Anecdotes & memories of a sales guy

My job in pharmaceutical sales profession exposed me to all the woes associated with a travelling job. The problems were unique. Since I was a bachelor when I started my sales career covering a small geographic territory (Guntur town and Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh) I had to eat food in small restaurants and eating joints in various small towns which  served food totally different from the hotel in Bangalore. I used to consume generally bland and less spicy but very tasty food at  a hotel (Gayathri Boarding) for the entire duration of my college studies in Bangalore. Food in the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh is usually very spicy. It was tough adjusting to the food since no two consecutive meals were generally cooked by the same chef as the travel meant that I had to be going to different hotels.  Living out of a suit case, necessiated by the travelling sales job, restricts life in many ways. We carry limited dresses while on travel warranting usage of laundry ...

I received an invitation for lunch on the occasion of House Warming celebration from a friend whom I have known for close to four decades. Hundred of times over the past half a century I have received invitations for variety of functions like Weddings, Birthdays, like on this occasion House Warmings etc. In the distant past, many of the invitations were from seniors like my parents' cousins or contemporaries who were performing functions like marriages of their children. A little later the list of most hosts were mainly my friends, contacts in my working life of my age group. In the recent past it's my contemporaries who are celebrating functions associated with their children and grandchildren. Everyone of those invitations makes me remember what my father once told me about gifts at all such occasions. An invitee's first thought revolves around the selection of an appropriate gift - it's cost, if that will match the receiver's status, if it will match gifts from...