Met b-school batchmate Ashok Kumar at Sarovar Portico, Kolkata on 2025-04-07

It was wonderful meeting my b-school batchmate Ashok Kumar in Kolkata on Monday 2025-04-07 afternoon, exactly 40 years (mid 1985 - mid 2025) after passing out. It was the same jovial Ashok, however, with a shining scalp, which those days had a thick growth of black hair 😊.

Ashok came for a leisure trip to Kolkata with wife Sapna (and another friend and his wife) from Delhi solely to savour yummy Kolkata food, tonnes of shopping, visiting a handful of places of interest and of course to meet me. I wish Ashok's daughter whom I have never met also accompanied her parents to Kolkata.

The couples had put up at Sarovar Portico Hotel in Newtown and I drove down to meet them there for coffee, chicken sandwich and lots of adda.

Those days, four decades ago Ashok hailed from Jamshedpur since his father was serving in TELCO (viz. Tata Motors of yesteryears) while I was from Barakar/ Asansol since my father was with CMPDI Ltd (a subsidiary of Coal India).

Ashok has settled in New Delhi with wife and daughter years ago and is presently engaged in his own hospitality business.