Archive for the ‘Guest Column’ Category
Thinking from the Heart – Guest column by Nirmal
Karthik’s mobile beeped. It was early morning and Karthik was half asleep. He wondered who would have smsed him at time. He thought it must be some wake up / sms forward. He walked to the desk and picked his mobile and saw who had left the sms. It was Vignesh’s sms.
“I will there in 20 minutes time” – Karthik replied to his sms and started immediately.
Karthik started on his bike. It was raining but he was determined to reach there in 20 mins. It was a very well known location to everyone in the city. He went straight to fifth floor and saw Vignesh waiting in front of the ICU. There were a lot of relatives and family members of Vignesh’s friend Vijay.
“What happened?” – Karthik asked.
“He was supposed to join a new company in Bangalore on Monday. He went for shopping to buy things on the last moment and while returning home, his bike met with an accident yesterday night on Velachery highway. A good Samaritan helped him and admitted here. He has suffered multiple head injuries and is in ICU”
Vignesh’s friend was a professional acquaintance to Karthik. All studied in the same college but different branches of engineering. Vignesh and Karthik were classmates. Vijay and Vignesh were bus mates. Karthik came to know about his friend only at work. He used to work in the same office as Karthik’s. Only couple of days back he came to know about Vijay’s FAREWELL day at work and Karthik wished him good luck for a new venture.
Karthik was slightly getting dizzy seeing the people and emotional events happening around him. It was never a place to visit. Vignesh accompanied Karthik to a nearby tea stall. As they were sipping their coffee, Karthik asked Vignesh
“Where is Srinivasan? Why hasn’t he come now? Is he not in town? Is he in US by any chance now?”
“No, he is here. I called him up and he said he was not allowed to come by his parents as they have a religious family function at his home.”
Karthik didn’t want to continue talking about it further. Srinivasan was Vignesh and Vijay’s best friend. All three were very close and were best buddies since college. They can be always spotted together. Last time, Karthik saw them together in a reception, a year back. First Karthik thought there must have been some misunderstanding between the three. Being his best buddy, he thought Srinivasan would be obliged to be here at this moment ahead of him especially when his friend was in a serious condition admitted in hospital. They went back and were waiting in front of ICU to hear from doctor.
As the neatly dressed doctor came out of ICU, Karthik slowly stepped backwards as he didn’t want to hear what the doctor was about to say in fear.
Few Weeks Later,
Karthik at work met Prem, his former project colleague. Prem was a highly disciplined and religious person. He was more into religion for his age and Karthik was always in awe at his knowledge on religion. He used have a Lord Shiva picture as a desktop picture. Karthik knew every year, Prem would go to a temple and he would give prasadam and asked him why he didn’t give prasadam this time around.
“I didn’t go to the temple this time. I had to cancel the trip at the last moment because one of my colleague’s brother passed away. I have to start again the whole fasting, so I decided to go during off season in March and that time I will give you the prasadham“
Karthik was happy to hear that Prem decided to look beyond religion. Even today many religions see death as a bad omen and Karthik hopes that some day people will use their heart and question these customs rather than blindly following them.
************************************************The End ************************************************
About the author Nirmal: Nirmal is a long standing pal of mine. He is one of the people who pestered me to start a blog. He has a blog where he talks about people he interacts in his life. His central theme has been relationships, soccer and movies. He also writes short stories. This is one of them.
