April 24 1995-next few days
It's a blur, to be honest. Vikrant's room had been locked for the past few days and with no mobile phones in those days, I hadn't spoken to him while he was at home. Walking past his room now, inventory done and locked again, I allow myself to imagine he is still at home and will be back soon, chiding us to read in that characteristic way he had. It's a luxury I have for a few moments because the sight of Shom, Rahul, Bong and Jain, all Vikrant's neighbors brings me back to the reality that Vikrant's room will soon no longer be his and that he is dead.
Dead....My mind cannot process that word. The finality of it. The sheer irreversible, inescapable knowledge that I have to accept it, however I feel. There isn't much choice.
Of course we spend a few hours in rhetoric....."Why did he have to go so young? What made an otherwise so-sensible guy take a lift from a truck? How do I face his parents when I go home, a few days from now?"
Most people he was close to are in varying degrees of shock and denial, anger and disbelief. If there was one person who was "grounded", as they say, it was Vikrant. He knew his priorities, knew what he wanted to do in life and knew how to party. He wanted to do Medicine later as a career and had read nearly all of Harrison's, much to our amusememt and wonder. He was rushing back because his Medicine Internship was due to start that day. A day missed would have meant that he would be ineligible to write the PGI Chandigarh Entrance Exam, a very big deal for him since it is a top notch Institute, in his hometown, and one he (and all of us) were sure he would crack.
We looked up to him. Now we were doing that literally.
There were some practical issues. The body has to formally identified and brought back. I refrain from going to Chengelpet Hospital, an hour away, and some of his classmates, on bikes accompany a Hearse Van. Pammi, a senior and doing Radiology, is also there as are Manoj, Sonal and a few of his seniors close to him.
Vikrant's body is brought back to Campus and is kept surrounded by flowers. I still haven't gone to see him and Shom tells me how impossible it is to believe that he was a victim of a violent accident. There are no apparent outward injuries, no blood, nothing. In some ways, this is the most difficult thing to take.
A mind in denial cannot differentiate between this and a person sleeping. Outwardly, there WAS no difference.
I am devastated. I see the body and I am hit like a sledgehammer. In waves. Again and again.
The second important thing is that Vikrant's father and his brother, rushing from Holland, arrive. Within a few hours, formalities are completed and the body is put in a coffin. Accompanied by many of us, we make the sad, silent trip to the airport to bid a final goodbye to a departed friend.
What can be worse than surviving your own child, I cannot possibly contemplate.
The funeral will be held in Chandigarh and I will reach a couple of days later, starting a summer vacation that will be anything but.
I am very disturbed. I imagine making my 54 hour journey home, alone on a train with these thoughts and I cannot. I'll go crazy. I call up Dad and ask him to send some money for a flight back to Delhi, make the painful solo journey as short as possible.
There are many things to sort out. Many people had borrowed stuff from Vikrant-books, money, notes etc and all these are tracked down and recovered, mainly by Shom and put in bags. His room needs to be emptied and I take the black book case he had, with a few books still in them.
On every front page, he had written "In God We Trust"
We did, most of us anyway. But now that faith was being challenged.
The next few days:
I am going home. Dad has arranged an overnight stay for me in Chennai since my flight is in the early morning and he tells me not to take the night bus to the airport. There is no argument there.
I leave College and reach the Raj Bhawan where I am staying for the night. Dinner is brought but I can't eat. I'm just pacing up and down the room, not doing anything in particular, not thinking anything specifically.
The next morning, I am dropped off to the airport and a few hours later, I reach home.
Around 30th April:
Vikrant's funeral is over and I make my way to his house in Sector 24. His photograph, smiling as ever, lies surrounded by flowers and wreaths. I meet his parents and his two brothers, exchange some banal conversation about life in Holland and life in College, with our real thoughts elsewhere.
The sight of that photograph brings the first tears to my eyes. I am not alone.
I leave with a heavy heart. College will not be the same again.
