Vida es perros

And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

A couple of weeks back one of my brother's friends from school Jay Ramesh died in a motorcycle crash. He was driving back from college in his motorbike, got hit by a car overtaking on the wrong side of the road and died on the spot. He was 21. Another classmate, Rohan Raghavan, riding pillion with him was seriously injured and is currently in hospital. Though I didn't know them personally, we were in the same school for god knows how many years. Jay was this short scrawny looking kid 2 streets away my brother used to touch for notes.

When Jay started out in the morning would he have known that sometime in the afternoon he is going to be lying in a pool of blood on the road? In one way, I think its good he didn't know it. It was a relatively painless event for him. The real reason why death is hated is because its one of those things that puts those connected to the person through hell. His parents are going to live the rest of their lives in the shadow of his memory. They are going to make up all kinds of absurd stories blaming themselves for what happened. It's going to take them years to even come to some kind of terms with it. A random event they have no control over is going to be the master of their lives.

It becomes so difficult to accept that a person close to you has died. I happened to go to Jay's profile on Orkut, and I still saw people posting to his profile, "Dei, Ferrari has won da" - in some hope against hope that they would get a reply. It is almost as if all the signs are there - his profile is there, there is his photo, and ya he scrapped me a week back, so I am sure he will reply.

My grandfather died a few months back. I was in the US at that time. I had been putting off calling home to India for a few days, and had finally decided to call home on the day that he died. I hated myself for it. I felt I should have called him earlier. Maybe he would have felt better about life. I could have spoken to him one last time. Heard his voice. It was some consolation that I had been in India a fortnight earlier. It would have been very difficult for me if I had not gone in the summer.

When I did finally go home in December, I couldn't believe that 'Tata' was no more. It felt like some elaborate trick that everyone was playing on me. In your mind he is still there. There you are sitting in the hall. Its 12:00. You can hear the gate creak open. You half expect him to walk into the hall, "white shirt-white pant", with his trademark "How are you boy?". You walk into his room. You don't see him. Ok, he must be shaving in the bathroom. You open the door expecting to see him there but you don't. You call up the office. Madhu picks up the phone. You half want to say "Tata irukalla" (Is Tata there?), hoping that he will pass the phone onto him and you will hear his familiar voice. The ghost never leaves you. You go to Landmark. You have been there countless times with him. Its so weird to not go there without him. Sometimes, you half expect him to walk up behind you, with his familiar "Finished boy?", then he will go through the books that you want. Most of the books will make the cut. You go to Woodlands. You remember eating breakfast with him there.

You walk around the house. The chairs, the verandah, the terrace, his chappals, his dresser, his almirahs of books all have stories to tell. You remember the time you got him to bowl to you at 3 in the afternoon. You remember the time when you took all of Pati's vessels into the garden and 'cooked'. You remember seeing him stand at the gate waiting for you to come back from IIT class, at 11 in the night. You look at his room, and remember the time you tied him to the grill when he was sleeping. You want to go to Tata House because you feel safe in the memories. You don't want to go to Tata House because you are going to be brooding about him for the rest of the evening. You hate seeing Pati alone. You can't believe Pati is alone. If Pati is there, Tata must be there - somewhere. Maybe he is late from office. Maybe he is reading in his armchair in the verandah. Maybe he is in some room somewhere.

You go through his things. You look at his old photos. You look at photos of your grandfather, grandmother, mom and uncle. Young and confident. You look at all the photos that he took with you in G. K. Vale. All kinds of memories come back. You feel like a lot of time has passed. You could never have thought that this day would come. It has. It was always a day in the distant future. It isn't any more. He is gone but you are the one left suffering.

So don't work your stuff
Because I've got troubles enough
No, don't pick on me
When one act of kindness could be
Deathly
Deathly
Definitely