Having wrapped up all the intersection points in Bengal for this time, my brother and I were cruising down Kalyani Expressway when I came to a familiar intersection. For a person who likes to plan and organize everything, I started furtively glancing at he watch … “Could I? Should I?”. I had twenty minutes…tops thirty, I reckoned.

Decide to give it a shot. “In a minute, you will see a tall red building called Godhuli to our right. We are going to stop there for a few minutes”, I told my brother. That is how I landed up in the old age home that my friend’s father stays in.

I have visited him couple of times before and I had made a lot of friends with very elderly people who would flock around me to hear stories about the USA. Many of them were in old age homes because of the precise reason that their sons and daughters all live in the USA. Some would even excitedly tell me about their visit to America. Stopped by for a few minutes to say Hi to them.

Mr. Lodh looked healthy physically but clearly his mental faculties including memory is not getting any sharper. He did remember that I had visited him before but beyond that he could not recollect much.

Spent about twenty minutes with him enquiring about how he was doing and talking about his son (my friend) and his grand kids in Atlanta as he soaked in the winter sun sitting outside.

I told him eventually that I had a flight to catch. “Thik aachhey. Jao ekhon. Abaar eso kintu. Erokom katha boltey paarley bhalo laagey”. (Ok. Go now. But come back again. It feels good to talk like this).

The last few words kept ringing in my ears as I got back into the car. Why was I even debating whether to stop for a few minutes or not? What was I thinking? There was never a question to begin with…. If I can’t give my time to elderly people like him, I need to recheck my priorities on how I spend time…

Our scheduled time to leave for the airport was 10:30 am. I changed my plans this morning to start half an hour early! I had tried to call a friend of mine from 11th and 12th grade last night. I thought he lived in Kalyani. But I never got a chance to talk to him (phones were off). This morning I found out why. He called me up from Delhi to let me know that he is out of town with his wife. I had almost put the phone down promising to meet next time when, out of a hunch, I asked him “Do your parents live in Kalyani?”. He said “Yes”. “Okay, I will swing by to say Hi to them”.

And that is why we started half an hour early and very soon my brother pulled up in front of Debasis’s house. Both of us went in and introduced ourselves. Debasis had already called up his parents and let them know. Which was a blessing because his elderly parents did not start howling that burglars were invading their house. On the other hand, that gave enough time to his mom to make some food and she kept insisting that we have something before we left.

We explained that I have a flight to catch and then caught up about Debasis and my Narendrapur days. He was in the same dorm as I. And apparently, his parents visited him every weekend. So, my guess is that I have seen his parents a few times but I certainly could not recollect.

Now what I did not tell you is that when we sat down in their living room, there was another set of elderly parents in the room. We assumed they were visiting Debasis’s parents and that we had interrupted them. I figured we would just be there for half an hour and leave without hopefully interrupting them too much.

In any case, I did turn around and started talking to the other gentleman..
“Aapni-o Kalyani-tey thhaken?” (You live in Kalyani too?)
“Hnah” (Yes)
And then he asked “Aapni kothay thhaken?” (Where do you live?)
“USA”.
He got a little excited… His wife made the next statement “Aamader chhele-o to USA te thhakey” (Seems like their son is also in the USA).
“Tai? Kothay?”, I asked trying to find out where .
“Atlanta”, she said.

Now it got interesting….
“Ki Naam?” I wanted to find his name.
“Partha. Partha Das”, she said.
Frankly, I could not say that I knew a Partha Das in Atlanta. So, I tried other ways – like where exactly he lived (they did not know), where he worked (Cognizant), but nothing led me to make any connection.

So, finally, I asked “What is his wife’s name?”
“Sreyashi”.

I thought there might be a connection! One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi… Yes! I think I go it!

“Tell me something”, I asked. Did Sreyashi’s mom visit them in Atlanta in the last twelve months?
“Indeed”, they said.
“Aha”

To tie the other loose end of the string of this story, I have to take you back quite a few months. I was getting ready to leave for India when I got a call from our dear friend Sudakshina in Atlanta enquiring if I could bring some medicine from India. I was totally okay as long as it was not overly bulky. I also wanted to know if everything was okay.

She explained that the medicine was for one Sreyashi whose mom was visiting them and she needed that medication. And then Sudakshina told me that she will have Sreyashi call me up. I was not sure I wanted somebody I did not know feel indebted to me for a small help. We did not know each other at all. So, I requested Sudakshina not to bother telling Sreyashi how the medicine came but to assure her that the medicine will arrive. I had duly handed over the medicine to Sudakshina after I went back to Atlanta.

And that was that!

Till today!!!

Of course, now that I have met their parents (in laws), I have to become friends with Partha and Sreyashi when I go back. Not to mention that when I am back in Kalyani again, I have to go back to Debasis’s house to spend more time with his parents. And hopefully this time he and Joyoti will be there too!!

