“Is this what you do full time?”
“No. I usually drive Lyft or Uber during the weekends”
“What do you do during the week?”
“Oh! I take care of a business we have and the kids”

“What would you like to do when you grow up?”, I pressed on with my Lyft driver Osman
“I want to work in startups. Do you know how I can join a startup?”
“Do you know a lot of coding?”
“No, I can learn though. I also know foreign languages – Russian, Turkish… can that help?

“Wait a minute. You know Russian and Turkish? Going by your name, are you Turkish?”
“No”.
“Where are you from?”
“Guess.”
“I do not know – going by the first name – some place in the middle east?”

“I am from Azerbaijan!”
“AZERBAIJAN?” I said so loudly that he turned back while driving to check what just happened.
“Yes”
“Well, I think you are not going to believe me. But you are only the second person I have ever met from Azerbaijan. And the first one was just a couple of weeks back!”
“Really? In Atlanta? There are only four Azerbaijani families in Atlanta.”
“No, in Providence, Rhode Island. I was there with my daughter. We went to a restaurant by the river. And the lady who ushered us in said she was from Azerbaijan. I remember her name was Shams.”
Then after checking my phone, I went on… “Shams Aliyeva is the full name”
“Yes. That is an Azerbaijani name.”

I told him how I learnt a lot about the country from her. Before that, I had heard about the country for the first time in my third grade while reading Tintin (The Crab with the Golden Claws) back in 1975. And that while I have never been to Azerbaijan, I had once flown over it while going from Istanbul to Bishkek.

“What were you doing in Bishkek?”
“Well, my friend Roger and I were on an adventure trip to Mongolia”
“You should now visit my country.”
“I will absolutely do so. In fact, that is what I was telling Shams the other day too!”
“You will love Baku, the Caspian Sea, the beaches and the mountains!”
“Well, I met two of you in a matter of weeks. That is a sign to me already!”

“But do not go to Armenia and then to my country. We have a difficult relationship.”
“I know. Like India and Pakistan.”
“Exactly”, he said while nodding his head.

By this time I had to get off at my motorbike shop where it had gone for servicing. Before getting off, Osman and I took a picture and agreed to grab a coffee in Cumming, GA sometime!!

Roger, if you are reading this, let’s do a quick trip to Azerbaijan some time. Anybody else cares to join?

It had been a long sixteen hour flight. And my jet lag was starting to kick in. Immigration, Customs and Starbucks later, eventually my Lyft ride showed.

“Gregory”?
“Yes, sir! Rajib?”
“Yep. Do you mind if I sit in the front? I get car sick behind.”
“No problem”

As I settled down in my seat and Gregory (Roso) started navigating thru the evening Atlanta traffic, I was tempted to doze off. Instead, decided to see if a conversation and the Starbucks coffee could keep me awake. I was hoping against hopes that Gregory would be up for a conversation.

“So, what do you do outside of Lyft rides?”
“Music”.
That was interesting, I thought.
“What kind of music? Do you play music? Sing?”
“No, I produce music”.
“Produce music?”

Frankly, I had no idea what music production meant. What I learnt fascinated me. Gregory composes his own music and records them. Then he leases them or sells them outright.

Turns out he comes up with his own tunes and rhythms and then composes them with the instruments that he has.

“So, how do you sell them?”
“Mostly thru my website and networking”.

I checked out his website – https://www.producedbyvino.com. Fairly impressive.

“Why that URL?”, I asked mildly amused by the name.

“I am a big fan of basketball. And Kobe”. Looks like Gregory grew up with Kobe as his idol. The one thing he learnt from him, he said, is the value of practice. I understand, Kobe practiced for long hours. I do not know much about basketball. But Gregory informed me that Kobe had a nickname Vino because he got better with age unlike most other players. And that explained the website name. Gregory fashions himself after his idol.

“How about your personal life? Where are you from?”
“My mom is originally from Dominican Republic. I was born in Connecticut and spent early childhood there. Moved here with my mom eleven years back”
“And your dad?”
“He is in Connecticut”
“So, they are separated”
“Yes. My dad remarried and I have a step sister”
“And your mother?”
“She never married again. It is she and I.”

“Do you see your dad much?”
“Yes. I visit them whenever I can”
“You are close to your dad and step sister?”
“Now, I am. It did not start this way. I was very angry with my dad. I did not like him”
“And then?”
“Well, as I grew older, I realized that this was probably for the best for both of them. Now, I am glad that they are not together.”
“Really?”
“Yes. They are both in better places. And me working thru my anger with my dad has put me in a stronger place.”

