I was in Kochi on Friday the 13th of March, when I got a call from Achari informing me , Radhakrishnan’s son Prashant passed away in his sleep.
Prashant is in his 50s, I stood there stunned, do not remember what I blurted to Achari.
MRK (Mr. Radhakrishnan) is a VIP in my life, whom I met through Mr Achari, responsible to get my derailed career( for which I was responsible back on à fast track. Two people. my friend Ramchandran and Achari were the ones who helped me to set my life right
My interactions with Prashant were few when we worked together for an year or so, however he was quite often in MRK’s and my conversation.
I sent MRK a message about the shock and thought of meeting him in Bangalore when I return.
I have not called or visited him, yet, though I should have been among the first to be near him in his tragic moment.
The grievance of parents who lose their child, I am not able to share, I do not know how to. I am finding excuses and delaying my meeting with him. In his present mindset, everything I say may sound hollow, in such situation I don’t think anything concrete can be said.
I am not preparing to say anything or do anything, when I meet him, it has to be something spontaneous to convey the depth of my feeling.
I am sure he will understand, he is my mentor and guru.
This month has been my birth month and death month of three other ex-colleagues, we worked together in Mecon,
Mr. Balachandran Nair, Mr GT Rao and Mr Vijayrajan. Long association at the workfront had made us life long friends.
In fact Vijayrajan has been in consultation with me in developing a cross country pipe laying software that automatically calculates the sizes, infrastructure and costing by inputing a few parameters. It has been successfully deployed and the work of enhancement and customisation were in progress. At his age it’s been phenomenal.
Good bye, friends, it’s been too much to take in such a short time, feeling numbed.
I was travelling from Kochi to Bangalore, when Rajendran and Kamala came to meet me at Trichur railway station where the train stops for 3 minutes. It was more of a remembrance meeting for our common friend , Vijayrajan. When I told him that he shouldn’t have taken the trouble, he laughed and said we never know when we are going to drop off…
A depressing month, however a few meetings, with some fine personalities saved the month.
Appu chettan( Dr Vishwanth Menon) and Raja chechi (Mrs Rajeswari), one of my all time favorite cousins, retired professor from BHU, high thinking simple living, humble role model, good humour, talks beautifully on everything under the sun and beyond, man of wisdom and knowledge, I could meet and spend a few enlightening hours with them, after a gap of 20 plus years.
(May be the gap helps the awe to be everlasting and the crave for the next meeting strong) . Feels blessed.
There was Kannan vembu from Boston, we could squeeze in our once in a year meeting, in our travel schedule.
Since Kannan was staying with his brother, Mr. Murthy, I had an opportunity to meet him and his son, Aravind. While we were discussing about the convenience of online banking, Mr Murthy said he would prefer to go to the bank, spend time interacting with the staff and enjoy the interpersonal relationship. Of course, it is a privilege for oldies like us with time in hand.
This evening, Raju Pati, my friend and batch mate, living in the Chicago, made our annual meeting at my place, in time to pip into my month end post.
Since we do not have much future, we ended up discussing about health and recalling our college days. We ended up telling Prema how girl starved our college was during those days, hardly 5 girls and 1000 boys. Guys would go to town and end up with eave teasing , fights and police cases.
Well with so many adieus, if you do not find my month end post in future,which I am using to mark my attendance, you can check for confirmation.
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