It's a blur, to be honest. Vikrant's room had been locked for the past few days and with no mobile phones in those days, I hadn't spoken to him while he was at home. Walking past his room now, inventory done and locked again, I allow myself to imagine he is still at home and will be back soon, chiding us to read in that characteristic way he had. It's a luxury I have for a few moments because the sight of Shom, Rahul, Bong and Jain, all Vikrant's neighbors brings me back to the reality that Vikrant's room will soon no longer be his and that he is dead.
Dead....My mind cannot process that word. The finality of it. The sheer irreversible, inescapable knowledge that I have to accept it, however I feel. There isn't much choice.
Of course we spend a few hours in rhetoric....."Why did he have to go so young? What made an otherwise so-sensible guy take a lift from a truck? How do I face his parents when I go home, a few days from now?"
Most people he was close to are in varying degrees of shock and denial, anger and disbelief. If there was one person who was "grounded", as they say, it was Vikrant. He knew his priorities, knew what he wanted to do in life and knew how to party. He wanted to do Medicine later as a career and had read nearly all of Harrison's, much to our amusememt and wonder. He was rushing back because his Medicine Internship was due to start that day. A day missed would have meant that he would be ineligible to write the PGI Chandigarh Entrance Exam, a very big deal for him since it is a top notch Institute, in his hometown, and one he (and all of us) were sure he would crack.
We looked up to him. Now we were doing that literally.
There were some practical issues. The body has to formally identified and brought back. I refrain from going to Chengelpet Hospital, an hour away, and some of his classmates, on bikes accompany a Hearse Van. Pammi, a senior and doing Radiology, is also there as are Manoj, Sonal and a few of his seniors close to him.
Vikrant's body is brought back to Campus and is kept surrounded by flowers. I still haven't gone to see him and Shom tells me how impossible it is to believe that he was a victim of a violent accident. There are no apparent outward injuries, no blood, nothing. In some ways, this is the most difficult thing to take.
A mind in denial cannot differentiate between this and a person sleeping. Outwardly, there WAS no difference.
I am devastated. I see the body and I am hit like a sledgehammer. In waves. Again and again.
The second important thing is that Vikrant's father and his brother, rushing from Holland, arrive. Within a few hours, formalities are completed and the body is put in a coffin. Accompanied by many of us, we make the sad, silent trip to the airport to bid a final goodbye to a departed friend.
What can be worse than surviving your own child, I cannot possibly contemplate.
The funeral will be held in Chandigarh and I will reach a couple of days later, starting a summer vacation that will be anything but.
I am very disturbed. I imagine making my 54 hour journey home, alone on a train with these thoughts and I cannot. I'll go crazy. I call up Dad and ask him to send some money for a flight back to Delhi, make the painful solo journey as short as possible.
There are many things to sort out. Many people had borrowed stuff from Vikrant-books, money, notes etc and all these are tracked down and recovered, mainly by Shom and put in bags. His room needs to be emptied and I take the black book case he had, with a few books still in them.
On every front page, he had written "In God We Trust"
We did, most of us anyway. But now that faith was being challenged.
The next few days:
I am going home. Dad has arranged an overnight stay for me in Chennai since my flight is in the early morning and he tells me not to take the night bus to the airport. There is no argument there.
I leave College and reach the Raj Bhawan where I am staying for the night. Dinner is brought but I can't eat. I'm just pacing up and down the room, not doing anything in particular, not thinking anything specifically.
The next morning, I am dropped off to the airport and a few hours later, I reach home.
Around 30th April:
Vikrant's funeral is over and I make my way to his house in Sector 24. His photograph, smiling as ever, lies surrounded by flowers and wreaths. I meet his parents and his two brothers, exchange some banal conversation about life in Holland and life in College, with our real thoughts elsewhere.
The sight of that photograph brings the first tears to my eyes. I am not alone.
I leave with a heavy heart. College will not be the same again.
I think, looking back, I know why I didn't make the trip to Chengelpet that day.
ReplyDeleteI just didn't have the guts.