Instead of coming to Bangalore late evening to catch my flight to US in the early hours, I decided to come earlier in the afternoon. Got myself checked into a hotel in Whitefield. Also remembered that Austin used to live in the Whitefield area. I had not seen him since he left i2 in 2004. As luck would have it, Austin had time in the evening to meet, Further, he grabbed another old friend of ours – Nathan – from the good old days of our first start up experience. (Nathan and I actually got to work in two start ups together).

After leaving i2, both of them have had illustrious careers – Austin has done organic farming and then has put in a lot of time with NGOs and Foundations (like The Gates Foundation) for social causes. Nathan has stayed true to the supply chain domain all these years.

It was inevitable that we would talk about our learnings from i2 days. We were together for over three hours talking about what went well and what did not go well from those days. What was very interesting was that our learnings themselves have changed as we have grown up. Talent was a great point of discussion. We always had a very strong – and very commonly held (amongst i2-ers anyways) – view of talent in i2. Today, I realize that our views – at least for the three of us – are far more nuanced.

We further realized that things that we look back and think we should have done differently is far easier to say today. Living at that moment, we had no other data to go by and would therefore probably make the same mistakes all over again. That said, we agreed that making the same mistake twice was probably preventable. And we believe we did make same mistakes twice.

We remembered fondly some of the really outstanding colleagues that we had a chance to work with. And some who, unfortunately, are with us no more.

It was like good old times. I used to be somewhat in awe and somewhat a little scared by the sheer amount of IQ power I was surrounded by. As one of the friends we remembered had said then – “In i2, being considered average is an accomplishment”. Like those India Palace dinner meetings. I was there last evening to bring down the average IQ level at our table.

The trip started with running into an Atlanta Bengali friend (Sonia) in the airport, if you remember.

Looks like I am going to finish the trip the same way. Walked into the flight in Doha and just as I was about to settle down, I thought I heard a voice behind me that I thought I knew!!

Glad that Jaba had noticed me. Apparently I had walked past them in the plane without noticing her or her husband Swapan!!!

Neither Dipti nor I could recollect how we got reconnected. She was my junior in IIM-A days and after about 1992, we had lost touch. At some point of time – we got reconnected. I had told her that I would meet her in Bombay when I visit the city. There were some interesting aspects of her life that I wanted to get to know more of.

As we settled down in the coffee bar of the Courtyard in Bombay, I was the first to start – “So, I remember that you joined the same company as I was in back in 1992 but we were in different projects and locations and never met much. Other than the one training class I had taken, I believe. I left for the US the next year. What happened to you after that?”

Over a couple of hours and a couple of cups of coffee, I got to hear about her life story. The part that was most intriguing to me is that she has an adopted child. As you probably know, I think the world of people who adopt kids. Experience in volunteering at a center for physically abused kids has taught me that there are more kids than caring parents in this world.

What I did not know was that Dipti had adopted a child with learning disabilities. I was fascinated by her taking me thru how she had to retrain herself completely to be able to educate her child. It was amazing hearing her talk about specific incidents on how she had to think of communications in a different way. For all the education we had, we were never trained to deal with these kind of situations.

If that was not enough – and she is a single mom raising the child – she also is a successful entrepreneur. She founded a company and has been building the business rather successfully.

For all that responsibilities and efforts, she betrayed no sense of stress. In fact, I was a little taken aback by how calmly she has taken her challenges and worked thru them. Did I mention, she helped raise her sister’s daughter too?

I was so excited hearing about Dipti’s great strides in life that it was only after seeing her off, I realized suddenly that I had completely forgotten to take a picture of us. A few frantic calls later, she graciously agreed to turn around in that crazy Bombay traffic and came back to the hotel I was staying in.

Thank you Dipti for spending the time that evening with me and then coming back so I could keep a picture for future.

Hope to run into you again!

Last evening, I was with my brother’s family in the lounge of the Westin hotel in Kolkata. There weren’t too many guests and the staff there were pampering us with all sorts of ill-deserved attention. Pinaki and Sumana went out of their way to make us feel comfortable. Chef Rubai kept special food coming our way the whole evening.

There was another sharply dressed gentleman who kept checking in on us to make sure we were comfortable. In fact, he was the one who had ushered us in. Found out Rishav was his name.

As is my wont, I started chatting with him. Eventually found out that he had been to Dallas when he was 13 years old. A little more digging and I found out that he had gone to visit his uncle (mom’s brother). That uncle, it turns out, is our very good friend – Sunny!!

Could not believe my luck that I would walk into a hotel in Kolkata for the very first time in my life and the person who would usher us in to the lounge would be our Dallas friend’s “bhagney” (nephew). Rishav and I have some common interests in drinks, as it turns out. I am more of a mixologist (on the cocktail side) and Rishav is more of an oenophile – on his way to become a renowned sommelier some day!