I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP........

My grand daughter Bani, was born in November 2015.

By then I had retired from work and was keeping myself busy as a consultant trainer in a pharmaceutical company.

I am one of those people who prefer working many number of years in just one Firm. For twenty years I had been with “CITADEL PHARMA.”

In  this organization I had met 2 wonderful colleagues. One was Sunil, who was innately kind courteous genuine and very civil.

The other was Charusree, who was all these, in addition to being intellectual, sharp but kind: committed by nature, and also an amalgam of culture and modernity. A rare mixture of logic and emotional IQ.

While Sunil reassured me that there was still goodness in humanity, Charusree was a guide, philosopher and a good friend.

Charusree joined Citadel in 1990. She was just out of college. Very young, pretty. But there was this honesty about her which was so obvious.  I was  36 years old then, married  and had a  7 year old son named Devi Charan.

Charusree was very talented crafts person. She could knit, and also Crochet.

One of our colleagues had delivered a child. So Charusree had made a crochet blanket for the child.

While seeing the blanket, I asked  Charusree , very casually, whether she would make a similar blanket for my grand child. She promised that she would.

The funniest thing about the request was that, then it was 1990, and my son was just 7 years old.

Since I had not meant my request to be taken seriously, I forgot about it the same moment.

CITADEL  closed in 2005, due to losses. Colleagues who had been  together for 15 years, searched for jobs in other companies.

Even while  working for different companies  Charusree and I kept in touch. Me and my wife went to her house for lunch, and Charusree also graced our home on many auspicious occasions.

My son married in 2008. All my dear colleagues of CITADEL attended the marriage, including                      Sunil and Charusree.

Then in 2015 November, My grand daughter Bani, was born.

Charusree had not forgotten that promise, which I had not even bothered to remember. She knit a large crochet blanket in 22 days, for Bani.

I was surprised when she told me about the incident in 1990, the promise she had made, and that she had meant to keep it.

Sometimes, I feel that I do not know even my friends well enough.

How could be someone be so committed to fulfilling a casual request 25 years later?

Sometimes words fail to express the awe, you feel for such awesome personalities.

I do not even remember what I told someone, an hour earlier. And in my profession of sales, I have come across 99% of people who do not mean anything they say, and have no intentions of being true to promises.

I feel in a lifetime if you have the association of a six good human beings, you should consider yourself lucky.

I am lucky that way. I have been associated with this kind angel Charusree.

Thank you.