The Aroras and the Roys had not had their progenies yet. Many a weekend lunch and dinner used to be spent just like that picture. Lot of laughing and a little of eating.

For the record, to explain Gagan’s face, I must admit that I had timed one of my jokes precisely at the time he had taken a mouthful of beer. He could neither spit it out (august company and all that) nor gulp it (for fear of choking while suppressing laughter – or worse, snorting the beer out). Had to laugh with a mouthful of beer.

If we had smart phones a quarter century back, I have no doubt, I would have had similar pictures from those days too!

Thank you Gagan and Bharti for driving all the way to the city, buying me drinks and then dropping me where my college dorm reunion was going on.

This weekend, I attended our IIT-hostel (engineering college dorm) get together in Seattle. I will write about that later.

One of those hostel mates who showed up was Ranga (Sampath Rangarajan, if my memory serves me right). He was one of the few that I used to be close to and I even got to know his parents and siblings. In fact, every year, I look forward to my conversation with his dad on his (dad’s) birthday.

This time, Ranga, always the enterprising guy was not only busy leading a lot of activities – dancing, hiking, antakshari (a type of song competition) – he was our lead photographer too. At least, he was toting his Canon DSLR and taking a lot of pictures and then dutifully uploading them on our group website.

No photographer myself, I still started talking to him about his camera with the modicum of knowledge I could muster from yesteryears. Eventually, I got curious about what all lenses and other paraphernalia he was carrying with him in his sophisticated looking camera bag.

And among various other photography related accoutrements, as evidenced by the picture, I found a bottle of Hajmola (look it up) and one of Tylenol!!

I guess it is a case of being better safe than sorry!