Chapter 33-Goodbye Old Friend

April 24 1995-next few days

8 AM on that day is as vivid as ever.
I am woken up with persistent knocks. There is none of the typical shouting that usually accompanies this kind of apparent effort to get inside-just a gentle, persistent knock.

I open the door, dressed in a towel and a T-shirt. It's bright outside, a typical Pondicherry morning.
The news is broken gently and softly.
I remember not being in denial, the first emotion that usually accompanies such news. I do, however, recall being completely stunned. Even though it sounds like a cliche, it seems that inspite of a bright, sunny, clear morning, things are in sharp focus yet a blur. I shuffle to the loo in my towel, see Dr J, the Warden standing outside, see and walk through him and spend some time inside, washing my face many times. I'm afraid that when I come out, I'll find out I'm not in a nightmare. I want to just stay inside the loo.

Outside I meet Shom, Vikrant's classmate and best friend. He tells me that Vikrant's flight was a bit delayed and instead of taking a risk trying to get the last bus to Pondy, he managed to hitch a ride with a truck going to Pondy.
On that dark, unlit highway, his truck hit another stationary one parked on the side, no hazard lights on. It was head on. The news is that death was instant and the truck was crushed like a matchbox.The driver escaped.

I recall Rahul telling us that he heard a scream in his subconscious last evening when we were chatting and waiting for Vikrant. This he told us at the time, not now, and I don't know what to make of it. Not that it matters. Suddenly not much does. I am supposed to be in class right now, but nothing could be further from my mind.
I dress in slow motion, a few people milling about in the corridors. There is talk about informing Vikrant's parents in Chandigarh and I am asked to go across to the Director's office in the Admin building. The Director and a few others are sitting inside and I sit too, unsure of what they want from me. They know that I knew Vikrant and our families are acquaintances and this is what they asked of me:
"Can you ask your father to inform Vikrant's father"?

I stare at them for a few minutes, not sure I heard right. But I make the call and inform my father and from 2000 miles away, I can almost see what he must have felt at that exact moment. I convey the Director's message to him and of course, he cannot do it. It's the College's responsibility and I say as much to them.
I leave before that call is made to Vikrant's parents. I won't be able to take it.

There is no pandemonium outside. Everything seems as it always has been. People going to class, milling about near the water cooler next the Histology lab. The news has not made its way around yet. I wish to God that it was a normal day but things won't be normal ever now, not normal as yesterday anyway.
One person will be missing from his family, from the College, from his class and from our gang. And that person happened to be my guide, my mentor,  a senior and a friend.

Vikrant and I used to pass time listening to Neil Diamond and watching him strum his guitar late into the nights. Nights in Pondicherry were always cool and with the front and back doors of the rooms left open, a lovely breeze blew right through it. A glass of the finest and some munchies from Snappy or the shacks used to complete a perfect evening.
Many evenings were spent like this and often there would be periods where I had to put up with Vikrant telling me to attend more classes, read more and pay attention to clinics. In many ways, he felt responsible for me since our parents went back much further than we did (His father treated my father's father for cancer) and it was in part, because of him, that I was here in the first place. There were just the two of us from Chandigarh, a long 54 hour journey away.
Sometimes we talked about Vikrant's brothers, settled in Holland as chemical engineers. All of them and I were from the same school in Chandigarh with Vikrant being the middle son. He was the only doctor among them. He used to smoke occassionally, far less than most of us but this fact was hidden from his family, like all of us secret smokers. His elder brother had dropped in last year and Vikrant had spent a whole evening airing his room and clearing all the "evidence" of his smoking escapades. The one thing he forgot was an ashtray which his brother found sitting neatly in the middle of the room. While Vikrant tried to explain it away, his brother told him he wished he had known so he could have brought the 2 Duty Free Cartons allowed back from Holland.

Vikrant was a popular figure in his class and many of his classmates are gathered around the bike shed in Lister House, just below his room. No one really knows what to do and what to say. Some opine on how dangerous it can be to hitch rides on trucks, with well intentioned, patronizing  hindsight.

Finally, Shom, Chetan, Plaha and a few others open up Vikrant's room. It has to be done. I go inside too, with the room exactly as it was 10 normal days ago. The black book cupboard, the guitar, some shoes, the mat on the floor, his chair with a reading board resting on the arm rests, some clothes here and there, books. 225 Lister House, 4 rooms down from mine. And so is the ashtray, still sitting neatly on the reading board perched on the chair, Vikrant's Harrison's lying on the coir mat on the floor next to it.

I open the book.
"In God We Trust". Vikrant wrote that at the front of every book he had. I put the book down and go out.
There are no tears. I am in too much shock.