....the Peaky Blinders music played

....the Peaky Blinders music played... so I looked at my phone (Peaky Blinders is the latest show am watching and l took fancy to the title music and hence set it as my ringtone.. just like the 20 year old me used to do.. silly things..maybe..)

The call was from a guy who I hadn't spoken to since 2017... and probably spoken just a couple of times in the last decade...

Having driven about a hundred kms just a few hours back and tired.. I told my wife..."hmm this guy hasn't called me in ages.. how come he is calling today?.. kuch toh kaam hoga saale ko" (excuse the use of slang.. friends do have the right to call each other that if not more colorful terms) ... I wondered why he was calling me... lately a lot of old friends and connections have been reaching out mainly to enquire about job openings... but this was a guy who I respected a lot as a friend..someone who I had always looked up to when I was working at my first job.. so I picked up at the end of 2 rings...

"Hey!! Long time!!" He said... "Yeah!!!" I said... waiting to hear the reason he called after so many years ... "I just called to say Hi!... been so many years we spoke.. so I thought let me catch up.." ... and at that moment I knew my mind over-thought as usual and I was elated that I got the call... next few mins we chatted about how things have changed since we last spoke and relived some moments from old times... He and I studied at the same engineering college and 4 of us from the college were lucky enough to land up a campus placement job at Infosys that I believe was the best stepping stone to start a career back then in 2005...I still credit Infosys (then headed by N. R. Narayana Murthy ) for the skills and values it taught me...

I was happy to just continue with the job then when this guy and another room-mate of mine (at Pune) were preparing for an MBA and egged me to give the MBA entrance a shot.. it eventually worked out and I did my MBA and when we spoke that day I told him how grateful I was to the two of them who pushed me to prepare for further studies... the other guy I mention here is my "Best Friend" (..might be a cliched term but works for me...) and will talk about him some other day... but this guy I spoke about is Amit Churiwal ..

Thanks for the call Amit and thanks for being an inspiration.. while there are so many inspirational stories to be told about our time together, I will reserve those for some other day and conclude by saying... pick up that call... return that call...or even better, make that call... to that friend who had a high impact on your life... unless you tell them, they won't know.. and you won't know the joy of letting them know how they helped you unknowingly..

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