Phone conversations

Me: Hey, yo yo, wassap!

Friend: Heylooo. Acha, Rishabh, tell me something. How long have we known D?

Me: Around 7-8 years I suppose. Why?

Friend: Hmm and in that time did you ever bother to ask what her dad’s occupation was?

Me: Abey, don’t be silly; of course, he’s always in Kolkata right?

Friend: Right and doing what?

Me: Umm…he’s working with…hmm…I always thought he was running some sort of business there.

Friend: Rishabh! He is not a shopkeeper!

Me: No no no baba! I am not calling him a shopkeeper, as in a full fledged business. Something to do with raw material I suppose.

Friend: Oh you suppose is it?

Me: Well, it is the rational thing to assume right? The man is out of station most of the time; I assumed he was running some sort of business from outside.

Friend: Alright, I shall not even bother to ask you why you just said that. Moving on; so I was talking to D today and she was telling me how he’s always busy doing something or the other.

Me: Ahuh…

Friend: Oh, FYI, he is a scientist and works for BARC.

Me: Whoa. That’s interesting. Cool, didn’t know her dad fiddles around with atomic energy. I think she told me he goes to France a lot.

Friend: Fuck you, he goes to Switzerland. Geneva to be precise.

Me: Ah good fun.

Friend: Rishabh…

Me: What?

Friend: I said he goes to Geneva from time to time.

Me: Alright, so?

Friend: And do you know what’s happening in Geneva as we speak?

(Silence for a few seconds)

Me: (whispers) Oh fuck…

Friend: He fucking works with CERN. He’s like OUT THERE! You know those coat wearing scientist folks with those glasses who keep jotting down stuff and nodding every instant? He's probably like one of them.

A couple of hours later

D: Hello

M: WTF! Your dad works with the CERN guys. You never told us. Hell, I didn't event know that he was working for BARC!

D: Bah, I thought I did. I dunno re, he calls up the other day and starts rambling about all this science stuff.

M: You mean THE science stuff, you know the Large muthafuckin Hadron Collider stuff.

D: Yeah, that only.

M: And…

D: And what?

M: Are we going to die or live?

D: Some shit only. We will live re. He was saying how its all being blown outta proportion, all this fuss about that big machine they have. He was explaining to me some science thing. I couldn’t understand anything and got bored easily.

M: That’s understandable.

D: Yeah, so don't worry, there will be no black hole on this planet and I can finish my designs in peace (she studies at NIFT)…so..wassup?

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