We miss you sister !

             Rajasekar a.k.a Raj is a core member of our friends circle and is more family than a friend. In 2007 he and Sanju gave us a double surprise, not only were they going to get married this year but they were getting married the same day at the same muhurtham (auspicious time) albeit at different parts of the city creating a bit of a logistical nightmare for all our families. The double couples got married on 30th August 2007 in traditional ceremonies and we wished them all a long happy life.

Earlier the same month on 5th August 2007 which was also a Friendship Day Sunday, we friends had a customary meetup at an upmarket restaurant and as expected Raj arrived last, but to our surprise brought along his then fiancée, Pavithra. My first impression and I judged too soon, was that Pavithra seemed like a reserved person and yet a very good match for Raj. While some of us were blowing away the sheesha (non- tobacco hookah with fruity flavours), Anees offered her the Sheesha and she nonchalantly declined "not my brand" with a whiff of an attitude. We were taken aback and all of us bursted out laughing at her sense of humor and welcomed her to our group. It was an evening to remember.

Raj was based out of Bangalore then and we did not meet often, but as a group we occasionally met up in family functions. A few years later in 2012, Raj moved to Chennai for various reasons. We organized a family get-together in March 2013 and that was probably one of the rare times all our families met and it was a good evening.

I moved to London in 2014 and returned in 2017 and hoped to catchup with all friends and family more often. Raj and Pavithra were now parents of 2 kids, son Vaibhav and daughter Damini. It was mid 2017 when Raj revealed that Pavithra was diagnosed with Neuro Endocrine Tumour i.e. cancer in simple terms and that the family had been fighting it for the past 18 months. We were all shocked to the core, she was just 34 yrs old and had a whole life ahead of her and it was brutally unfair to her, Raj and their kids. We prayed a lot and she fought a lot. She finally succumbed on 31st Jul'17. We all friends met her at Apollo hospital the day before, knowing it would probably be our last time. Not many words were spoken, I just gave Raj a hug, nothing I said could make a difference to what he was going through. I vividly remember the first and the last time I saw her.

It is events like these that question the very design and purpose of life. Why should she not get the pleasure of watching  her kids grow, why should Raj and kids miss out on seeing her grow old and tend to her like normal families do. We will never get these answers and the void in the family will forever remain.

It's been over 5 years since, and Raj despite losing his better half has been whole, stronger than ever and completely focused on his kids; his life revolves around them. We've caught up often since then and I do inquire about him and kids' health, well being etc, but hardly broached the topic of Pavithra. It goes without saying, the vacuum in his life continues.

This group of friends still misses Pavithra and on behalf of us all - We miss you sister !

Friendship day 5th August, 2007

It is Kola Perumal !

Time: Feb'96

Venue: T Nagar, Chennai, Shri Shankarlal Jain School

Event: RSP weekend camp

 A bunch i.e. around 12 of us had enrolled for a 2 day weekend RSP (Road Safety Patrol) camp organized by the Chennai city traffic police at Shri Shankarlal Jain School, T Nagar Chennai, in the pleasant month of Feb 1996. This camp was mainly held to promote road safety awareness among school kids which I personally felt was extremely necessary in the chaotic Indian City traffic. Our school had done reasonably well in the recent Republic Day parade held last month and we were all on an emotional high. Most of us faced the grim reality of our last few months of fun before we stepped into the rigor of 12th std routine, supposedly, the most important year of our lives. So we rather live it up now.

This camp was a mix of fun, social and awareness sessions and was planned well throughout the day. There were competitions ranging from painting, quiz, dance, music, talent shows and the occasional knowledge sessions on traffic and road safety awareness by the top officials of the city. Over 500 boys and girls from over 50 schools all over the city had culminated for this event. Although it was a casual weekend camp, the nature of the competition was extremely fierce with each school vying for the top spot in each of them.

I wanted to try my hands on the quiz competition. Our team M.Senthil, D.Jagdish and I participated in the quiz competition. The first round was a written competition with about 50 general knowledge questions and we thought we had done quite well, infact we felt the questions were too simple for us. After this round, we moved on to the other events as cheering squad for our school mates. I remember our boys also did an ad-zap show which was quite hilarious and the crowd loved it.

Later around 4pm was the announcement that quiz finalists were going to be announced and asked the finalists join the stage for the finale. This is how the announcement went on as the officer M.T.Varghese (some names stick in our mind all through our lives just like this one) on the mic announced loudly:

"The First Finalist is DAV school".. this didn't bother us and we were still confident we would crack it and that it would be us next.

"The Second Finalist is SBOA school".. damn, a hint of disappointment and confidence draining away and questioning ourselves if our overconfidence led to our underperformance.

"The Third Finalist of the evening is….".. after a short pause "Sacred Hearts School" and a bunch of girls celebrated frantically.

All our school mates were dejected and we turned out backs and started moving out. There was no way now, we could be the last team to be selected from the 50 odd schools eagerly waiting to be called out.

The officer now started out loud again "And the Fourth finalist of the evening is…………….." and there was an unexpected eerie silence among the 100s of students seated there, and Pramod from our school who diligently stayed back shouted "Kola Perumal" Everyone turned to him……….. Officer:  "YES IT IS KOLA PERUMAL !!!"

