Yesterday morning at 4 am I woke up to the terrible news about Gagan Sardana. Our dear friend from graduation days was no more. Message exchanges at wee hours actually got home the point. Shell shocked. Our friend, our age, cardiac arrest, just like that gone in a whiff. Impossible but true it was...
The whole day went by in just talking to various friends and sharing each other's grief. Then it struck me. All of us were from a phase in our life where we were together most of the days. Sitting on footpath outside college or in canteen or just going out to various monuments or to someone's house. Teaming up for festivals, having a keen interest in the love lives of each of us... Being a rock support when the love was serious stuff and leaving no chance to pull leg when it was just a one sided infatuation... We may not have had one on one equation with all in the group but as a group we all were there for each other... 3 years went past in a jiffy and we all moved on... Life happened and we all got busy in our new ventures... We kept in touch with a few not so much with others...
Cut to many years later when social media happened. Facebook got us all connected. And we caught up with each other. Then WhatsApp happened and the WhatsApp groups... Soon reunions and get togethers were on the card and it was such joy to meet up these friends again. From footpath we graduated to a nice restaurant or pub and sometimes even home. Everyone was busy managing life and schedules and no one really got around to really knowing the real life of another. What is it that is happening with another, barring the close ones we have kept in touch with over the years. However, meeting for those few hours once a year was such a stress buster. We would remember the good old days, crack jokes like the yesteryears. Catch up on friends and news of friends we have not been in touch with and needless to say still bond over food.
Yesterday, news of Gagan's death took away from us all (me for sure) a part of that era. We all grew up together and then suddenly one of us is not there. I realised that how little I knew of Gagan's life, his struggles and his achievements, but I cannot and will not erase the memory of him from college time. His unmatched wit, humour and laughter. He was the entertainment quotient of the group. In fact in all these years if anything was common it was still his wit and entertainment quotient... If he was around we had to roll off laughing. But now he has gone and left us in tears, shocked and numb.
I will remember you Gagan for the way you made us all feel and made us laugh and for your crazy ideas...
Rest in peace my dear friend.
For the rest of us, we stand together and hug each other. While we all have limited time let us never leave an opportunity to let others know how we feel for them.
shubhra (c)
29th April, 2019
Asheeth Monika Nalini Joshi Samir Bhushan Shalini Farah Simrat Judge Venkataraman Balakrishnan Sona Dutta Agendra Mukul Rohit Kilam Satish Kumar
