16 February 2024

That is a crazy coincidence!!

So, here I am in Puerto Rico. The main reason is to attend the wedding of somebody I know. Much younger to me, of course. I am on the board of the company that he is the CEO of. Turns out I was his mentor for a couple of years before that too. So, I show up with Sharmila at the Bacardi Distillery. It was a small and fairly intimate wedding.

Other than the bride and the groom I did not know anybody. Sharmila and I were intently watching the proceedings of the Indian wedding. All of ten minutes must have passed.

That “I did not know anybody”, bit? Completely unfounded.

Suddenly a gentleman in chic, traditional Malayali dress walks up to me and Sharmila.

“Rajib?”
“Guilty!”
“Hari. Hari Menon!”
“Wow! I would not have recognized you!!”
I knew Hari very well from the 90s. We had worked together. But I could not have picked him up from a crowd. He had however, recognized me in the gathering.

“Hari. Wait. What is your connection?”
“I am Vivek’s cousin”
“No way!”
The groom and I know each other for a few years now. In fact, he and his bride-to-be had gone out for dinner with Sharmila and me too. But we never figured out that we had such a common connection!!

Go figure!!

Category: Intersection Points, Vacations | LEAVE A COMMENT
6 February 2024

Breakfast with retired Lt. Gen. Twitty

There are very few things as delightful to me as having a breakfast with this much decorated Lieutenant General. Most of our time was spent discussing geopolitics – from the two conflagrations in the Middle East to the Ukraine war which the American psyche seems to have already forgotten and the cooling down of the sabre rattling between China and America. We also exchanged points of views on where America is headed in the global stage what kind of America our kids are likely to see when they get to our age!

Given his service across all the continents, there is always new angles and nuances I pick up in geopolitics that otherwise would have escaped me.

Can’t wait to come back and have another couple of hours with him again!

Category: Our Friends | LEAVE A COMMENT
4 February 2024

“Lucky” intersection point!!

After quite some badgering from Sharmila and a threat from DJPJ that if I did not upgrade my good old, much shattered iPhone 11 by this weekend, they were going to order one for me, I finally caved in and went to the Apple store with Sharmila. Got a new iPhone 15. Spent quite some time debating what color phone to choose. Picked my favorite one. Then promptly got a cover (hopefully less screen shattering) to completely hide the phone color. Go figure!!

Anyways, after all that, Sharmila and I went over to the bar next door in The Hotel. It was pretty empty. Ordered my Old Fashioned and then a salmon dinner.

I had not noticed that a gentleman had come and sat in a chair not too far from me. When Karmen went to him, he said – “I will have the same order as him”.

I looked at him. A young gentleman with head clean shaven and face with trimmed beard. I joked – “I like your hair style. I wonder why?”

We both laughed as he said “Rajib, you are always good with your one liners!”

WAIT!! WHAT?

And then I realized that it was Lucky Gilja!! Remember how I mentioned his head was shaven and he had beard? Well, last time Sharmila and I met him – four years back – it was the other way round! He had a headful of hair and a clean shaven face!!

We used to work together in the same PE firm a few years back. There is an interesting story about how I met him in an elevator and found out he grew up a hop, skip and jump from where I was living at that time!!

Lucky was in town for work and did not realize that we had changed homes and now live a walking distance from he was staying!!

We had a great evening!

Officially, the first photo taken on my new iPhone was by Karmen. “Lucky” omen, I say!!

Category: Intersection Points | LEAVE A COMMENT
1 February 2024

An uncommon lady!

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 🙂

Category: Intersection Points | LEAVE A COMMENT
21 January 2024

A day of hitting the hysteresis curve with DJPJ

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!!

Category: Our Friends | LEAVE A COMMENT
11 January 2024

There is another interesting intersection point!

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!!

Category: Intersection Points, Vacations | LEAVE A COMMENT