9 October 2020

That is an incredible pencil drawing

The three photos below are that of my first cousin, once removed (at different ages). That is my mom’s brother’s son’s son. You might remember him from some of the stories I wrote about him during my trips to India.

The picture above is a pencil drawing – inspired by those photos – done by another of my first cousin, once removed. This time it is my mom’s brother’s daughter’s daughter. While I am no expert in the arts – it sure takes me a minimum two glasses of wine to appreciate Sharmila’s paintings – three, if it is an abstract – even to the untrained eyes of mine, this seems to be an outstanding piece of art.

I hope she will follow her passion and talent and someday, become a great artist.

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4 October 2020

Engineering batch virtual meet

Saw most of my classmates from IIT-Chennai Computer Science – 85-89 batch – together (albeit virtually) for the first time after 1989. I never had a chance to go for any of the college reunions. Of the twenty odd classmates that showed up today – we missed only a couple here and there and one who we unfortunately lost at too early an age – I have met less than one third of them in my travels. Need to fix that once travel starts back up again.

Thru the call, I learnt about how life has unfolded for all of them. Remarkably, everyone seems to have done so well. One thing I did not realize is how many of them have chosen to stay in the academics area. Unlike me, most of them came to this country after school to pursue higher degrees in Computer Science. Many have proceeded to become professors in renowned colleges like U.VA, Penn State, Carnegie Melon, Georgia Tech and so on.

Of the ones that went the corporate route, what struck me is how most of them went to the big names – I heard Google, Microsoft mentioned many times and then Facebook and Amazon. My guess is these large companies have very different scales of computational issues that attract top talent like my classmates.

And finally there were a couple of entrepreneurs too!

A distinct pattern I noticed is that folks who were into music have kept up with their passion. Did not quite catch if those who were into sports have kept up with the same.

One big difference from my MBA schoolmates (coincidentally, one of the above friends and I went to IIM-Ahmedabad to do MBA right after school) is the geographical dispersion. Most of my IIT friends are in the USA – with a few in India and a couple shuttling between USA and India. Only one is in the UK. Contrast that to my MBA friends – most are in India or South East Asia – especially Singapore and Hong Kong – and other financial hubs like London and Dubai. And only a very small proportion are in the USA.

Good news is that we did not discuss anything about Computer Science – I would have been out of my depths in about a nanosecond!! We talked about our families and personal and professional lives.

I say this with all honesty – it is fairly humbling to realize that I actually went to the same classes as these folks. I know – to a fair degree, what I am good at and I know – to a large degree what I am not good at. Which is why I am still in disbelief that I managed to spend four hours with these luminaries…

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2 October 2020

Different kind of Friday evening music – part 2

Late evening “adda” with Avi at the local cigar bar. In the previous post, I was mentioning how I do not understand anything about Western music. Got a good history lesson of Western music from Avi. I can even now enumerate the top few genres. The discussions continued to Sufi music from the middle east and the different kinds of folks music – especially “palligeeti”, “baul sangeet” and the fishermen’s music from Bengal in India.

The discussions interestingly covered what money as done to music (single source like kings in the olden days and multi source like today’s audience). And how the vagabonds/wanderers – gypsy tribes like Roma in Europe or Kalbeliya in Rajasthan – often have great music since that is the best form of culture they can carry with them. All other – paintings as an example – will add to their luggage when they have to move.

I have never heard the music of the gypsies from Eastern Europe. Will put that in my list. Do you know of any good source?

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2 October 2020

Different kind of Friday evening music – part 1

This was in Featheredge Winery. The wine this time was not bad at all. I remember last time I had gone there the only thing I had liked was the cheese that had wasabi in it. It was a cool day outside and Sharmila and I enjoyed the local singer. Of course, I absolutely know nothing of any Western music – but I liked the way the guy was playing the guitar. Nice, evening to ramp down from the hectic week.

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27 September 2020

That occasional moment of mirth

As listless as his life has become, we have been able to get his pain level down with all sorts of life support around him. That includes dialysis – which means he has to be heaved off to the dialysis center three times a week and then four hours later brought back. There is a fairly large support system of four people my brother has set up for him. That includes domestic help at home to give mom some respite, a couple of able bodied people to lift him and get him in the car and all that…

On his side, he is mostly sleeping and has gone very quiet. Does not talk as much and in those days when there is a 2-day gap between dialysis, he gets very fidgety and restless. But does not complain of any pain. And then, once in a while, when he gets a bout of normalcy, he gets stressed realizing all the support system set up around him. His biggest fear is that all that expenses will dry all our money dry and mom will not be able to buy food. Needless to say, he has no idea how much money he has or how much a kilogram of potato costs for that matter.

My brother is once again at this bedside this weekend. I look forward to that since that means I can see my dad thru Whatsapp video. He clearly looks like a much-stricken patient. The most painful part for me is when he keeps asking me when will I come to see him. Unlike a month back, he has lost his ability to understand the pandemic and that flights are not possible right now.

In the middle of all that, we did see a streak of his old humor though.

At one point, he asked me what was I up to. This was around 10 at night for me.

“Tomakey taaka pathabaar byabastha korchhi”.
(“Oh! I am fixing the system to send you money.”)

He knew immediately that I was making fun of him. You can see him laughing in the bottom left screen shot. After a good laugh, he sobered down for a second and then with that familiar mischievous countenance (see bottom right picture) shot his comeback..

“Byabastha-ta a-byabastha korle ki korey?”.
(“How did you break the system to begin with?”)

Even my brother was laughing so loud that he could not hold up the phone for me any more!!

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