A Blast of the Past #90: India, Part 1

Today’s blast of the past is going to be more of a travelogue, with multiple photo plates, instead of one big photo plate.

I had the privilege of travelling to India for two weeks for work in 2007. My destination: Mumbai — the Bollywood of India, and its financial center. I traveled with an officer of my company as the associate/trainer to support him as we opened up a new satellite office there.

We met another officer/associate pair that was just completing 6 weeks there, All of were staying an a 5-star Mumbai Marriott Hotel. It had attached a “hot” nightspot called the Velvet Lounge, where we met with and “got down” with some of the office employees, who came out to greet me and my officer, and see the other officer/associate off.

Prior to the trip to India, I had spent 18 months training people sent from the India office in Kansas City, so I knew some of the people at the Velvet Lounge and met others. My first trainee, Jayraj, was the unit head for the Mumbai office. I hadn’t realize that, back in Kansas City, when i started training him, but his insight and higher level questions obviously showed he was thinking of more than just the day-to-day functions.

So my second day, on the weekend, was spent visiting Jayraj’s home and meeting his wife, Rujuta. They had a very lovely, almost simple elegant, apartment, and after visiting there over refreshments, we went and toured some of the city near their place, seeing some of the signs of the holiday of Diwali that was just upon us.

The day ended with a return to the hotel, where I was fascinated by the musical skill of the below artist playing on these cups/bowls: