I thought I should write down the dream I had.. in which my friend came to me and made me feel that although he was gone, he was OK.. and it was alright.. I will never know what happened,
did he repent his decision to take his life when it was too late..
I will never know if he can see how we are reacting to him and his passing away.
Will he be disappointed and feel betrayed by the way we are dissecting his character and behaviour
to find answer to our mean and petty questions.. But, I do feel that if some one wants to remember Balaji, they should have some pointers to his life and person.. such as what I remember of him. I feel it is unfair to judge his whole person and life by the way he chose to end it. The thought that I should write the dream, came in an outer-layer-dream. And then in that dream, (first level of dreaming, from which I would wake up to reality,) I even thought of the title of the blog. Then I started thinking of sentences that I would write..
Mentally, I made a note of the kind of things that need to be written down... of him, of the dream I had within, and the things I felt.
Here is where the I part comes in.
Inside my dream, the talk I had with Balaji was a personal experience. It was a big relief, it was a very overwhelming experience. It was very touching.. and intimate. It made me cry and laugh at the same time in my dream.. an experience where everything becomes clear.. (it is no longer clear now, but it was absolutely clear within my dream). I woke up into the outer dream, and felt so overwhelmed.. and remembered all the endearing things about Balaji. I felt grateful that he came to me and helped me understand his not being here. Infact, I thought for a little while, even my lack of reaction to his going away was reasonable.
Perhaps the true mourning had occured in that dream within dream.
And then I had to ruin it by thinking I need to write it down for others to know.
I woke up and turned the light on. and Prince asked me what happened and I told him everything.. of my dream.
At that moment, the sanctity of the dream, of my conversation with Balaji, and of my emotions of affection and missing Balaji, and of my true mourning for him, were gone! They were ALL reduced to the garbage of exhibition to my husband as to how much I was missing my friend. After I told him everything, I cried a bit.. not because I was mourning for my friend, but because how It ALL had to be about others' perception of my feelings and personality. I was ashamed my craving for others' attention. even in mourning a close friend.
I actually sat on the toilet and thought, how I need to come clean and write how my mourning is a mixture.
How my memorial blog is a mixture of my need to be seen as a caring-affectionate friend and perhaps (Just perhaps) paying a true tribute to a friend who perhaps cant see any of it. Then, sitting there, I thought, if I write that
I am not sure if my mourning is true or exhibitionist, some of my well-
wishers will say how it is not, and I am indeed a caring person and that will solve the issue.
So, I think there is a need for you readers to know that I am extremely self centered. Even in mourning. I am completely aware that you might be tricked into thinking of me as a caring friend who is missing Balaji.. I am not entirely sure how much of this is an honest memorial, and how much a stage-show. But among all that, if I can make you remember Balaji, for what a good guy he was, my primary goal is achieved.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Days in College
My introduction to Balaji, was when, he and Vamshi had devised a fake virus when I had borrowed
Fortran77 from them in second semester..It scared the crap out of me and Sandhya
(whose computer it went on). When I called Balaji after we had figured it out, he could not hide his curiosity and kept asking me .. how did the installation go..
How he and I and (may be Prashanth) used to giggle a lot .. he for one, could not hold his giggle.
He would hold his mouth with his right Palm, with four of his fingers on his left cheek,
his thumb over the side of his nose and his nostrils would flare up and down..
and then he would laugh uncontrollably.. tears and all..
(I still could not remember the style of his laugh on the day I told all this to Prince).
He was caught often by BJS (one of our lecturers).
He was talented in so many ways.. he was whiz at computers, self-taught mostly.. he sang exceptionally well.. he was a performing artist for All India Radio. At times, he used to sing so well, that there would be tears in my eyes for no reason.
To me, my singing was a ridiculous gig when he sang. I remember, when we were preparing to sing the prayers for inauguration of IETE consortium, how we laughed at the HOD's office..
HOD was making us sing (a practice run) in his tiny office while he was attending a phone call,
(Imagine HOD, behind his desk and then chairs facing the desk, and then, in a 2 X 6 passage, there was Balaji, me and Vamshi with his Tabla! ). Our situation was quite hilarious, and on top of it, HOD did not want to disturb the practices, and at the same time, did not want the other party to hear the bhajan-keerthan. So he had cupped his hand over the receiver .. and was whispering in to the the mouthpiece and he had to repeat many times so that the other person could hear..
We could not continue singing and started laughing uncontrollably..
HOD was offended I think.. Balaji ALWAYS initiated these laughs,, it was always his fault!
Another of those rehearsals, HOD had called us in his room, (he was compulsive obsessive in some ways). He all of a sudden, while he was listening to our singing, got irritated by the fact that his phone wire (the coiled part) was all looped up. He left the receiver hang to the floor and let it rotate on its axis so that it will get untangled. and Along with our singing, the ring tone and later the engaged-tone started humming.. Me and Balaji looked at each other and we started giggling. Dr. HSS asked us "what happened?", we had no answer, we had to ask him some stupid question to divert him from the fact that we were laughing at him.
He would mimic, MSV, Anant Raman, FFT (what was his name ?) sir,
and a bunch of others. He had a disdain for stupid people.. he was very cocky that way.
Him and I used to laugh at our mutually hated people among our acquaintances.. He would bait me about 2 self-centered people among our seniors who thought the solar system orbited around them. I would bait him about the dumb girls in our class.
And we would bitch about every one.. and feel good about ourselves!
