Siva's wife Richa was having a stop-over in Hong Kong for a few hours today, so we met her up for dimsum. I did not know her that well but Siva is a great friend. He is my favorite Indian. I have very nice memories of him. It is a shame that I haven't seen him for so long. The last time I saw him was in Zurich, almost four years ago. He went to the ETH as a visiting scholar so I flew over from Amsterdam to spend the weekend there. It was in Novevmber, we went up to Mt. Rigi on a cable car. After we got off, we wanted to walk up a little bit more. We went inside the only kiosk there and asked for direction. The lady there kindly told us to abort the idea on the basis that there was a blizzard going on and we were wearing jeans.
It is always fun to hang out with Siva because he is very clumsy. When we were in Mexico for holiday, he walked into a cactus. It was not one of those pot-plant cacti. It was a huge one that was of the same height as a grown man, if not higher. He got spikes stuck in his jackets and some on his arm. How one can walk into a human-size spiky plant in bright day light is beyond me. Before we went to Mexico, we went to the Mexican Embassy in Vancouver to get our visas together and he legendarily tripped over a line. We were walking down the stairs. After the last stair, there was a line on the ground. With his very big eyes, he mistook the line for yet another stair. When the muscular arrangement of walking down stairs met the lack of stairs, the result was disastrous. Siva fell over and grazed his knee caps. I remember fondly of these enjoyable clumsy moments of Mr. Siva.
Joanno
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