The lasting memory I have of Happy Ghosh is way back in 1985, when he was pacing up and down the corridors of Gouranga Bhavan – the dorm that we were in, in our residential school with a book in his hand (organic chemistry, no doubt) cramming for the exams. You know how I remember that? Because I was doing the same and I was pacing along a cross corridor. Both of us learnt an important lesson that day – long before you were warned about texting and driving, there should have been a similar warning of potential crashing if you read and walk at the same time – especially with the book held up to your nose steeped in fear of the looming exams. To this day, I have not yet figured out why some of us used to pace in the corridors while cramming. It is not like we were made to wear Fitbits or anything like that in that strict disciplined school 🙂

The other memory I have of Happy is his hair. Unlike pacing up and down, which of course, both of us did, the topic of hair is something on which we totally differed. I could not care less about my hair. If I could comb it once a day, I would have been ahead of my game. For the curious – yes, I used to have a headful of very thick hair at one point of time. I recognize it is difficult to visualize now. In my defense, I don’t walk up and down the corridor cramming with a book in my hand either 🙂 Happy, on the other hand, used to take exquisite care of his hair. He kept it long enough that he could curl it at the end just so – following the style of a famous movie star in India – but all the while not crossing the boundaries of what our school rules would allow.

Around 1987, I had a short meeting with Happy again in his engineering college when I ran into him while visiting another junior student. Who, as it turns out, eventually became my brother in law (Sharmila’s brother). Well, there is no mystery in those turn of events. I know exactly what I did 🙂

And then jump forward 30 years. A few days back while having a great time with my parents at the resort outside Kolkata basking in the sun by the pool, his wife – Paramita – who had recognized me – had walked up to me and introduced herself. I promised her that I will come and visit the whole family during this trip.

Evening before last, m dinner with brother’s family at the ITC restaurant (this part of my visits – having dinner with my nephews at a city restaurant of their choice is a near-religion for me) went very late. It was quarter to eleven at night when we were done. But Happy insisted that I come and spend some time with him. Justifiably, I was a little worried.

I really had nothing to worry about. Moment I walked in, we hit it off immediately. We, of course, talked a lot about our school and our progress in life in the interim. By the way, his is the first house I have seen so far in India with a very well designed bar stocked up nicely with a quite a stack of bottles of red wine. If you find me more often at his house, you know which corner to find me!

I spent some more time with his shy daughter – Amrita. And closed the loop with his wife Paramita about the mutual friends we seemed to have on FB that I found out later that day after I met her.

As great a get together as that was, I paid one price for showing up late… Happy’s mom had gone off to sleep. I missed meeting her this trip. Hopefully, we will fix that problem in a later trip.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had settled down at the ITC bar with my brother for an hour of gap time last evening. I walked in and asked if Ranjan and Mathew still worked there. I was told that they indeed were still in the hotel but had moved to other departments away from the bar. But they would call them up to come and visit me.

I started chatting with my brother and I believe I got distracted by a message or a call on my phone. I was looking at my phone when I felt that somebody had walked in right behind me. I was expecting it to be Ranjan but I did not lift my head up just in case it was actually some other customer simply going around me to the door.

But there was the hand on my shoulder and I looked up. It was not Ranjan or Mathew though. But it was somebody I knew. It was somebody I had worked with twenty years back in Dallas. He is not even a Bengali. Therefore, for the life of me I could not understand what was he doing in Kolkata.

“Rajasekhar Mallipeddi? What are you doing here?”

Turns out this was his first time … in fact first day in Kolkata. He was there on work. Apparently, when he landed in Kolkata airport, he even imagined running into me – since he was aware from my FB posts that I was in India. But here is the thing – I am usually never in Kolkata. I am in Kalyani or Durgapur. There is a bridge on the river Ganges that has broken down which has made any trip between Kalyani and Durgapur more onerous since I have to go thru Kolkata now – adding a couple of hours to the trip easily. Instead, I had decided to stop over in Kolkata for the night.

And as I said, this was his first in Kolkata in his whole life. Fancy meeting somebody I had worked with two decades back and who still lives in Dallas – a city I left a decade back – in a bar in Kolkata – half a world away!! Even he admitted – “Now, I believe that these kind of things do actually happen to you” 🙂

The three of us had a good time for half an hour generally catching up on our life and family and my brother giving some pointers on restaurants to try in Kolkata since Rajasekhar is a big foodie!!

Last evening, after meeting Mrs. Bose, my brother and I had about an hour in our hand before we were going to join his family for dinner. We went to the bar at ITC hotel to have a couple of glasses of wine and have some one on one brother time.

And of course, meet a couple of old friends that I had met at the bar last time I was there – probably a couple of years back. I had kept in touch with both Ranjan and Matthew ever since. We missed Anzee though.

It is always exhilarating to me to come back and catch up with folks who were complete strangers and then became friends just because our paths crossed coincidentally. Of course, that and my much-maigned-by-daughters habit of making friends with as many strangers as I can!!