Vignesh Prakash

Vignesh Prakash was a senior at school that I really admired, while at school. It's almost cliched how wacky and brilliant he was. Bringing laptops to school to finish his projects while most of us didn't know what Windows was. The most fond memory I had of his was on the day of their batch's farewell when he jogged up to me with his digicam and put his huge arm around me and asked me to smile for the camera alongside him. According to him, I was one of the very few juniors, "worth knowing".

Years later he buzzed me on Gtalk outta the blue and asked me what I was up to. Upon hearing that I was going to BITS, he told me "Dude, cummon man," and gave me a long list of reasons as to why an American higher education is better than anything India has to offer.

And since then, every now and then, perhaps once in a couple of months, he'd buzz me, just ask me how I was doing and what was happening in life. I can't explain it, but it felt good, when a person, whom you barely knew in school, yet admired, was taking somewhat keen interest in your life.

Last month I found out that he had passed away. I couldn't find any links on the internet nor any sort of information about him. Finally I found a Facebook group dedicated to him by his friends in the US(He was studying at University of Texas and had secured admission at CALTech for his post grad).

I found out that he had committed suicide. For a couple of days, it was all I could think about. There was a very strange hollowness inside me for those few days, where I kept thinking what would drive someone like Vignesh to end his life. From the little that I knew of him, he was exceptionally brilliant and loved the life in the US. Yet his friends tell me that something wasn't right. Whatever it be, I hope he has found his peace. It shouldn't have been this way though.

I mean it, when I say this: I'll miss him.

This is Vignesh's Facebook Profile
This is a memorial page on Facebook