I've just learnt a hard lesson on the futility of planning
I've just learnt a hard lesson on the futility of planning. Having spent the weekend doing some research into what I thought I'd put into my column, I didn't, for a moment, imagine I would be writing it with such sadness.
The MiD DAY team in Bangalore has just received shocking news of a dearly loved friend and former colleague's demise. Why shocking? Because she was just 26. Because we can't even begin to believe that we won't hear her excited squeals, watch her technical wizardry at work, laugh at her non-stop banter, be fascinated by her appetite for "insider" stories on everyone from Carla Bruni to Kareena Kapoor, and hear her yell 'shotgun' when she leaped into the front seat of the editor's car as we piled in to grab a bite at Koshys, our adda, after a draining early morning edition.
Our strong and silent van man, now stops by at my desk to say he really didn't mind being kept waiting at 4 am on her doorstep because she unfailingly and sweetly apologised to him. Charmed, he'd readily agree to her "five minutes more" request the next morning, and every morning after that.
Every time she breezed into the morning shift that commenced at the ungodly hour of 4 am, we involuntarily smiled because she livened it up with her dramatic sighs, rumbling laughter, and witty repartee. With a weakness for big bags in bright colours, t-shirts with wicked messages, chandelier earrings, and "fish only if it's made by my mom", the only time you'd hear her growl would be when someone referred to her as a Hyderabadi.
"I'm from Andhra," she'd hiss, proceeding to give the poor sod, who attempted to address her thus, an education in history, geography and good-natured gaalis.
The 'breakfast boys', who had waited patiently as we changed our 6 am-nashta order at least six times before we reached a consensus, are too timid to ask for details of her tragic demise, but when they see me at the water cooler, they want to know how someone so full of life and laughter could be gone just like that. To our designer, her buddy, she will remain the benchmark of page-making perfection.
There might be many explanations for why awful things happen to good people, but none of them make any sense right now. The death of someone cut down in the prime of life brings home our own mortality. Maybe our attempt to keep them alive in our hearts is our way of not facing that inevitability.
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