“How about your girlfriend?”
“I do not have time for girls now.”
“Oh!”
“I want to stay focused on making money. I want to make a lot of money. I have my youth now. I do not want to lose focus. That is what Kobe would have told me.”
“What will you do with a lot of money?”
“I want to take care of my mom”
“How so?”
“I want to buy her a good house and make sure she is financially very stable.”

“You know, your mom sounds like a wonderful person. Certainly has a wonderful son. I hope to meet her some day.”
“Thank you, sir! If you had come half an hour earlier, you could have met her.”

That surprised me!
“How? Were you giving her a lift?”
“No. She works in the hotel when I am dropping you.”

Wow!! What is the chance of that?
Sharmila and I were going to meet at a Westin for a drink instead of me going home and from there were going to head out to her art show inauguration. It is exactly in that hotel, as liuck would have it, that my Lyft driver’s mom works!!

Sure enough, when I enquired later in the restaurant in Westin, Maria had left a little while ago.

“No worries, Gregory. I go there once in a while. I will remember to meet her and tell her that she has a son who has great head on his young shoulders.”

That is when we pulled up to the Westin. I quickly introduced Sharmila and Gregory to each other and Sharmila took our picture.

If you ever run into Gregory, don’t forget to say Hi and encourage this incredible young gentleman.

“Where are you from, Leo?”
There was no way Leo was going to escape my usual question with which I commence my conversations with every Lyft driver after getting into the car.
“Kazakhstan.”
“Really? You are the first person I know from Kazakhstan. The only thing I know about your country is your capital – Astana”.
“Well, it has a new name now – Nur-Sultan. But how do you know the name of the capital?”

I proceeded to explain to Leo how during Roger’s and my trip to Mongolia, on our way back we got stuck for 13 hours in UlanBator due to a massive sandstorm. The plane to take us to Kyrgyzstan could not reach us till the sandstorm had subsided. One of the gentlemen who also got stuck with us was a mining consultant and he was headed to Astana. He told us about the city.

“When did you last go to your country of origin?”
“Two years back”, Leo replied
“How would you describe your capital?”
“Have you been to Dubai?”
“Yes”, I replied.
“Well think of Dubai at a much smaller scale. And then put it in the middle of Kansas!”
That was a somewhat funny but fairly effective way of creating a picture in my mind.

“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”, I asked Leo who was in his mid-twenties.
“Photographer”, he said.
“Photographer?”
“Yes”

During the rest of the trip Leo told me about how passionate he is about photography. We exchanged a lot of notes on Nikon camera bodies and lenses. He has moved on to Sony now. We also talked about the pros and cons of going mirror-less now as opposed to waiting for a few years.

“When did you know you had a passion for photography?”
“When I had a near death experience”.
Well, that was not what I was expecting.
“Tell me more”.

I learnt that during one of his trips in Kazakhstan, he was traveling in one of the local transport vans. It was an old Russian Gazel. I remember seeing a few of them in Mongolia. Leo was sitting in the front and of course, there were no seat belts and all that. They soon met with a head on collision. Two passengers died instantly, one is paralyzed and one is still recovering. Amazingly, Leo walked away with minor injuries.

However, as he described, his first instinct in those few dazed moments after the accident was to take pictures of the vehicle. That was an instinctive reaction and there was no good reason for it. Much later, when he reflected on the accident and the aftermath, he realized that his inner instinct is to capture moments thru the lens of a camera.

Four days later, he flew back to USA and started his journey in photography.

“What if you cannot build a career in photography?”, I challenged him.
“Well, I am going to keep trying. And if nothing works out, there are so many ways to make money. Perhaps I will go back to school and learn about IT”.

“That is the spirit! This is what I tell my daughters too. They need to do what they are passionate about. Everything else will follow from that. I am sure you will be a world class photographer”.

We had reached my hotel. I got down and he showed me pictures of the mangled van and some of the photos he has taken with his cameras. He loves high speed car racing pictures but some of the near-macro stills (bokeh style) were outstanding.

He took a selfie of us and sent it to me. We became Facebook friends and decided to stay in touch!

My Kazakhstan friend count has jumped by 1 (admittedly from 0)
But my inspiration to follow my passion has increased manifold!