The four of us were waiting to board the plane when Sharmila asked me to look behind me. I saw a lady that distinctly looked like somebody I knew from the past but I was not sure since she had her sunglasses on.

I looked at her for a few seconds to see if she would notice me while being on the call that she was on. Again, because of the sun glasses, I was not sure whether she saw us and knew nothing of us or it was indeed Vanessa but she had not seen us yet.

I took a few more attempts and even called out “Vanessa” couple of times.
Without any luck.

Eventually, I concluded that it was somebody else and turned towards the boarding gate waiting our turn.
Till somebody from behind called out “Rajib?”

Well, what do you know? It was indeed my old friend from Canada – Vanessa. I met her over a decade back in Toronto but she lives in south Florida now. In fact, during a previous annual trip to Fort Lauderdale, we, as a family, had met her and her family. Her daughter Gigi was a small baby then.

Vanessa is also a fan of Sharmila’s paintings and I believe a couple of her paintings are on the walls of her house!!

The trip down the road has barely started and we already met a fellow traveler with who, many moons back, we had walked a few steps together …

Sharmila and I were taking stroll in the beach when we saw something in the horizon. At the bottom of the dark clouds that had started looming in the horizon, suddenly a funnel like structure started forming and came down to touch the water. We could see visibly- although it was very very far – the mist of water in an otherwise straight edge of the water in the horizon.

We saw one, then another and then a third one. A few minutes later, they slowly disappeared, starting to recede from the ground level till they vanished in the dark clouds.

I guess that will go down as our first sighting of tornadoes in our life!!!

Unfortunately, I did not have my DSLR camera with me – so had to make do with my iPhone…

That is a Trident submarine prowling the waters off Fort Lauderdale. (Of course, miles away from the shore). These can carry two dozen submarine launched ballistic missiles and hundreds of cruise missiles. Is generally considered as an effective war deterrent in the world…

I can’t believe I forgot to get my camera this trip…

Niki was getting bored in South Beach. And she has been under the weather a little. So, Sharmila and I grabbed a drink and we sat down for Niki and I to play some trivia.

I started with “Capitals of North American countries” thinking I was good with the Central American countries.

She creamed me with the Caribbean countries 🙁 It was not even close…

The most beautiful things in life are almost always free…

Resplendent reflections off the ocean from light rays which are themselves getting reflected off the clouds on the eastern sky. This being late evening, the sun, of course, is in the west.

It was a bright and sunny day. People were milling around in the ocean merrily. Suddenly, it became cloudy and then it began to rain. No lightning, no thunder, mind you – just rains.

Here’s the interesting part… To a person, everybody got out of the ocean and took shelter under various shades in the boardwalk. Some even sat down next to me to have a drink. And once the rains stopped, everybody went back to the ocean.

I have seen this behavior in other beaches too before…

Which raises a legitimate question in my mind.

WHY??? What were they afraid of?

Getting wet???

Roughly translated… “Seas the Day” (sorry for the terrible pun 🙂 )

Last evening, not having anything better to do, Sharmila and I went for a walk on the boardwalk by the beach. After a bit, we found some rocking chairs lined up along the walk under a street lamp and decided to settle down in two of them. With our plastic coffee cups. Which were filled up with red wine 🙂

I had some powerful “living in the NOW” moments. First, the picture does not do full justice to the ambience. What you do not see is the roaring noise of the waves in the dark in the front. Or the strong sea breeze leaving a very pleasant feeling as it kissed the skin.

It being dark, nothing of the mighty ocean could be seen. Except for the dotted lights of a ship here and a plane there against the large black canvas of a moonless night. What could be seen is a lot of people walking on the boardwalk under the streetlights. It has been a long long time since I had sat down and relaxed and just watched people. You know just watch them as they come and go.

There were old people shuffling along, there were families strolling with the adults having some meaningful discussions and the kids just frolicking along, the young kids in whatever would be considered today’s fashionable beach clothes going in a group, the clearly well to do lady in high heels and the seemingly homeless person with all his belongings in a bike he was pulling along…

I had completely forgotten “people watching”. Just sitting there. Watching them go from left to right and some more from right to left. In a completely non-judgmental way. You know – like they say being “in the flow”.

And then the mind wavered. And speeded to the past. Not sure whether it was the breeze on the skin or the dim streetlight, the mind time traveled in a jiffy to the summer nights in Durgapur when I was barely a kindergartener or possibly in first grade. My dad had an “easy chair” (a cross between a foldable hammock and a lounge chair) and in those sultry evenings, he used to sit down outside in the light breeze. I would join him and sit in a small chair. Pulling up the chair closer to him, I would incessantly ask him questions about those blue twinkling stuff in an otherwise dark sky. And watch anybody who went by the sole streetlight that would be lit up half a block away…

Keeping up with the speed of life, they say is a big challenge.

I find slowing down far more challenging.

… mighty waves of the ocean.

She might have creamed me in Caribbean country capitals. But, when it comes to volleyball… I can put up a spirited fight.

Well, I lost. But that is a matter of detail 🙂

This is where our US journey had started. Nearly a quarter century ago, after getting married in a court of law in India, we had headed out to the US. And this was the airport that we finally had stopped our journey in. After thirty hours of flight or so, I was completely dazed and thoroughly ill equipped to understand anything foreign (e.g. I had entered a “Restroom” at the airport thinking that is where I could catch some rest during transit 🙂 Don’t blame me – in India, we called them “Toilets”).

In any case, our entire married life has been in the US and it all started at this airport in this country.

We come back to this airport every single year.

Words like Florida and “icing” are difficult to put together. But there was really a “cool” reason why we chose last week to make our annual visit to Fort Lauderdale. Because that afforded us a chance to meet Madhumolli and her family – Debjit and Damayanti who were visiting the US of A from their abode near London, UK.

Madhumolli and I were batch mates back in Durgapur. We never were in the same school but had common friends and then over time we became friends ourselves. There is an old story here that I insist mentioning – that those days she could not stand me (apparently, she had standards 🙂 ) and to this day, she has fought my storyline tooth and nail 🙂

We are very different people – she is the quiet and strong types and I am the … Well, let’s just admit she is the quiet and strong one. She loved medical sciences. I loved engineering. And sometimes they did not mix too well. There was something I had said once when I went to visit in her hostel in Calcutta Medical College and she simply grabbed hold of me and started dragging me to the next building – which was a morgue!! It was not that difficult to drag me. In fact, I will go ahead and admit that I was (and am) the garrulous and weak type!! 🙂

Madhumolli’s mom, incidentally, was Sharmila’s Bengali teacher in eleventh and twelfth grade.

Over the years, I have kept up with her by phone and personal visits in UK and Kolkata whenever I got a chance. My last meeting on July 11, 2013 was a memorable one. You can see the picture here… (http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=3385). After a day full of meetings, I had quickly changed into my running clothes and then hauled myself to Slough to keep an old promise I had made to her daughter. She had started running the previous year and I showed up to keep the promise of running with her next time I was in London. In all that excitement, we got Debjit – who had just arrived from Brussels – to run with us for some distance – in his office clothes!! And I turned around immediately, came back to the hotel in London and after a shower went out for a customer dinner!

Almost to the day, four years later, we met again in Fort Lauderdale. Most important, we were there with Damayanti the day she turned eighteen!! It was also very interesting to watch Natasha and Nikita exchanges notes with Damayanti on each other’s countries!!!

We met twice during our stay in Fort Lauderdale. Had the most enjoyable time!!!

This picture was taken as the lovely dusk enveloped the beach where we went for a walk…