“Where do you want to go have lunch?”, I asked Larry

“I do not care”

“Pick a cuisine – Chinese, Mexican, Indian…”

“Let’s do Mexican”.

A few swift Google map searches later, I asked – “Mi Cocina works?”

“Sure enough”

So there we were – at the Mi Cocina in the Galleria mall next to the ice rink.

As we sat down at the table, I mentioned to Larry – “You know there used to be a Mi Cocina further up north from here. It burnt down after some time. But before that Sharmila and I used to go there for their mojitos”.

“Why? Did they make great mojitos?”

“Well, they put a peeled sugarcane stick as a garnish. Never ever have I seen that before or after. I loved that sugarcane stick. It reminded me of India – where we used to chew sugarcane sticks at home”

A few minutes later, when Bobby came to take our order, I told him the story again and asked “Do you still put sugarcane sticks in your mojitos?”

He cryptically replied – “I do not know. Let’s find out!”

And we found out!!

I sure got my sugarcane stick in my mojito!!!

In anticipation of my visit to Dallas, Larry had made this gift for me. It has quite a few themes interwoven in it.

First, the blue circle behind – that is my logo (you can see it in my blogsite).

Second, the words “Life is in the dash”. This refers to a poem by Linda Ellis – see here – that Larry and I talk about often.

Third, the Pez dispenser. By now you know that is one of Larry’s passion.

Fourth, the Pez dispenser is actually designed after the character Dash from the movie Incredibles. Larry had to educate me on this bit – since I do not watch movies.

Thank you Larry… your “Incredible” Dash is certainly written in bold and beautiful font…

You might remember that three months back, I had gone to give company to Larry as he visited the largest annual Pezmania festival in Ohio. He is a crazy collector of Pez stuff and that is his passion. Even makes them on his 3D printer.

That time, I had told him that we will do a return favor in September. I would come to Dallas to attend the annual fountain pen show and he can give me company. And that is what we did today.

I am not sure who was more stunned – me seeing all the PEZ dispensers in the Ohio hotel or he seeing all the fountain pens in the Dallas hotel!!

I was fairly tired after all the meetings for the day. But there were two very special friends I still had to meet. Actually, I had not met them before ever. And that would be little Mara and even littler Harry. Turns out it was Harry’s first birthday.

Incredibly enough, just two and a half decades back, their mom – you can see Shruthi in the picture – used to be as young as them and played with me – just like them. In fact, in the same city – Austin!! I distinctly remember Shruthi calling “helicopters” as “helicutters” and refusing to eat any food whatsoever!!

Hank had given me the heads up that Shruthi’s parents (Sharmila’s and my dear friends – Raj and Viji) were in town – as were Shruthi’s brother – Karthik and his girl friend Alice. In somewhat of a coincidence, Natasha and Karthik went to the same elementary school in Coppell and then both of them – along with Alice became alumni of NYU.

If that is not enough – Raj and I have worked together in four of the five jobs I have ever had and lived in three of the four cities I have lived in during my professional life!!

Wonder what more connections I can create with the third generation now….

Our business dinner was at the fine restaurant Ciclo by the river Guadalupe in Four Seasons hotel downtown Austin. I excused myself during the dinner to walk around and take a few pictures.

In the late ’90s and early ’00s, Sharmila and I would often check in here for the weekend with little Natasha to get away from Dallas. I remember how the staff used to be top class. (They still are) They would leave a gift for Natasha on the bed every time we checked in. And as Natasha kept growing, they kept changing the gift to be age-appropriate for her!!!

I also remember their outstanding Sunday brunches!!

The last time we came here was around 2006 when Nikita was about two years old. And our live-in nanny Nancy had joined us too!

Dinner with Don, Bob and Jim – some of the behemoths in our industry. It is always so great for Riverside to do business with ProEd together.

In i2, we had a lot of “Raghu”s. For example, there was a Raghu Ram and there was a Raghuram. We used to refer to the former simply as “Raghu space Ram” in conversations. This one is Jayaraman Raghuraman. (To further confuse matters, his Facebook name is Raghu Raghuraman). We just shortened it to “J Raghu”.

J Raghu and I had spent a lot of time together from getting beaten up by customers (we just could not churn out good code as fast as sales would sell) to having recruitment drives in premier colleges in India.

Raghu is one of the few people I have seen in my career who has taken a lot of risks in life. And invariably has worked hard to eventually make them excellent bets.

Once in a while though, he drops his guard and lowers his standard to come out and spend time with old friends like me 🙂 🙂

In between office meetings and Zoom calls, there was an hour gap to grab lunch. With a person I started working with when I joined Riverside Insights and now has become a personal friend. Julia was very instrumental in the early days of carving out Riverside from the mothership – especially in the area of creating an engaged culture among the workforce. She was and still is wildly popular with the employees.

She eventually left the firm she was working with, moved to Austin and branched out on her own. Had a great time catching up and having fun like the good old days. (Don’t miss out on the silly bunny ears she still tries to pull on me)

Good to see her flourishing so well in her personal and professional journey!