Friendships formed when one is young often tend to last a long time. Some of these relationships get stronger, some get revived when people meet after a time, some wither away because people drift apart and some are rent asunder by events beyond our control. This blog talks about a friendship which was terminated by one such act - not an act of God but wholly an act of man.
Kumar and I did our Management course together at XLRI, more than forty five years ago. He had the best of both worlds. A married sister of his used to stay within walking distance of the institute's hostel. He stayed with her notionally but spent almost all his waking hours with us at the hostel. His loud boisterous laughter could be heard often, punctuating almost every conversation.
In due course, we finished our course and joined the corporate world. For a time, both of us were in the same city. We used to meet often, usually at his sprawling family house in central Chennai. He had some health issues, sorted these out and then got married. After some time, we lost contact as I got transferred first and then changed companies and cities. I heard that he and his wife had moved to the States and he was doing well.
A couple of years later, a chance meeting with another classmate gave me the bad news that he was no more. More details emerged when more of us friends met. Apparently, it happened when he was traveling from the States to India. As he was coming down for a function in the family and couldn't get a direct flight, he went to Canada. With him were his wife, his sister and the sister's three children.
Unfortunately for him that plane was Air India's Boeing 747, Emperor Kanishka flying from Montreal to Bombay on 23 June 1985. More unfortunately, some terrorists had managed to place a bomb in the hold and even more unfortunately, the bomb went off when the plane was over the Atlantic. What was worse was that all the perpetrators were not found and convicted, apparently due to a botched investigation and a turf war involving two Canadian investigating agencies.
Terrorism is just some images on a television screen till it affects somebody close to us. It hit me that day.
What I haven't understood and never will, is what these madmen achieved by placing the bomb in the plane, apart from devastating the lives of almost three hundred families all over the globe - most of whom were not even from the country with which they had a grouse.
I can only tell Kumar 'Keep laughing, wherever you are, my friend'. Om Shanti.
Kumar and I did our Management course together at XLRI, more than forty five years ago. He had the best of both worlds. A married sister of his used to stay within walking distance of the institute's hostel. He stayed with her notionally but spent almost all his waking hours with us at the hostel. His loud boisterous laughter could be heard often, punctuating almost every conversation.
In due course, we finished our course and joined the corporate world. For a time, both of us were in the same city. We used to meet often, usually at his sprawling family house in central Chennai. He had some health issues, sorted these out and then got married. After some time, we lost contact as I got transferred first and then changed companies and cities. I heard that he and his wife had moved to the States and he was doing well.
A couple of years later, a chance meeting with another classmate gave me the bad news that he was no more. More details emerged when more of us friends met. Apparently, it happened when he was traveling from the States to India. As he was coming down for a function in the family and couldn't get a direct flight, he went to Canada. With him were his wife, his sister and the sister's three children.
Unfortunately for him that plane was Air India's Boeing 747, Emperor Kanishka flying from Montreal to Bombay on 23 June 1985. More unfortunately, some terrorists had managed to place a bomb in the hold and even more unfortunately, the bomb went off when the plane was over the Atlantic. What was worse was that all the perpetrators were not found and convicted, apparently due to a botched investigation and a turf war involving two Canadian investigating agencies.
Terrorism is just some images on a television screen till it affects somebody close to us. It hit me that day.
What I haven't understood and never will, is what these madmen achieved by placing the bomb in the plane, apart from devastating the lives of almost three hundred families all over the globe - most of whom were not even from the country with which they had a grouse.
I can only tell Kumar 'Keep laughing, wherever you are, my friend'. Om Shanti.
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Terrible. I remember a friend of our family with his wife and sons were on this flight to India. He was to perform Upanayanam of his sons.
ReplyDeleteThe grandparents were shell shocked and it took them days to come to terms with reality
Quite possibly my friend's sister's family. My friend Kumar was coming with his wife and his sister and her three children. He was coming down for the upanayanam of his sister's son(s)
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