It was almost two years since I traveled abroad on Business since the birth of my twins; I was now a senior program manager and there was pressure on me to visit my clients; So I decided to visit a few of my clients in the USA and Europe on a one month trip.
My first stop was at Chicago and for this trip, I had taken one of the project managers who worked for me; I had spent a week at Chicago visiting key clients in the area that included a large telecom company, a electronics company and an insurance company; Vivek, the project manager was to be at the telecom company for three more weeks, meeting with the local team and drumming up business;
The pleasant May weather was a welcome escape from the Indian heat. That weekend, Vivek and I decided to visit downtown Chicago and take in the sights and sounds of the windy city. As I had already been in Chicago a number of times, I was familiar with major landmarks.
I was wearing a round neck T-Shirt and Blue Jeans and was carrying a jacket, just in case it got cold; Vivek was wearing a full sleeved T and Corduroy pants. There was nothing extraordinary about this.
We decided that we would first visit the wonderful Chicago Museum in Michigan Avenue. It was a pleasant enough stroll from the rail station to the museum. We purchased our tickets and went in;
We learnt that there was a special on Gauguin in the second floor; I was always intrigued by this guy and it so happened that Vivek too was; So off we went to the gallery showing the Gauguin collection; we were simply mesmerized by the works; as we were leaving the hall, I asked Vivek if he had read the moon and six pence by Somerset Maugham. He said yes, indeed and that was what provoked interest in the painter in the first place; For the unanimated, Gauguin was a regular guy – a Paris stockbroker who had not started painting till he was 40; he then abruptly abandoned his profession, started painting and moved to Tahiti where he died of Syphilis;
Even as were looking at other works, we started talking about arts, renaissance, literature and also Indian arts etc. There was this side to both of us that we were ignorant about till now. By the time we were in the Korean section near the basement, we were actually holding hands and neither of us was even aware of it; only when we left the place, we realized what were doing and hastily separated ourselves. It was a tad embarrassing, and there was a small period of silence as we walked down Wabash. I then broke the silence and suggested we go and grab a quick bite;