Farewell Nitin !!!
My first memory of Nitin is a tall lanky guy standing by a near empty Dombivali suburban platform, waiting for a train. The memory remains stark for 2 reasons - Dombivali station is never ever empty, and the other was the person itself. The first reason was easy to explain - it was a Sunday evening, and the train was going in the wrong direction i.e. against the flow of traffic. The second reason is the person itself; lean, bespectacled, unassuming, but magnetic in his personality. I had known Nitin vaguely over the last 2 months or so - we were both classmates at Welingkars Institute of management , at that time a small but quite well known B-school in suburbs of Mumbai. We had hardly interacted - I had made friends and he and his group of friends were different from my set, and the classroom projects and collaborations were yet to start in an earnest manner.
That evening on the train station, as were both headed to sleepovers with our respective friends - due to a early morning picnic the next day, we found ourselves talking to each other and getting to know each other better. It was easy - because that is the kind of person Nitin was - friendly yet slightly diffident, of easy intelligence, ever smiling, a hint of sarcasm in his jokes. Over the course of next 45 minutes or so - we became friends !! You see with Nitin it was that simple. Not for him the arrogance and pride of a MBA Student. He was more earthly, a simple person, a small town person caught one might say in the clutches of big town.
Over the next 2 years we became quite good friends. Ours was a unique friendship, one might say. Both Cancerians, both bespectacled (yes - it is a thing !!!) and both hailing from that part of Mumbai that required a commute of 90 minutes each way to our college. While we could be found at times in the same train going to the college, we usually were together going back home. This train commute was the cement of our friendship. We talked, we sang, we joked and we discussed a lot of things - girls, studies, career interests and our our futures. With Nitin - everything was easy. Fun loving, ever joking and yet concealing a sharp intellect, that would once in while shine through a deep observation or a clever quip. Life was rarely dull with Nitin around.
I especially remember the time around our 4th semester. A chunk of us were already having a job in our hands through campus, and with bright careers beckoning us, life was for enjoyment. Watching movies, bunking classes, sleepovers and generally eating out with friends was what campus life was all about. And Nitin was literally the life of party in those good times. He brought his own special brand down-to-earth humor in every situation. I still remember a good couple of days we spent watching Hera Pheri, and making merry in my empty house as my folks were away. My love for Dal
Baati is legendary in my family (especially considering how die-hard non vegetarian I'm), and Nitin is the sole cause of it. Nitin invited a few of us to his home for lunch and we were served the most amazing Dal Baati by his mother. That was perhaps the first time when I possibly could not get up after having a meal - so filling were the dollops of wheat fried in pure ghee, and served with the most satisfying dal i have ever eaten. Despite having it at many places including at top restaurants, I have never had as yummy a dal baati as I had at his place. Now when I think about it, it was the love that his family poured into the food that made it so lovely. And it is now not hard to see where Nitin got his sunny disposition.
Unfortunately we never kept in touch too much after college, drifting in our diverse careers - he going on to the world of marketing, and me tapping away at my keyboard and screen as a Cyber coolie. We kept meeting at college reunions, friendly meetings, but these meetings were few and far between. Eventually we both got married, had kids and settled down in different continents, time zones apart. He had become a hot shot marketing executive working for a jewelry firm in US (or something similar), made frequent appearances on TV - all the information through Whats app which kind of kept us in touch. He had married (which I could not attend - i don't even recollect what kept me away), had kids - almost as old as my kids and was living a life of dreams according to me. As happens, we drifted from being friends to batch-mates to being just 2 members on the same whats app group. Out of sight, out of mind - never truer than in this case.
On May 16, driving on a business trip to Pune, I thought of Nitin again - brought fresh to my mind through that wonderful train of thought that connects the most unlikeliest of thoughts together and pulls our from our inner recesses of memory long forgotten thoughts. Nitin was close to a couple of Parsi girls from our batch and as I headed to a business meeting with Parsi ownership, I thought of Nitin and his 2 Bawi friends and how we used to tease him about his gal pals. It was only a few hours later that I discovered on my Welingkar's whats app group that Nitin was no more - passing away in the night half the world away quite suddenly. It came as a shock, the suddenness and abruptness of it all, snatching away life in an proverbial instant.
