Over a quarter century back, I used to come to this building for work. Made some life long relationships here with folks like Subhasis Ojha, Kang Lu, Jim Mackay, Dave Thompson, Bill Lenson, Mohammad Nejad-Sattary, Marty Flemington and many more that flash thru my mind. Driving on QEW, moment I saw the exit for Guelph Line, it all came back to me! I told Sharmila I was going to take the exit and take a few pictures.

There was a Holiday Inn next door that I used to stay in. It is still there but seems to have been thoroughly renovated. I even showed Sharmila the backdoor I used to take in the office building to cut short those bone chilling cold walks from the hotel to the office every winter!

Till the other day, if you had asked Sharmila or me where our nearest blood relatives are, we would have said – “About 10,000 miles or 24 hours of flight away (not counting layover time)”. In fact most of them are within about 100 miles of Kolkata.

Now that has changed dramatically. DrDebarun, Amrita and Debayan have moved to Toronto. Now the answer is – “Less than 800 miles or about 1 hour 45 minutes of flight time away”!!

Admittedly, you have to jump three generations from Sharmila or Amrita to find common blood. But still it counts.

I had met Amrita way back when she was in 5th grade in 1993 and this is the first time I met Debarun and Debayan!!!

I have been off an airplane for only 20 days (although admittedly came to the airport twice in between) and looks like Delta kiosks have already stopped accepting Skymiles numbers to locate your flight and perhaps even more unnerving … there are parking spots open in the airport!!!

It was strangely reassuring to see the pop up storms come in yet again over Atlanta and all fights get terribly delayed as a result.

Off to the 8th country for me this year and 7th for her (but only the 4th time together)