Tuesday, October 28, 2008

It is a small world after all!



It was a nice lovely morning; 29th Sep 08. All of the ES (Enterprize Solutions) folks living in Chicago Area had gathered for a Cruise party at the Wacker Drive in Downtown. Since Navin is part of ES group, we got to participate in the boat ride along with the other ES folks.

All people were very friendly and warm. Never did I know that one of my team mates who was supposed to join my team beginning the following day was also at the location. I knew Anubhav Srivastava was part of ES group, but I was not aware that he was from Chicago too. Or else, I would have tried to look out for the new face amongst the huge crowd of 75 odd people and get introduced ahead of time. Anyways! ES party was a good fun time and we all headed back home.

Next day, at work I was introduced to Anubhav. As we were talking, we realized that we had been to the same cruise a day earlier and must have looked at each other or even got introduced. But neither of us recollected clearly.

At work, Anubhav was sitting next to my desk. Navin happened to call me and we started talking in Konkani over the phone. The language sounded familiar, and Anubhav asked, 'was that marathi?' When I told him I am from Goa and we were speaking Konkani, Anubhav mentioned that he had spent two years during his higher secondary in Goa and knows Konkani too. Interesting! So now, we both knew we had a common language to talk, specially as a code language at work; in case we need in future ;)

What year did you graduate, was our next question. 1997 12th Std! Oh, I finished HSSC the same year. Now, we were both very excited. Meeting someone from your place (even though he lived there for short period), moreover when you are in a foreign land, is a different feeling all togather. Goa is such a small place and I was sure if not me, some of my friends or relatives may know him. Thats what happens in Goa!

He told me that he was living in Bicholim. Bicholim, now that is not very far from Mapusa; the place where I lived in Goa. Ah, north Goa, so now we have more common things to talk about. My immediate question was, which college? There can be some chance he studied in St. Xaviers because Bicholim is not very far from there. But he said, he studied in Bicholim itself. Hmm, Ok I thought. 'But I travelled to Mapusa for XII class tuitions? Ahh! Now, there were fixed set of coaching classes in Mapusa where almost entire XII class in the college used to take.

We started listing down some of our tuition teachers and like we guessed, we had been going to the same coaching classes! My my, I meet someone from Goa and then he happens to be in the same place where I was many many years ago! We even matched the class timings. :) What a coincidence and yeh, such a small world.

Now, what else can be common. We had had enough of shooting questions at each other and getting amazingly sync responses! I gave it another go; I could not resist. Since he was from Bicholim, I was sure he knew one of my friends in Bicholim; one - since he was from same batch as mine and must have gone to same college and secondly - Jayesh I was sure must have been famous in his hometown :P. No particular reasons for his popularity, if you get to meet him, you will just know!

And Ola! How could he not know Jayesh, who apparently was one of his best buddies. He told me Jayesh is currently in the US and he speaks to him very often. Wow, now that was cool, isn't it? Jayesh is also my good friend and we are from a common college group.

And that was one of the last links we shared. I am so glad, I came across another new friend and coincidently we had lots to talk and that too in Konkani.

We both had one thing in our minds that day! This world is a small place and you never know whom you will come across the next minute; most of times you will be happy to know the unknown faces.

3 comments:

Abi said...

:-) sounds pretty exciting !!
so now konkani at work!! whooaa

Navin Rane said...

Pretty Neat. I like the sytle in which you narrate...ery lively..

Unknown said...

Hey Shreya,
It just felt like I was there during your conversation with Anubhav.
Seriously, this world is a small place.