It did not take the outpouring of grief and pain on the group to know how liked Nitin was. He was literally the Mr. Congeniality of our batch. Never belonging to any group, or gang, he flitted in and out of all of them, making friends everywhere. His broad toothy grin was his handshake and that held everyone of us it its warmth and honesty. I always envied him for his friendly manner, his warmth and how easily life seemed to him. Unfortunately I will never get to tell it to him, and worse will never get to experience it again. Like all good things must end, and they do so too quickly - Nitin also passed away too quickly !! Farewell my friend, you will be missed !!!
That evening on the train station, as were both headed to sleepovers with our respective friends - due to a early morning picnic the next day, we found ourselves talking to each other and getting to know each other better. It was easy - because that is the kind of person Nitin was - friendly yet slightly diffident, of easy intelligence, ever smiling, a hint of sarcasm in his jokes. Over the course of next 45 minutes or so - we became friends !! You see with Nitin it was that simple. Not for him the arrogance and pride of a MBA Student. He was more earthly, a simple person, a small town person caught one might say in the clutches of big town.
Over the next 2 years we became quite good friends. Ours was a unique friendship, one might say. Both Cancerians, both bespectacled (yes - it is a thing !!!) and both hailing from that part of Mumbai that required a commute of 90 minutes each way to our college. While we could be found at times in the same train going to the college, we usually were together going back home. This train commute was the cement of our friendship. We talked, we sang, we joked and we discussed a lot of things - girls, studies, career interests and our our futures. With Nitin - everything was easy. Fun loving, ever joking and yet concealing a sharp intellect, that would once in while shine through a deep observation or a clever quip. Life was rarely dull with Nitin around.
I especially remember the time around our 4th semester. A chunk of us were already having a job in our hands through campus, and with bright careers beckoning us, life was for enjoyment. Watching movies, bunking classes, sleepovers and generally eating out with friends was what campus life was all about. And Nitin was literally the life of party in those good times. He brought his own special brand down-to-earth humor in every situation. I still remember a good couple of days we spent watching Hera Pheri, and making merry in my empty house as my folks were away. My love for Dal
Baati is legendary in my family (especially considering how die-hard non vegetarian I'm), and Nitin is the sole cause of it. Nitin invited a few of us to his home for lunch and we were served the most amazing Dal Baati by his mother. That was perhaps the first time when I possibly could not get up after having a meal - so filling were the dollops of wheat fried in pure ghee, and served with the most satisfying dal i have ever eaten. Despite having it at many places including at top restaurants, I have never had as yummy a dal baati as I had at his place. Now when I think about it, it was the love that his family poured into the food that made it so lovely. And it is now not hard to see where Nitin got his sunny disposition.
Unfortunately we never kept in touch too much after college, drifting in our diverse careers - he going on to the world of marketing, and me tapping away at my keyboard and screen as a Cyber coolie. We kept meeting at college reunions, friendly meetings, but these meetings were few and far between. Eventually we both got married, had kids and settled down in different continents, time zones apart. He had become a hot shot marketing executive working for a jewelry firm in US (or something similar), made frequent appearances on TV - all the information through Whats app which kind of kept us in touch. He had married (which I could not attend - i don't even recollect what kept me away), had kids - almost as old as my kids and was living a life of dreams according to me. As happens, we drifted from being friends to batch-mates to being just 2 members on the same whats app group. Out of sight, out of mind - never truer than in this case.
On May 16, driving on a business trip to Pune, I thought of Nitin again - brought fresh to my mind through that wonderful train of thought that connects the most unlikeliest of thoughts together and pulls our from our inner recesses of memory long forgotten thoughts. Nitin was close to a couple of Parsi girls from our batch and as I headed to a business meeting with Parsi ownership, I thought of Nitin and his 2 Bawi friends and how we used to tease him about his gal pals. It was only a few hours later that I discovered on my Welingkar's whats app group that Nitin was no more - passing away in the night half the world away quite suddenly. It came as a shock, the suddenness and abruptness of it all, snatching away life in an proverbial instant.
It did not take the outpouring of grief and pain on the group to know how liked Nitin was. He was literally the Mr. Congeniality of our batch. Never belonging to any group, or gang, he flitted in and out of all of them, making friends everywhere. His broad toothy grin was his handshake and that held everyone of us it its warmth and honesty. I always envied him for his friendly manner, his warmth and how easily life seemed to him. Unfortunately I will never get to tell it to him, and worse will never get to experience it again. Like all good things must end, and they do so too quickly - Nitin also passed away too quickly !! Farewell my friend, you will be missed !!!
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