You don't meet people by accident ..

Has it happened with you , that meeting someone for the first time, suddenly reminded of someone, you had met 20-25 years back, whom you had met only once or twice, and you realize how fortunate you were to have met them then and how you wish  now that you could meet more people like them when you are much wiser (hopefully ;)) . 

Ponytail Partha , I met him in year 1998 or 1999 at the badminton courts of Chinnaswamy stadium Bangalore on a weekend along with some of my other Wipro badminton enthusiast. Most of us were pretty regular and would ensure that at least 4 of us are there to occupy the court - Vinay Kamath, Deepak Embar, Prabin Deka were the guys who were pretty regular, and I knew them well from office. There were few others not so regular Sanjay, Mahesh but I knew them. Partha, was also in not so regular people and I didn't know him, and he did look like a senior as in experience and age 

Most of us were in our early 20s and in the range of 1- 4 yrs. of work experience, Deepak was the most senior around 4 yrs. of experience who knew people or rather was aware of people in positions in Wipro. So the day Partha came to play, there were not enough guys to play doubles. Partha did warm up sessions with Deepak and even though much senior in age, he had a pretty decent ponytail and made the younger guy sweat! and he had a ponytail too which none of the youngster had! absolutely impressive :) After playing singles he wanted to play doubles, but only 3 guys were there, so he asked me to join him.  I got little conscious (i did play pretty ok, but absolutely no good to play with him) and was not sure, but he asked me to join him.  What a game we played; he was so encouraging and supportive and - talking, shouting and laughing. 

It was after he left the court, I tried to figure out who Partha was, and Deepak filled in the information saying that Partha - 'N S Parthasarthy' was GM in Wipro (he was in Wipro for around 15 years) and had recently (1998/99) left and started a new company along with few other Wipro colleagues Ashok Soota and Subrata Bagchi - 'Mindtree'. I was wowed! That was my first time in life meeting and interacting with a Big Shot so close and personal.  His sportsmanship showed, what a well-grounded and rounded overall person he was, and I have no doubt he still is.

I never tried to keep connect with or follow Partha all these years and was surprised that after all these years, I remembered him, I remembered him when I met another so-called Bigshot recently and had not so great interaction -- that's when I remembered Partha.

I never realized how some people have influenced me in making my opinion about things in general and at times on specific matter and that's when it dawns that "You don't meet people accidently, they are meant to cross our path for a reason "