An Obituary

I suppose you could count me lucky- since it took me 22.5 years of living to come so close to death. Sunday, March 27, 2008, my very close friend from school died in a road accident. I came to know it through an uncle who read a report in the newspaper.

Divya Subramanium – was a close friend from approximately 6 yrs. Very different from most of my other gal pals, she always had a certain air of purpose around her. She was one of those people who come across as very reserved; but actually easy to get along with. Among the very few who caught my jokes and sensed my temper, I miss you deeply, girl.

The sole reason why I ever went to the local temples was that she dragged me along. Always wanted to be an architect; she became a good one. A lecturer from college told her mother that she was going to be a rank holder when the university results would be out. She was doing her project in Bengaluru and was supposed to go back to Hubli. It’s the “Supposed to” that hurts.

As I recently discovered, the first feeling death causes is – disbelief. You have someone’s voice still in your head, you remember how they walked and smiled; but all that will never ever be seen. It is hard to get used to the fact that she is gone, gone forever. That you wont get calls from her saying “you haven’t bothered to keep in touch since you left to Manipal, have you?” And the disbelief eventually leads to grief.

I always fancied myself to be too sophisticated to cry at funerals. I cried like a baby at Divya’s. The fact that I am capable of so much grief is a self-discovery to me.

Her mother’s grief was beyond tears- she just talked and talked and talked.

I miss you, my very artistic, deep, beautiful and sensitive friend. My friend - lost to one of the city’s potholes and a BMTC bus. I will never forgive myself for not keeping up our appointment- you would probably have been as alive as ever had I fixed a date with you last weekend. The first thing that comes to my mind every morning I wake up is that you are, gone.

Although my grief is no where as deep as her parents’ whose only child she was, I deeply mourn her loss.