Let me see if I can recreate all the ways we are different… In this picture you see…

Two are born Bengalis and one is not…
Two have married Bengalis and one has not…
(for that matter), Two who are married and one is not…
Two have lived in Chennai and one who has not…
Two live in America and one does not…
Two are from Corporate and one is not…
Two studied Economics for graduation and one who did not
Two who are bereft of hair on their head and one who is not…
Two who are from the same dorm in their MBA school and one who was not…

… I can keep going like this…

Not sure what strings thru the three other than having studied MBA together and being in Kolkata fortuitously together today at the same time.

The discussions were as lively as I would have expected in my MBA days. I saw Prakash (man, can I just say “Flojo”? – I struggle to even remember him as “Prakash”) after nearly 28 years. I saw Abhijit (again, “Goofy” is what I remember him as) a few years after a chance meeting at a bar a couple of years back.

Some of our discussions were a little mundane e.g. “How many of our batchmates that went around with other batchmates eventually tied the knot?” (the answer is “1” out of “way too many”). But some were a little more philosophical – “What have we learnt after leaving MBA school?”

There were some personal learnings for me in the discussions. Abihijit’s take on how he has learnt what he is good at and what he is not is something I am going to ponder over for some more time. But Prakash’s point on “it is fun to see the world from the others’ point of view” (he is in Advertising, by the way) is something I could relate to immediately.

Personally, I am still confused what the MBA classes, per se, taught me. What I have no doubt on is what I have learnt from the folks that I went to MBA classes with. Today’s lunch was a great reminder of that.

Abhijit, we live literally three hours of drive apart. Let’s not make Kolkata the only place we meet.
Prakash, for crying out loud, your sister AND your sister in law is in the US. Let’s make that maiden voyage there. I will come out and see you there. You are absolutely worth it!

Having said adieu to my parents this morning, I entered Kolkata an hour later. First stop was to visit Mrs. Mukherjee. You might remember this nonagenarian lady who had struck me as an incredibly independent minded, strong willed person in the past. One of my trips in the past to check on her, she was filling up Form 15-H (some Indian bank related stuff) by herself and refused to take help. She had a walker but never bothered using it.

“Bent, may be. But never broken”, is how I had described her.

Recently though, she had been felled by more physical complications and a terrible sodium deficiency issue that threatened to defy my description of her. She was starting to lose her will and independence.

As an aside, I am a little familiar with the sodium deficiency thing. We almost lost my dad to it in March 2005. As a personal observation (and this is my personal opinion only), most people in India are taking way too much medicines. Suffering, it would appear has taken the foreground to Pain. The willingness to prescribe medicines as well as the patients’ willingness to believe that chemicals solve all sufferings has reached a crescendo. (Again, this is entirely my personal observation).

The one downside of taking in all sorts of medications is that those medicines – being chemicals – often react with each other. In US, we are used to doctors being a lot more strict about knowing what all medications we take beforehand to try to avoid precisely this kind of reactions. Precipitous sodium deficiency is almost always a reaction of medicines a person is taking. (you can trace this back to new medicines – sometimes same medicines but different companies).

The good news is that this is treatable if action is taken promptly. And I saw this morning precisely that good news emerging. Mrs. Mukherjee is fighting back. She can hold up her energy till about mid morning. She gets bed ridden after that. And also loses her mental strength. I was afraid that I would just see her sleeping in the bed and after spending half an hour sitting next to her, I would leave.

I was not expecting to see her at the door in her wheel chair and when I asked her if she recognized me, she would say that she did not remember my name but I was Tabun’s (Amitesh’s) friend.

Had some precious moments with her.

I also want to give a shout to her son and her daughter in law. Having seen – up, close and personal what primary care giving is all about (both at the hospices and at home with my father), I have to doff my hat to Animesh-da and Smriti-boudi for the incredible effort. This being a lady patient, I have to believe Smriti-boudi is taking care of a lot of the details that we probably cannot even imagine. May the tribes of women like them – Smriti-boudi, Nilza, Ariel, Lillian – increase!!

Always impressed by every Mukherjee family member – in Kolkata and in Atlanta.