21 June 2020

The full frontal view of the waterfall

I was absolutely ill equipped to go down a bunch of rocks. I had taken my motorbike to the trail. So, I had my jeans on and my shoes were not meant for hiking. Eventually negotiated all the way down to the bottom of the waterfall – but not before slipping on the algae on the rocks once. Missed the step and dropped my right leg about a foot in the water. It was worth it – just to be able to take a picture of the waterfall from the front.

21 June 2020

Father’s Day and slavery

I do not believe the Roy daughters or the Mukherjee daughters realized this when they planned to celebrate Father’s Day for Mr. Mukherjee (that be Amitesh) and Mr. Roy (that be yours truly) at the Vickery Creek Trail by the Roswell Mill. This trail has one of the few remaining wooden covered bridges in the south (and in Georgia).

There is a fascinating history of an emancipated slave and covered bridges. The following is quoted from Caroline Eubanks – a Lowell Thomas award-winning travel writer, and the author of “This Is My South”

The existence of the bridges can mostly be traced back to Horace King. He was born into slavery in South Carolina in 1807 but was freed from contractor John Godwin. King would go on to design the spiral staircase for the Alabama State Capitol as well as covered bridges in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Known for his work using the Town Lattice Truss system, you can see this style in many of the state’s bridges.

We live in the middle of so much history in the south!! This is literally 20 minute ride from my house.

20 June 2020

Lunch by the railway track

Caught up with John towards the end of our motorbike ride about his family. Over lunch at a restaurant by the railway track in Woodstock. John surprised me by how much he knew about the storm in Kolkata, Indian politics and the Indian prime minister Modi. We talked about the political situation in US, the likely outcomes of the virus, how he misses seeing his step grandson in Kenya growing up (he is stuck due to virus and cannot travel) and such. Really loved the conversation and the variety of topics John has wisdom around.

Should have known this guy long time back.

For that matter, should have started riding motorbike long time back too!

20 June 2020

Friday evening winding down

First Sharmila and I showed up by the lake. Stayed inside the car waiting out the thunderstorm. And then settled down by the lake shore with a couple of gins. Guess who showed up after some time. Good old Parijat and Dipanjan – fully equipped with their foldable picnic tables!!

It was a good and enjoyable evening.

Very interestingly, while the thunderstorms went by, temperatures dipped down from 84 to 65 in about half an hour. And then went up from 65 to 77 in the next half an hour!!

14 June 2020

Have you ever wondered what morality is all about?

Great evening with Dipanjan, Parijat and Sharmila yesterday. We were at the Union restaurant – sitting outside and enjoying the evening.

Given all that is happening around us, of course a lot of the discussions were around BLM, the history of slavery and what our community (Bengalis in Atlanta) are doing or (more importantly) not doing for the cause.

From that discussion on why as a community, we do – or not do something, the topic veered to that of morality. That is where the evening got really interesting. I had not thought about this topic much. But some of the conversations were deeply intriguing and somewhat disturbing too! Sharmila took through a couple of examples. For example, if you could prevent a train from having a wreck and potentially save five lives in it – but know for sure, one person down the track is going to die, would you do it?

Do numbers trump in morality questions?

Now, what if that one person was your child? Does your answer change? Mine did!!

So, clearly morality is relative even for one individual!

Again, I found the overall discussion raising a lot of intellectual curiosity. I think I am going to line up a couple of books or literature to read up on… moment I have finished with my CSS and PHP classes though!

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14 June 2020

An intriguing question from work life

Got to meet Garry Capers yesterday!! It had been some time since I had seen him. We had a chance to work together about ten years back. There are a lot of memories from those days – those weekly flights together to DC and the time in the Delta Skyclub spent together every Thursday in Reagan airport.

Other than catching up on our families and all the recent activities in America, we also reflected on our learnings from corporate life. Most of it was around the difficulties of building cultures in a company and how individual personalities play into it.

One observation we both had was that in every product company we have had a chance to work in or at least become close, there is/was always an internal skepticism towards the sales organization. Right, wrong or indifferent, folks inside the organization always seem to have an opinion (negative) about the sales organization (individuals are sometimes cited as very good, though). Interestingly enough, we both reflected that this was not true in professional services organization.

What has your experience been? Same? Different? If you have had a similar observation, why do you think it is so?

P.S. In case you were wondering how come I had forsaken my shorts when Garry’s clothes clearly indicated to the heat in Atlanta – well, I took my motorbike, so had to wear my protective gear. Fortunately, this coffee shop allowed sitting inside the air conditioned area (of course, with social distancing).

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