Remembering Friends

It has been a while since I cyber-scribbled; chalk it up to inertia. You know how it goes. First you are busy. Then you tell yourself you are busy. And soon enough you start believing yourself – perhaps you really were so pre-occupied that you forgot to take that breath of air 1.3 seconds ago. In any case, today's newspaper provided the necessary jump potential to open the html editor, in OOo -2.0, of course. For the unitiated, that's OpenOffice.org 2.0. An alternative to MS Office. Works reasonably well but it is not immune to crashes. On the plus side, it takes far less disk space. I seem to have an obsessive need to keep as much disk space free as possible. Food for psychoanalyzing, maybe? But I digress.

Back to today's newspaper. I stumble into my office this morning after 4 hours sleep last night (for those who know me, I know it comes as a shock!). Get my “first” cup of coffee – I say “first”, because the count automagically resets itself whenever the number seems excessive! Open the front page of a couple of newspapers to get my dose of the day's news. And I find a familiar face on the front page of the Indian express! Dharmendra, a classmate from primary/high school, is celebrating a successfully completed run at the Bombay marathon. I don't mean celebrate, as in a frivolous showoff of resources or abilities. But is a poignant memorial to Manju, a friend he lost last year.

Manju was gunned down in a disgusting act of violence that cut short a promising beginning. He was an IIM, Lucknow graduate. Dharmendra, wearing a “Remembering Manju” bandana gloriously crossed the finish line. Good show, D. I never knew Manju. But how can you not admire the depth of their friendship and loyalty?

Here's the article as jpegs in two parts: part 1, part 2.