I used to work with a great guy in the Bay Area named Virendra Singh. Not everybody can say that. (By the way, it’s pronounced “Vee-rrren-drrrah”, rolling the r’s). He was a tech heavy back in the 80’s. Virendra was from Fiji. Tall, dark, and handsome. Wow. He had a winning smile and a very appealing accent. He spoke deliberately, confidently. You couldn’t help but like him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Virendra had an idea once. Being from Fiji, he was ethnically East Indian. His ancestors came from the subcontinent. Virendra told me his mother was a wonderful cook and they wanted to open an Indian restaurant. He went so far as to trademark the name “New Delhi Deli”. I don’t think it ever got off the ground, but it was a great idea. There is actually a New Delhi Deli currently in London. Probably not as good as Virendra’s mom’s cooking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was invited to a Halloween costume party at Virendra’s house one year. It was during the “Dallas” craze on TV. I didn’t watch it, but I was familiar with the concept. So I had the idea of dressing up like a Texas billionaire. I went out to the local Goodwill store and bought a “fancy” cowboy hat, a cowboy shirt with embroidered loops that looked like lariats and little guns for buttons, and a “matching” cowboy jacket, with a similar embroidered pattern. I also bought a bolo tie, and I had some Fry boots and blue jeans to complete the outfit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To emphasize the billionaire aspect, I bought a huge plastic cigar and a used Monopoly set (never played it growing up!) I took the Monopoly money and stuffed it into the pockets of my shirt, jacket and pants. I looked ridiculous. But surely like a billionaire to anyone who watched TV back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I walked in Virendra’s front door, I affected a bad Texas drawl. I had a wad of Monopoly bills in my hands and started passing them out to everyone I encountered. As I walked up to Virendra’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Singh, they took a step back at my appearance and demeanor, and sort of gasped. I had never met them. And vice versa. They thought I was the real thing. Amazing the power Larry Hagman had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I handed Mr. Singh a wad of bills and said “There ya go, son” (drawly pronounced “suuuun”). “Keep it! Keep it! There’s plenty more where that<\/em> came from!”, or some such nonsense. Mr. Singh, being obviously a man of honor, refused the “donation” and handed the “money” back to me, saying “No, no, no. I cannot take it. Tank you…tank you…tank you. I cannot keep it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n All evening he looked at me funny from across the room. I think he eventually understood the joke. At the end of the night, as everyone was saying their goodbyes, he made a point of coming up to me and said “Tank you…tank you…tank you,” as he clapped his hand on my shoulder and smiled at me. He had his son’s winning smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I used to work with a great guy in the Bay Area named Virendra Singh. Not everybody can say that. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allposts","category-friends","category-holiday"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smartreis.com\/123repete3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}