On our way to my birthplace, we stopped at a tea stall for some tea. The first thing my animal loving siblings did was to find out the nearest street dog and fed it cookies bought from the tea stall owner. And then played with it. No wonder they chase me every time I run. I am sure they recognize me as my siblings’ brother and expect cookies…
You guys are aware how I love finding out my old friends, connections, people I knew etc, right? Well, Sharmila is certainly no fan of that. She thinks I overdo it. (Not that I am claiming causality – just pointing out the correlation that if the old connection is of opposite gender, she thinks I am totally crazy 🙂 )
However, her dad – my father in law – was very impressed how I tracked down Khokon after 37 years. He was also impressed by how Facebook, GPS etc has helped me. Sensing his excitement, I suggested that he should try the same thing.
Yesterday, when I was bringing my family back to Kalyani to my parents’ place, the in-laws (dad and mom) also joined us. My father-in-law mentioned that he has heard that one of his college friends (he passed in 1957) lives in Kalyani.
This was a reasonably easy search – his friend’s son went to college with my brother in law. A couple of phone calls later, we had my father-in-law’s friend’s address.
This morning I walked him to that address and asked him to have a good time and call me if he needed to be picked back. He came back with his friend three hours later – evidently after having a whale of a time. They met after 56 years!!! That beats my 37 year record with Khokon hands down!!
I requested a picture of them that I could put on Facebook. They gladly obliged.
I asked Sharmila what she thought about all this. I got some cold water thrown on my face 🙁
Whatever, dudette, your dad thinks I am cool!!!
The Sunday morning Bengali running group was on vacation. However, everybody ran at 8 am on Sunday in a virtual Chalupa run. The first five pictures are from a few members running on the beaches of Florida, the next two are Sudakshina and Manas doing the authentic run in Atlanta and the last one is myself and my brother running in India. Apparently distance cannot separate our running together spirit….
Remember my old friend that I finally traced down after nearly forty years? http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=4329
Today is the day I get to see him !! My brother and I started early at 7 am so we can zip thru the roads thru different villages before the villagers wake up. Instead, we are crawling with a fog visibility of less than 30 feet 🙁
As I posted in my last blog, my brother and I dragged my mom and my sister to visit my mom’s second youngest sister (“masi”) and her husband (“meso”). The village that they live in – Kakgachhi – is barely 26 miles away. It took us two hours one way to drive there!!! We surely encountered more square feet of potholes than that of road surface!!
But it was great to see my mom so happy to see her sister after decades. And I scored an invaluable prize too!
On a hunch, I asked “meso” if he still had his wedding pictures. Not knowing my ultimate interest, he was overjoyed by my interest in seeing his wedding pictures. This goes back to 1980. He brought in an old dusty album!
Ultimately, my Machiavellian scheme worked out!! After painstakingly going thru pages and pages of photos, I found one that I was hoping to find!!
That is me in the row behind with the glasses on. The girl next to me is my sister. The lady in front of her left hand is my mom! And the lady on her left is the “masi” who we visited today!!!!
That is me in 1980!!!!
