Amitesh, Samaresh and I braved the cold of Atlanta – minus 6 F with the wind chill to put in a run like we had started doing nine winters back. (We have not run together for over a year now)
Last night we decided to run on the coldest day to relive those memories. We chose to start from the same Starbucks we used to run from those days. And followed it up with a good chat and hot coffee like the good old days.
Nathan and I first worked together in Dallas. Then he moved to India. Subsequently, he came back to the USA – in Atlanta. We started working together again – but in a different company. And then finally, I moved to Atlanta.
This was right after I moved to Atlanta when his daughter (Arunima) and mine two had a great day in the pool!
P.S. Eventually, Nathan moved back to India again
It is 4 in the morning now. Stepped out on the balcony to see what minus 12 degree F with wind chill (that would be minus 24 degree C) feels like.
IT IS BONE CHILLING!
Certainly feeling bad for the postal workers I can see (from inside the house now) busy unloading mail out in the open from the mail truck that just pulled in!
This is the lowest point we are going to hit with this Bomb Cyclone. We will start warming up from now on.
It was a cold day. Pop’s Coffee Shop was the perfect place to grab a hot cappuccino and catch up with Arup and Sheuly. Arup and I have not run together in a long time. Our miles have come down a lot and most of them are solo runs. We had a lot of ground to cover today given we are going thru roughly the same phases of life with two daughters, both having changed houses recently and both having not played the tabla for some time!!
Airports are a veritable mix of emotions. If you go to the west end of Atlanta airport, you are going to see a lot of emotional good byes, last hugs and tears. If you go to the south side, you can actually feel the anticipation of the crowd waiting for their loved ones to show up. And the excitement, hugs and tears – happy tears – when they actually unite with them.
I was at the airport this evening to pick up Nikita coming from Washington DC. As I was pacing up and down, I saw this young kid with another lady and an even littler kid also waiting there. The kid had a sign in his hand. I was walking past him and had in fact, gone a good couple of yards past him when I had to do a double take.
“Wait! Is that what I saw?”, I asked myself.
I paced back. Read the whole sign again and laughed out aloud.
I had to make friends with the kid.
I asked the lady “Did he do this himself?”
“Yes. We can’t wait to see the look on his mom’s face!”
I turned to the young kid and asked “Who made this?”
“Me”
“Was this your idea?”
“Sort of”
“What do you mean, sort of”
“Well, I had seen something like this in a video once”
“Ah! That is very funny. I want you to know that you made me laugh very loud today!”
Unfortunately, an office call came in and I had to step towards a quiet area. When I came back, they were gone.
I would have LOVED to see the look on his pranked mom’s face.
One of the fond memories I have of my mom goes this way…
Now, as a background, you might want to know that I was sent away to residential school at the age of 16. Thru high school and then college and subsequently while working, I used to come back home fairly often. At least, more often than most of my friends.
The first two hours of the routine in every such trip never wavered. Invariably, I would go to the kitchen where mom would be busy cooking and stand there at the door and chat with her. It would be a fairly one sided conversation. I would basically dump on her in a couple of hours everything that had happened to me since I met her last.
And after that, I would completely vanish. For the next couple of days, I would be out on my dad’s Vijay Deluxe mostly spending time with my friends or out there on the field playing with my brother.
All that changed during those years was that she moved from a coal fired oven (I still remember she making the hot rotis on it) to a LPG gas burner. Instead of sitting down to cook, she moved to standing and cooking. But other than that, my side of the routine never changed.
All that changed of course. when cell phones came. I talked to her every single day. Therefore, during my quarterly visits, there was not much “catch up” to do.
Those memories of a young boy standing at the kitchen door having a monologue with his mother is what flashed by my mind first thing this morning.
Two years later, I sometimes still instinctively reach for the phone to call her in the morning.
Today was the day, two years back, she suddenly collapsed and unexpectedly died.
These kind of fond memories are what she left.
