With love from Kolkota

{mosimage} It seems that Bangalore memory is not going to die down so soon. Apart from many gains there is this little treasure in my personal bag from Bangalore. We have so many FOM through emails.But we could hardly come in close cotact with any one. We are so near yet so far away. All India meet is an opportunity for us to know friends so closely. For example- Ashok and Ashok-whom I have not seen before, but they seem to know everything about me.

I was impressed to see how they helped and talked to me as if they knew me from ages. Max India HQ is fortunate to have such staff. There are few such finds at Bangalore. I will mention two of my precious finds.

The first one is Shabbir Udaipurwala .

A very warm hearted, simple and energetic person. He taught me and Neel how to enjoy food in Hyderabad House with Briyani and Masala Paneer. A Glivec resistant, who struggled with CML and reached at the dead end of his life. Shabbir Bhai told us how he fought and won the battle with the help of Amma and Novartis. We walked through Cubbon Park and talked so many things of our family. Settled in Mumbai – a Designer and manufacturer of Packing material.

We have one thing in common. Shabbir Bhai studied Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, and I studied engineering From Jadavpur. A wonderful person, with a beautiful mind.It tells us only when we are in close contact, when we walk together, when we touch each other then only we discover a real friend.

The second precious find is Appa. Those who do not know please make a note. He is our universal Appa , and I don’t know whether Appa married our Amma or Amma married Appa.

First I met him in Delhi. But that was for a short time. Bangalore brought us closer. We stayed in the same Guest house, in the same floor, worked together, ate together and spent lot of time together. An excellent person with a sense of humor. A person of active habit. We went to MTR – the biggest Tiffin room in Bangalore. We had to wait for a long time. The waiting room was bigger than the eating room. Appa told us, ” This looks like a Doctors Clinic. Sick people wating outside with calm and cool look.”

Appa is to be seen in all activity area, helping reception desk, helping people in the signing on the India map, supervising shifting of big bags to upstairs and bringing them back, even keeping an eye when no one to be seen around. I call him Appa and he calls me Dada- what a chemistry, but it worked fine. I have yet to find a smart person like Appa among FOM. With a Blu-Jin and T-shirt he looks cool. A treasure find for me.

Appa keep in touch, mail in the Group so that we know you are fine and close to us. – Rajat da