We 3 were ecstatic and ran up to the stage on hearing our school name and our school mates cheered us as loud as they could as if we had won the competition itself. We made it through..!

 P.S. - The finals itself was a bit somber and all questions were around traffic rules and regulations and definitely not our forte. We ended the competition at a joint 3rd but more than the final onstage participation, the selection process is what we all enjoyed more and recollected often in our get-togethers.

Marching Bands of RD Parade

Date: 26th Jan, 1996

Event: Republic Day Parade

Venue: Marina beach, Chennai in the presence of then Chief Minister, Dr J Jayalalitha

THE SELECTION:

It was a winter morning of January 1996 when our RSP (Road Safety Patrol) teacher incharge informed us of an opportunity to participate in the Tamil Nadu's State Republic Day parade in the presence of our TN Chief Minister, Dr J. Jayalalitha. I personally didn't gauge how big this event was. Till then I had only witnessed the grand Republic Day parade on TV live from Rajpath, New Delhi only to have goosebumps seeing contingent after contingent marching along with the heart thumping beats. My favorite was always the Indian Navy contingent although there is very little to differentiate between the synchronised marching of each of these contingents. Since I was part of my school's RSP (Road Safety Patrol) troop, I listed myself among the bunch of other guys and girls who enrolled. Then followed the rigorous part - 

We were asked to report to the RSP Chennai HQ the circa first week of Jan'96 around 6 am. My school mates joined, around 12 guys and 6 girls and so did 300 other students from all over the city. We were asked to march in batches of 8 made up of random guys and 3 officers watched over and selected the best among these. At the end, most of our school guys made it including Sanjayan, Santhana Krishnan, Nagendran, Saravanan, Vijayababu, Venkatesh, Vijay Sharma, Prashanth, Sharmila, Kavitha, Jayashree. I remember Sumitha weeping over getting rejected. The rest of us were asked to report every morning at 5.30 am for the marching drills. Our RSP teacher Mrs. Jayalakshmi congratulated all of us, this was one of the largest group ever to be selected from our school. Our previous stint as NCC cadres definitely helped us here. 

THE DRILLS:

This was the part none of us looked forward to. I had to literally wake at 4.30 am every morning, get ready and take the 5am bus and I diligently did it all the days, so did rest of my school mates and so did the 80+ selected finalists from the city. We were an army of white and white boys and girls marching to the thumping beats of the drum and our shoes kicking in sync hard on the tar roads. We were initially pathetic in terms of coordination, but as the days went by, the entire troop marched extremely well and the officers seemed happy too. Still they did not relax their scrutiny every step of the way, literally. The girl contingent marched ahead and we were next inline, so we had to pace accordingly. We practiced for 18 straight days, an hour drill every morning until the D day.

THE D-DAY - REPUBLIC DAY, JAN 26 1996.

My dad, being an ex-Indian Navy officer always had a couple of uniforms in his suitcase. Mom being an excellent tailor decided to tweak one of his shirt and trouser to fit me. I felt privileged to wear an Indian Navy uniform on the RD parade. I ensured my shoes were shiny black after an hour long polishing. This time we had to report at 4.30 in the morning as we had get everything in place for the march on time. I was super excited and started from home at 3.45 am and there were special buses from all over the city. Managed to reach Marina beach before 4.30 am and was surprised to see the hustle bustle this early in the morning.

All contingents were dressed up in their crisp uniforms and so was I, in a crisp white double pocketed Indian Navy uniform customized for RSP and shiny black leather shoes. Some of my contingent boys were already there and slowly the boys and girls trickled and in no time we were a full house. In the final adjustments to our contingent, luckily or coincidently all our school boys were placed in crucial posts. Nagendra was leading the contingent, Santhana Krishnan was the right corner man, means he didn't have to salute to the CM and had to continue with his marching, it's a privileged position. Rest of us were in the side rows either facing the crowd/tv cameras or facing the CM. I was on the crowd side. There was a contingent of Black Cats- the special forces right ahead of us and we were awed at their army, all standard above 6 ft tall, with their advanced guns and all black uniforms - boy and they stood apart. Our group rehearsed to the bands and we were all pumped up and the fishermen crowd around us cheered us and enjoyed watching us march on.

THE MARCHING:

Around 5.30am, I witnessed the best sunrise of my life, was a clear morning and the orange ball rose slowly from the Bay of Bengal. Not many know but Chennai has one of the best sunrises you can witness. Around 6am we began our marching. And at the instruction of our RSP officer, off we took, marching hard to the thumping beats of our band and to the loud cheers of the public around. We crossed the CM stage in about 20min and it was a goosebump moment for us. All our efforts of the past 20 days came down to this moment and we did good! We were all on a high and pumped up and thanks to the crowd cheering all around us, it kept our adrenaline high. What we weren't prepared for was the distance, it was a 3km long march through the full stretch of the Marina beach starting from the fishermen huts behind light house until Madras University. We thought we just had to march past the CM dais and then we could relax but with constant wave of crowds all along the Marina stretch, we couldn't rest until we reached the end point and eventually we did. Our officers applauded us for our effort and we ended our stint with a loud -

HIP HIP HURRAY!

HIP HIP HURRAY!!

HIP HIP HURRAY!!!