Tillitonse - A Transformational Journey Together

The Road to Mandalay (“took the road less travelled”… What a ride! ) In October last year, in a moment of weakness, I accepted to go to Myanmar as part of the Quality Assurance (QA) Audit Team. This QA study was meant to check whether the various clinics affiliated with PSI that were inserting IUDs (a birth control device) were adhering to quality standards. The study was to be led by a qualified medical doctor to be accompanied by a program person (me) to provide some balance to the team. I did not think much about this assignment at that point, as I had planned to get out of it and get a medical person to go instead of me. But, given that it takes six months to get a business visa, the die was cast when my name was submitted for the visa. In January, when I tried to get out of the study, folks at PSI/Washington were firm that I had to go. I was quite pissed off. I have just started a new job and taking two weeks for this exercise was not the best use of my time (...

June 17, 2012 Charikot Panaroram Resort, Charikot (up in the hills in Nepal) Falling in Love with the US of A – One More Time… In May 2012, Lata, Sanjana and I made a trip to the US. This was Sanjana’s first trip there…something we promised her that we would do when she turns 10 and it was Lata’s first trip there in 15 years. I had gone back to the US pretty much every year and while I had taken off a few days here and there, I never really had a real vacation there for a long time. In fact, Lata and I had been putting off visiting the US for many years  -“what’s the point going there when everyone is so busy?,” “what’s there to see?” “Been there done that” were some of the things we told ourselves. But boy were we wrong! Over the past few years we had been to Spain and New Zealand, but this trip, showed us how, for us, quality time in the US was way way more enjoyable than anywhere else. Basically, the heady combination of spending time with the people we wa...

The second dip was indeed special! (A lovely weekend in Johnson City, May 2012) In the summer of 1994, Lata and I spent a glorious month with DJ and Gayatri in Johnson City. Joining us during the weekend, were other friends who drove across vast distances (Arjun, P2 and CV to name a few). We just hung out in this little town seemingly in the middle of nowhere and man, did we have a blast! Over the next one-two years, we came back to JC for shorter trips. Last week, 18 summers later, Lata and I (and now with nine year old Sanjana) made the trip to JC one more time to connect with our friends DJ, Gayatri, Devika, Aniruddh (“Oni”) and DJ’s mom. And just like in the old times, we had friends join us (Kolanday, Vandana and lil Samyu flew down from New Jersey). This ‘second’ holiday in JC was simply magnificent and will rank among the best ever.  It’s hard to say what makes something special. Its rarely one thing. Nor is it something that is tangible. It’s often an ama...