A week ago, when I sent this text message, little did I know that this would be the last text message I would ever send to someone who has been a constant in my life for around two decades. I knew his family was away in India, so he might be flying solo. And would be available. And he was! 

We went to San Ramon for dinner. On the way, we talked about everything. He regaled me with the story of a food adventure to the same place with his small, beautiful family. He had some classic dance music tunes mixed with Indian classics and 80s favorites. I told him that his favorite song, Donna Summers’ I Feel Love, was just named #1 on Rolling Stones’ top 200 dance tracks. 

“Obviously,” he said. And we cracked up. 

Then we got busy eating — the Indo-Chinese food was spicy. I said so.

“You are not really Indian, Om-jee.” And cracked up at his own joke. I joined in.

He was one of the few people I spoke to in Panjabi. As was usually the case, we jumped around topics. We discussed the merits of a new fountain pen paper, the movie called 1983, and networking and cloud technologies. He railed against crypto –even though I argued that skepticism shouldn’t cloud optimism. I didn’t win the argument. I never did — at least when it came to technology. 

We were driving back to San Francisco when his wife called from her home (Read more...)