proudly captured in a QR code she showed me in her menu card).
We had probably talked for over thirty minutes when the customers started coming in again.
We took some pictures together. And I promised her that I will send her picture to Tsuni and for sure will visit her next time I am in the island. For good measure, I got her phone number too.
You can never go wrong calling up an elderly lady once or twice a year to check up on how she is doing.
Self made folks – especially women – are to be specially recognized!!
If they knew how to park their trains like I do my parallel parking, all of London could heave a collective sigh of relief and stop Minding the Gap incessantly.
This was in front of my house. My 17 year old car has no rear view camera. In the rains, with compromised visibility, I managed to parallel park like the champions.
To be sure, this is an exceptional event.
Here is the problem though. My car is low. And I am old. Getting off to the curb directly was a Herculean test for my left knee!!
Just before the tradition of Christmas lunch (luchi-aloor dum-chicken-payas) started. The one day that we celebrate with the two daughters making luchi – one does the bela (rolling with rolling pins) part and the other does the bhaja (frying) part!
The two dogs – after morally supporting and egging the girls on for a full hour, mostly by walking between their legs in great anticipation – were mighty disappointed to realize that they could not partake in the aforementioned luchi-aloor dum-chicken-payas.
Sharmila and I were having our evening drinks at Lapeer chatting up with Nicol and Jules, when a gentleman came up from behind and called out my name. Turned around and it was good old Paul Gourley! I had not seen him in some time but we had workd together when I came to this city nearly two decades back.
Turns out he was there for Christmas Eve dinner with his family and had noticed me sometime back.
I was a great admirer of Paul. Very quiet but a strong performer. I remember in meetings waiting to hear if he had to say anything. Usually, you could measure his words in gold.
It was such a delight to meet his whole family! Lynn, Adam and Ann Marie!! Hopefully we will get to see them more in the future!
