Loss

Death is a time for introspection. A time to recollect memories about the deceased or kin of the deceased.
A college friend's daughter met with a tragic death last week. When I first met her after the morning mass on a Sunday many years ago, she was a jumpy little kid not yet in her teens. Her mother told me that looking after two girls of around the same age was full time work, and hence she didn't pursue a full time career outside of the home. I smiled inwardly, for that's the common refrain of many home makers. Of course I was no full time mom having outsourced much of the chores to the live-in nanny. I just about existed between the work front and the domestic front.
But she was no ordinary home maker. She was a good singer. Another time she told me she was getting her music album ready. She was the prime singer in the church choir too. But none of that showed in her demeanor. To me she was humility personified. Not to mention good looks and intelligence (as a student).
I first met her when I joined the college hostel in the second year of my post graduation. I had won the seat with great difficulty, while she had come fresh from Kerala to do her Master's. Very soon we became fellow sufferers of the ragging that's a hallmark of the halls. She told me not to give up, and that it will be over soon. She didn't want to go back like she did when she joined another Madras college for her BA. She couldn't afford a second running back and losing a year in the process. But I ran away after a week to my old hostel outside campus. Not only the humiliation of being ragged by peers, but a feeling of imprisonment overpowered me - not being able to walk outside campus, trudge the foot overbridge and board the local train at Tambaram station, and experience its sights and sounds on a daily basis and sleep under a ceiling fan (the halls played it safe by not having ceiling fans, students had to bring their own pedestal fans) was suffocating.
Sindhu told me my departure saved them from more ragging, and the tormentors got the brunt of it from the warden. But I lost not only the caution deposit but also the chance to make a lasting friendship with a true blue Keralite. We smiled at each other or chatted briefly whenever we met after class.
She soon became a sought-after singer for college programmes while Tamil teachers of English corrected her diction as she sang "chinna chinna aasai" a la Chitra (with apologies to Mini Joseph or minmini who actually sang it). A resident fan played match maker, and found her a suitor in his cousin.
23 years later, their happy dream-like life gets a rude and tragic shock, one that they may never recover from. Like Dritharashtrar's puthradukham, losing a child is the greatest sorrow for a parent.