Karthik’s story, an unfinished life
Losing a friend like Karthik was a personal setback for both Sitaram and me. Karthik had long been nurturing an ambitious soul within his being, like a limited edition diamond ring that he wanted to protect at all costs, to make up to his beloved father that he missed so much.
Losing his father much earlier in life in Chennai was undoubtedly extremely difficult for young Karthik to deal with in the first place, not to mention his entire family who, having lost their only breadwinner/guardian, were unable to carry on. living in the city of his childhood. : Chennai.
Survival wasn’t a problem, but the unforgettable memories were, and there were too many of them to break their hearts and scatter their lives in endless misery. His father was, I guess, a minor league film producer of Tamil and Telugu films in his heyday. He produced enough movies to earn enough money that he went a long way toward sending his eldest son to the US, not to mention raising his two daughters and his youngest son, Karthik.
Karthik had once told me that I shouldn’t think that his father’s death had anything to do with film production losses or that it was somehow a debt that his family had to pay to debtors. The fact was that his father suffered from a congenital heart disease that dangerously aggravated his condition even after prolonged diagnosis and had died of cardiac arrest. Karthik’s father was no longer living in this world, but the death of his father broke Karthik’s young heart. He had told me that if it weren’t for his mother, he would have taken his own life that very day his father left for his heavenly home. The tears and abject helplessness in his mother’s eyes gave young Karthik the will to live long enough to serve his only surviving father.
I remember what Sitaram and I once said to him when we were sitting on the terrace of our office building eating from our open lunch boxes: “It is not important, Karthik, the circumstances in which your father died. What is perhaps more important is to live a purposeful life and dedicate it to your mother and siblings. Live your life in the loving memory of your father.” What is undeniable is that you are grieving the loss of your beloved father, but you have to live and be your father’s beloved son.” We know that Life is sometimes unfair; but this time it was totally unfair to Karthik.
His family thought that he was prudent enough to leave the city in which they lived so happily until now. Still, leaving her previous life in Chennai and not before completing her formal education, she preferred to leave along with her surviving mother, two sisters and an older brother to start a new life here in the city of Hyderabad. Memories of Chennai were always present in the heart of the family; they could never forget them and how could they.
Moving to Hyderabad brought a semblance of balance in Karthik’s personal life, not to mention his dire emotional situation which I am sure at one point was too overwhelming for him to face or accept. He seemed so much better than what he was dealing with in Chennai with all his unforgettable childhood memories and carefree college years and his father’s successful film production business that had finally ceased to exist. There could be a variety of reasons for that, but I never felt it was right to push Karthik into saying something that he’d rather not reveal or talk about. It was beyond me to meddle like that. On the contrary, he shared many stories with us about his idyllic and carefree life in Chennai, for example: he shook hands with many popular movie stars, took their candid photos and autographs, and even shared some laughs. with them. For Karthik and his happy family, life was exactly what it was supposed to be. Idyllic.
I still remember very clearly when Karthik’s older brother, a US resident, married a demure girl chosen by his mother at the fancy new Greek Park Hotel, Hyderabad. Me and Sitaram, resplendent in our best attractions, had attended the reception. We simply loved the food, the atmosphere, the lawn where we had had a nice dinner and of course the company of all his family of distant relatives and cousins who came from different places to celebrate the occasion with joy and pride. The general bonhomie that followed was something to behold. A brilliant evening well spent in the company of Karthik’s family and friends.
we still miss our friend
Fate had dealt another cruel blow to the already bereaved family; our dear friend Karthik Krishna, who had the whole world at his feet, breathed his last in a US hospital. Karthik was driving his brother’s car alone on an interstate highway when a white hooligan crashed into his car from behind with such brutal force that Karthik lost control of his car and fell headfirst into a ditch at the side of the road. He instantly passed out in his car, which was twisted and wrinkled beyond belief. Precious time passed before he was taken to a nearby hospital and put on emergency medication. He was almost lifeless; he never came out of the coma. After a long wait of two days and agonizing nights, our dear friend Karthik was declared deceased. In fact, as Sitaram told me, after the accident he never regained consciousness, not even for a moment or two to see his mother, brother (whose care he was leading) and sisters who were waiting for his return. . Karthik never woke up.
The dream of fulfilling his father’s wishes could not come true. Just when things in his immediate family were slowly getting back to normal, God had to take Karthik!
Sitaram and I had been missing it so much and the memories of our daily little after-lunch party at a Kirana cum bakery tucked away in the lane just behind our office building. After the year 1997, my life changed dramatically, drastically; it was never the same again, as if my very existence, my mind and my spirit, had received a severe blow.
With Karthik’s death, our era of friendship between trios had also passed. After Sitaram returned to the US, we hardly ever exchanged emails. Time and Distance took their toll on any trace of our friendship that remained between Sitaram and me; that too had been eclipsed, permanently. Rest in peace oh dear friend Karthik, Rest in peace. Sitaram and I still miss you dearly. I dedicate a dear song to you:
“Oh yaara… tu pyaro se hai pyara,
Oh yaara… tu pyaro se hai pyara,
Mera hai, mere hello rahega,
Dil give hand toh yeh kahoonga
paya jug sara…”
Among his many favorite English albums: one was without a doubt AQUA. Songs like “I’m a Barbie girl, in my Barbie world… Life in plastic; it’s fantastic…” and “Doctor Jones.” She used to keep listening to her hit songs on her CD-walkman that she often brought to the office:
The other rock band he liked was MICHEAL LEARNS TO ROCK. MLTR’s “That’s Why You’re Going”, “Sleeping Child”, “Someday” and such wonderful songs as “Paint My Love” and “Breaking My Heart” were his perpetual favorites back in 1997, and so were mine. There were also others that blared from our music systems all day and night: “I’ll always be right there,” “Straight from the heart,” “Heaven” by BRYAN ADAMS, PHIL COLLINS, ROXETTE, BON JOVI, BEE GEES, ABBA, STING, with a lot of “Songbird” by KENNY G and “Tribute” by YANNI (one of our favourites!).
(The fact is that the Barbie song, girly as it sounds, had caught our attention so much that we made it a point to turn on MTV or Channel V as soon as we got home from the office and wait for the song to come on. countdown, just for the fun of it. Crazy!)
With beloved Karthik gone forever, Sitaram is also not within my reach and not even on the near periphery of my life that would give me hope, no matter how small and lonely, to reach him one day, or him with me. . There’s not even a slim chance of him staying now. Unfortunately, he too is lost, perhaps forever, in the desert of Time and Distance that exists between us, friends who live apart in separate worlds and cannot come together to meet and greet; so much for the presence of social media these days.
And I still remember their sweet voices… they still ring in my ears. I will never forget them: long lost friends of mine. The year 1997 of our friendship can never be forgotten and it is one of the best years I have lived and I had the opportunity to enrich my life. Truly, an era has passed.
I am getting old but I still dream of those wonderful days spent in the company of my friends Karthik and Sitaram and the wonderful days of our friendship, and I know that I can never get those days back in the year 1997. Maybe not in this life we will meet again. With Karthik out of our lives, what little is left now is ancient history.
End of Part 2.