Eric's 2nd Big Adventure - Part 4: Time to Say Good-Bye

The night before our departure Sarang graciously invited Alex and I him at his house for dinner. This time instead of taking the Accenture cab hom Sarang was able to ride in the cab along with us. During the ride Sarang mentioned that his brother and family would be joining us for dinner as well. Upon arrival to the Munshi Estates Alex noticed that we were getting a lot of looks from the local residents. Later we discovered that we were the first Westerners to visit Sarang's household so the local people were probably not used to seeing Americans visiting on a regular basis.

For additional perspectives on our trip be sure to keep up with Alex's blog at http://topdownviews.blogspot.com

Inside of Sarang's house we met his wife and sister-in-law. As for the two kids in the house, Sarang's 3 year-old daughter and his 7 year-old nephew, they were a bit shy at first and didn't want to come into the room where we were sitting. Even after a brief introduction and us presenting his daughter Mrunal with a new toy doll, they still scrambled off the the safety of the back of the house. It seems that I have that effect on kids by making them run in the other direction. After a little proding from Sarang (actually he put a bear-hug on Mrunal) she came to sit down in the room with us. I took the opportunity to photograph a nice father-daughter moment but I no sooner grabbed my camera and got ready to shoot when Sarang's nephew decided that he didn't want to miss out on the picture.



It seems that once I snapped the photograph that we were no longer strangers in the house so the kids started to act more their natural selves. It didn't take long before they were laughing and screaming and playing around. The two kids took the opportunity to show off for the camera like in the picture below:

After a short while Sarang's bother arrived and we sat down to a lovely meal. I seem to remember Alex telling me at the beginning of the trip that he was wanting to lose weight but after nearly a week in India and with all of the food we've been served I'm thinking the opposite might be happening. After dinner we gathered for a few photographs and then headed home to do some packing. We managed to take a nice family portrait of the Munshi family as shown below:

Departure day is usually hectic and this one one was no different. So many things to do and so little time to get them done! We had an uneventful check-out from the hotel and headed to the office but first it was time for a brief shopping diversion. I had mentioned to Sarang the day before that I was looking for a carved figurine of an elephant as a souvenir of my trip so he arranged for our driver to make a stop on the way to the office. We stopped at a store called Elegant Crafts Emporium where that had many hand-carved products native to India. The store-keepers were like a well-oiled machine for us travel-weary Americans so they practiced their art of sales and we fell into their trap like a bear to honey. Let's just say they consistently used phrases such as "Come here my friend, I want to show you something". Alex and I each purchased a few nice things and afterwards all I can remember Alex saying to me is that he was going to kill me for brining him here. For security purposes I cannot describe the items I purchased. For one reason some are Christmas presents and the other is because I don't want my wife to know how much I donated to the shop-keepers cause. Here is a picture of some of the items they had for sale:

After making our purchases we headed to the relative safety of the office. At least they would not attempt to sell us anything there. Once there we continued with our meetings and before we knew it we needed to head to the airport. Sriram was in a training class to become a Jedi Master of DB2 but since he is such a good student we got permission from the instructor to let him out early. After he met up with the rest of the team they walked us out of the building to say good-bye. We shook hands and wished each other well and then it was off to the airport.

On the ride to the airport Alex and I were reflecting that the time spent with the team was well worth the trip. We learned many things and enjoyed the face-time with the team. I'm sure we'll remember many things about the trip to Pune but for me most of the memories will be about the warmth and hospitality of the team and how they provided candid feedback to help us continue to improve the relationship with FPL.

Our driver for the week named Mukesh took us to the airport and helped us with our baggage. Before departing for the airport we took a picture to remember our faithful cabbie.