Small world: Rajan P Parrikar

I ran into (literally, we had some strong-worded discussions earlier) Rajan Parrikar, a Goan in the US, and we were talking how Hindus and Catholics in Goa are like Christians and Jews in the West! This is Rajan's comparison, and it makes sense. Sometimes aloof, sometimes antagonistic, sometimes sharing with a lot of commonalities. (My theory on this is that it's the press and the politician who has the biggest stake in ensuring a continued divide.)

In the course of our discussions, I mentioned our Jewish anthropologist friend Dr Robert S "Bob" Newman, who's coming down to Goa in a few weeks time.... When I mentioned his wife Sudha's name, Rajan remembered them clearly: as the lady who took walked in Sant Inez with a saree and long-sleeved blouses, way back in 1979! Small world.

That was when Bob was doing his early research in Goa. We meet up in 1985 too, when I was a young journalist in the Herald.

Rajan grew up in Sant Inez. He studied in the Goa Engineering College, and has worked for aerospace organisations in Silicon Valley. After an antagonistic (almost) start to our exchanges, we found a lot of commonalities. Including the fact that we are both passionate about the Net, and are the same age!

You need to check out his many, well-informed (and sometimes hotly argued) postings on Indian classical music at Usenet newsgroups (search for "Rajan Parrikar" on http://groups.google.com ) and just yesterday was baiting him into publishing his first book on the subject. He sure knows this subject, and is extremely passionate about it.