Abha Ahuja
1972-2001
In tribute to one who has inspired so much of us to
greatness through that of her own.
Abha and I started our careers in the Internet at roughly the same time.
I began working at Merit in the spring of 1995 and she had just started at
the UMich/Merit NOC. We both worked on the Routing Arbiter Project and I
recall many a night getting paged by her and co-troubleshooting problems
with the RA route servers and RADB. In the spring of 1996, Abha came to
work for Merit directly and joined us in the Internet Engineering group.
After funding was cut for the route servers, she and I worked on the
follow-on project to commercialise the RA route servers into what became
RSng (Route Server Next Generation). As part of that project, we did a lot
of travel together visiting customers sites and setting up equipment...
sometimes even setting them on fire. I like to think she and I worked well
together and I've been told that when people spoke about one of us, it
always included the other. I considered Abha the best partner I've ever had
the pleasure to work with... and more importantly a very special friend.
Pictures
During the time she and I worked together, Abha always had a camera with
her. I usually carried mine too but for some reason she took more pictures.
I have however managed to dig up some photographs. I know I have more
somewhere and as I find them, I will add them to this collection. Most of
these are from the fall of 1997. I had just gotten a new camera and was
snap-happy.
Here is Abha with Craig Labovitz at the Merit picnic in Ann Arbor, MI on
5 Sep, 1997
This picture was taken during the Fall 1997 NANOG in Phoenix, AZ. The
timestamp on the back of the picture says it was 0359 and since my camera
was probably still riding on EDT, that meant it was just about 0200
localtime which means this is probably a picture of Abha at the hotel bar
(possibly after a few drinks).
This is Abha during the IETF40 Meeting in Washington DC pouring over
some of Rusty Eddy's slides while sitting on one of the lavish (read: gaudy)
benches at the Mayflower Hotel.
During my remaining days at Merit, Abha and I worked on a project to
jumpstart an IRR and route server enabled exchange point in the UAE. As
part of this project, we were flown to Dubai and spent two weeks there
setting up the registry and the route servers and training the staff of
Etisalet, the UAE's telecommincations bureau. The picture above was taken
on 17 Sep 1998 on a dinner boat that a couple of our Etisalet hosts took us
on. We were cruising just off the shores of Abu Dabi. Abha has the pipe of
a hookah in her hand. I recall us referring to it as a "hubbly-bubbly".
Abha even got me to try a couple of puffs.
The above picture was taken at my wedding in Saline, MI on 27 Jul 1997.
Standing behind and to her right is Sean.