You probably remember from my post a couple of days back how my friend from office – Deval and her sisters Krupal and Rachana gifted me their dad’s vinyl record collection. Well, get this…

Two days later. It was 9:40PM my time…

“Deval?”
“Yes?”
“Are you busy?”
“No. Having drinks with Chris and Celia.”

I felt reassured that I had not woken up Deval. She was out with two more of my friends from work.

“Well… your dad…”
“Yes, what about him?”
“Was he the CA in a factory called Voil Industries?”

I can only imagine the confusion that must have descended her.
“He was a CA alright. I have to ask my mom about that factory.”

“Ok. Let me try this. Did you folks live in a bungalow in Baroda?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a movie starring Snehlata shot there?”
“Yes. The movie was shot in our bungalow. How do you know that?”. Again, I can only imagine her confusion.
“Well, believe it or not, I have found a connection to your dad.”
“WHAT???”

Let’s take a brief pause here. Let’s see what else happened that day.

I am sure you remember my motorbike friend – Rakesh Rao. He is the organizer, the lead rider and the guy who keeps our team of riders together. He has been a veritable source of tips and tricks for a new rider like me.

Well, he sent a very cryptic “The world is really really small” message to me and his wife Priti the previous day.
I texted “What is going on?”
“I will explain to you when we meet”, he responded.

And later that night, he spilled it all to me. He had recognized Deval’s dad’s name from my post. But he waited to talk to his dad first to make sure he was right.

And that is how I got all the information and the connection.

“Well, your dad had a classmate in Tanzania. His name was Jashwant C Rao. His son is my personal friend in Atlanta. We go out motorbiking together.” I kept explaining to Deval.

“WHAT???”

“Yes. His dad owned Voil Industries!! And my friend has been to your bungalow many times. Remembers you folks!!”

Can you imagine that?

What is the chance that my motorbiker friend in Atlanta and an office friend in Chicago are connected by me AND their dads who were classmates in Africa?

Thank you Rakesh for helping join all the dots!

It is really a small small world, as you say! It feels so great to sit in the cross section of all these intersection points!!

I thought twice… I thought thrice…

“Should I call out her name? What if it is not her?”

The moment I saw her walking into the airplane aisle, I thought she looked like my teammate Vicki. But the challenge was she had a big mask on and I just could not see enough facial features to come to a conclusive judgment.

What was even more interesting was that instead of going past me, she stopped near me and started putting her luggage up. And then sat down in my row one seat over on the other side of the aisle. She was trying to put her luggage up. Seeing her taking a few moments, I got up to help her. But by that time, she had already put the suitcase in. I sat down.

She looked at the passenger behind her and apologized “I am not tall enough”. And for the life of me I could not figure out whether the voice matched the one I have heard in Zoom calls and the couple of times I have talked to her directly.

I looked across my row. Her face was against the bright light from the window. The contour of her face did not help me much – I have not spent that much time with her. And then, there was the mask, of course.

My mind kept going back to a couple of months back when in a similar fashion, a gentleman sat down next to me and started talking to me mistaking me for one of his friends. And of course, I was trying to figure out how did I know that person. I figured my memory was failing me. We had a great laugh later and have become friends. In fact, I am friends with his son now too!!

Got busy with some office work and completely forgot about the lady till the boarding was completed and we had to shut down our laptops. Looked at her again. Still not sanguine.

Then an idea flashed across my mind. I texted her. You can follow the text message in the picture.

Turns out it was indeed Vicki Thomas. She was going home from Chicago and was connecting thru Atlanta. I was headed home too from our Chicago office!

Of course we had a great laugh. Took a selfie (which I am terrible at) after getting down.

Meeting Kiran invariably means I need to sharpen my brains. The topics of discussions are usually fairly deep and requires a lot of thinking. This time, the talk was about bias and the importance of being able to listen to the other side of the story. One thing we marveled about was – be it politics or religion or Covid vaccinations for that matter – how we quickly divide folks into one side or the other. But in reality, most people lie in a vast grey zone in that spectrum.

Great discussions!!

For most people, it is usually I who visits them in their town. That is because I am on the road a lot. However, I think Pavan has met me more number of times in my town than the other way round. She is a road warrior too.

Got to see her again in Atlanta during her business visit this week. Coincidentally, in exactly the same hotel as I had met her four years back!!

It was good catching up about our old i2 friends and her family! One of these days, hopefully, she will make it to our house too!