Had stepped out for lunch and as I was returning, spotted the TCS CEO waiting for the elevator today. This is Mumbai. Yes, he's a Padma Bhushan awardee, he heads Asia's largest software company and he boards the elevator - just like any one of us. No, there were no bodyguards either. I was very amused. Maybe a few of the over dozen people who boarded the elevator wouldn't even know who he is. Or probably didn't care. It was weird.

I was kind of dumbstruck. Didn't know what to say or do, had he looked in my direction. This was a man I had only read about in the magazines and papers. He didn't make any eye-contact. He looked very much like any other Consultant, going about with his daily business - waiting for his floor to come as his eyes fidgeted impatiently, cramped in that elevator, just as everyone else. I know this gentleman is toasted and people pat him on his back at public functions that make newspaper headlines, but this was a closed space of 5' x 5' and everything, including this man, seemed so very ordinary, so next-door-neighbour types. I dunno what happens when a Narayana Murthy or Azim Premji move around in public spaces, though my friend from college almost ran into the Wipro Chairman when he was crossing a Bangalore street - yeah, he too was alone, unaccompanied, and very much the 'common man'.

I liked the simplicity, but couldn't savour the fact that a person who I felt is so BIG, experiences life exactly the way I do. I like this city. It sometimes makes me pine for more, much-much more, and sometimes, with experiences such as today's, it makes me feel content and very very satisfied !

You know what I want to experience next - running into Ratan Tata. And see if things work out differently. I'm not expecting a surprise anymore.