Nikita was in Savannah for some school program and she was not going to be back till the next day. After finishing up my work around 8PM, Sharmila wanted to know what we wanted to do. Of course, the road warrior that I am, I always vote for staying home. And since she is stuck with the daughter’s stuff during the weekdays, she always votes to go out. And like in every tried and tested marriage, during a one-one vote gridlock, the wife wins. I think there is some kind of electoral college system that defines a marriage.

Sooner or later, we found ourselves at a bar that Arup and Sanjib had introduced me to a few weeks back. This was my second time there. I had settled down but for a few seconds – when a familiar voice behind the bar piped up – “Uh! Oh! There is trouble again!!” It was good old Kay!! She was our bartender the previous time. And her comments were squarely directed towards me.

Sharmila had that “What did you do now?” look at me and I let Kay explain as we placed our drinks. It was a slow middle-of-the-week night. So both of us spent a lot of time talking to Kay. Apparently, the previous time when I was there, I had way too many of my cheesy jokes at her expense! In any case, I was glad it was a slow night since both Sharmila and I got to know her life story and her aspirations in life.

An hour and a half later, it was time to start wrapping up. But, of course, it was also time to take a picture and document in my blog to remember these moments much later in life. As Kay came over to our side, a gentleman who was sitting on the other end all this time and reading something saw us and volunteered to take the picture for us.

Which he proceeded to take. And that is where things could have ended. Not when I am around though. I, of course, had to get to know the gentleman – Rich was his name – a little more. Found out quickly that he was the head of after sales parts and services for Bentley. Since he is a road warrior himself, the bonding was very quick. We talked a lot about life on the road and all that. But most of the time was spent in myself learning about Bentleys.

I was aware of the British roots of the company and the current ownership by Volkswagen but what I was not aware of is how many of these high end and very premium priced cars are sold every year. Apparently only 12,500 or so. About 3,000 of them in US. To put that in perspective, somewhere between 15 to 18 million vehicles are sold in US in a year. I was able to guess the regions of the world that buys most of the Bentleys fairly accurately, though. Learnt a lot from Rich on how to maintain customer identity and customer satisfaction for such very niche markets.

And one more half an hour rolled thru just like that while talking to Rich!! We exchanged our business cards and then of course, came the mandatory picture!! And the hope that we will run into each other on the road again sometime!!

It was going to be a late dinner for me but it was worth the wait. Pavan was going to be in town for business and the only time I had to meet her was that evening after 8. Eventually, she showed up after ploughing thru Atlanta traffic in the rains – and not a moment too soon! I was so hungry that I had already made a clean plate of chicken wings and some Old Fashioned.

We got to see each other after a long time. I think I had seen her once in California. But most of our memories are from the startup that we had worked over 20 years back (she was a consultant, I was an employee). Caught up with each other about our old friends, some of the Nusrat songs we used to listen to in those days and all the drama we used to have in office! And we talked about our old friend Al Blake a lot – not sure why – but I hope Al you are reading this. We also talked about the bar a few of us from our “SDG” team (that was the name of our team) used to visit after work late nights. I still remember that in those days, I would only drink Kendall Jackson’s Chardonnay in that bar called Humperdinks. (The bar, much later, I found out had burnt down and was replaced with something else).

We went next door from the hotel she was staying in to a restaurant called Bricktops to have dinner. We decided to sit at the bar and finish off dinner in an informal setting. At some point she went to take a bio-break. And I started chatting with the gentleman behind the bar. Come to find out that Tony Moody was his name. By the time Pavan was back, I had already learnt the history of Tony’s life; that he was a single dad and his 23 year old son is abroad and would soon be posted in Alaska. Even after Pavan came back, I continued chatting with him. And guess what? Found out that he used to work at the Four Seasons right behind where Sharmila and I used to live during the period when I worked with Pavan. Even crazier coincidence – his favorite spot to go for a drink with his friends was – Humperdinks!! We checked the years and turns out all three of us used to go to the same bar during the same time period!! For all you know that was not the first time we saw each other.

And I thought I was done for the evening. Came back to the hotel to drop Pavan and head back home. Pavan was actually meeting up somebody else after our dinner. She insisted that I said Hi to her friend before leaving. I thought it was going to be a quick introduction and off I would go. Nothing like that. I, of course, have to find some connection points with any new person I meet. Once I got to know a little about Jaideep Majumdar’s background – I asked “So, you know Ashok and Crissy Vasan?”. Sure enough, they were classmates!! Ashok and I were colleagues from the past and I remember visiting him and Crissy in their Singapore house around 2003 or so. And there was something else I knew about Ashok – India’s film superstar Shah Rukh Khan was his classmate. “So, you were Shah Rukh Khan’s classmate too?”. It took Jaideep a few seconds to figure out how I knew about it. As if that was not enough, we found out more connections at two other companies!!

That night, very late, I came back just trying to put the whole thing together. That was a lot of coincidences for one evening!!!