He had played many many pranks in college. Once him and a couple of others had pretended to be drunk on our way back from Bangalore. I ( still in my khadi-clad-ideological-self), was extremely disappointed in the cream-of-youth of my college.. They played so well! damn! He even said looking at HV-line tower, that he was looking at Eiffel tower, he even picked a fight with one of his competitors, Rajesh Maiyya, I was such a sucker!! I started crying silently.
It took them a lot to convince me that they were kidding with me!
If there was one thing that made Balaji stand apart from the rest of us,
it was the confidence to go and do things that the others can only talk in awe about. He had vision of things much ahead of our times. He dreamt of doing things.. he wanted to open an Embedded Systems Research
and Development Center (ESRDC hewanted to call it), of all the discouraging places in the world, in National Institute of Engineering!. He even managed to get companies to give us free development kits to learn to work micro controllers. That is only an example. He wanted to do so many things! He ran ahead of everything and created opportunities. He had the hope, no make that bull-headed confidence that things will work for him.. and dare they deviate, he would go wring their neck to abide! He had knowledge, imagination, confidence and vision to form his future.
What could life have done to kill the spirits of such a spirit, I dare not imagine.
But I sure hope people remember him for his stubborn confidence,for his dreams and for his will to go the extra untrodden mile, for his will to put in the effort towards realizing his dreams at the cost of his life.
I cant remember all of the things about him.. but.. but when I do, I will add them here. I dont want to lose the memories of him. This is what is left of him with me you know?
Fortran77 from them in second semester..It scared the crap out of me and Sandhya
(whose computer it went on). When I called Balaji after we had figured it out, he could not hide his curiosity and kept asking me .. how did the installation go..
How he and I and (may be Prashanth) used to giggle a lot .. he for one, could not hold his giggle.
He would hold his mouth with his right Palm, with four of his fingers on his left cheek,
his thumb over the side of his nose and his nostrils would flare up and down..
and then he would laugh uncontrollably.. tears and all..
(I still could not remember the style of his laugh on the day I told all this to Prince).
He was caught often by BJS (one of our lecturers).
He was talented in so many ways.. he was whiz at computers, self-taught mostly.. he sang exceptionally well.. he was a performing artist for All India Radio. At times, he used to sing so well, that there would be tears in my eyes for no reason.
To me, my singing was a ridiculous gig when he sang. I remember, when we were preparing to sing the prayers for inauguration of IETE consortium, how we laughed at the HOD's office..
HOD was making us sing (a practice run) in his tiny office while he was attending a phone call,
(Imagine HOD, behind his desk and then chairs facing the desk, and then, in a 2 X 6 passage, there was Balaji, me and Vamshi with his Tabla! ). Our situation was quite hilarious, and on top of it, HOD did not want to disturb the practices, and at the same time, did not want the other party to hear the bhajan-keerthan. So he had cupped his hand over the receiver .. and was whispering in to the the mouthpiece and he had to repeat many times so that the other person could hear..
We could not continue singing and started laughing uncontrollably..
HOD was offended I think.. Balaji ALWAYS initiated these laughs,, it was always his fault!
Another of those rehearsals, HOD had called us in his room, (he was compulsive obsessive in some ways). He all of a sudden, while he was listening to our singing, got irritated by the fact that his phone wire (the coiled part) was all looped up. He left the receiver hang to the floor and let it rotate on its axis so that it will get untangled. and Along with our singing, the ring tone and later the engaged-tone started humming.. Me and Balaji looked at each other and we started giggling. Dr. HSS asked us "what happened?", we had no answer, we had to ask him some stupid question to divert him from the fact that we were laughing at him.
He would mimic, MSV, Anant Raman, FFT (what was his name ?) sir,
and a bunch of others. He had a disdain for stupid people.. he was very cocky that way.
Him and I used to laugh at our mutually hated people among our acquaintances.. He would bait me about 2 self-centered people among our seniors who thought the solar system orbited around them. I would bait him about the dumb girls in our class.
And we would bitch about every one.. and feel good about ourselves!
He had played many many pranks in college. Once him and a couple of others had pretended to be drunk on our way back from Bangalore. I ( still in my khadi-clad-ideological-self), was extremely disappointed in the cream-of-youth of my college.. They played so well! damn! He even said looking at HV-line tower, that he was looking at Eiffel tower, he even picked a fight with one of his competitors, Rajesh Maiyya, I was such a sucker!! I started crying silently.
It took them a lot to convince me that they were kidding with me!
If there was one thing that made Balaji stand apart from the rest of us,
it was the confidence to go and do things that the others can only talk in awe about. He had vision of things much ahead of our times. He dreamt of doing things.. he wanted to open an Embedded Systems Research
and Development Center (ESRDC hewanted to call it), of all the discouraging places in the world, in National Institute of Engineering!. He even managed to get companies to give us free development kits to learn to work micro controllers. That is only an example. He wanted to do so many things! He ran ahead of everything and created opportunities. He had the hope, no make that bull-headed confidence that things will work for him.. and dare they deviate, he would go wring their neck to abide! He had knowledge, imagination, confidence and vision to form his future.
What could life have done to kill the spirits of such a spirit, I dare not imagine.
But I sure hope people remember him for his stubborn confidence,for his dreams and for his will to go the extra untrodden mile, for his will to put in the effort towards realizing his dreams at the cost of his life.
I cant remember all of the things about him.. but.. but when I do, I will add them here. I dont want to lose the memories of him. This is what is left of him with me you know?
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