In Memoriam

A very close friend of several years passed away last week. Alok was my classmate in engineering college, and like all good friends do, taught me a lot. Right from how to fill up the GRE application and What is a Recommendation Letter (for admissions abroad), to many of life's lessons. He wore Levi's when many of us did not know of the brand's existence- ahead of times, in short. He had an amazing gift of communication, and could talk about almost anything. But his speciality was management, which he taught with great success at Georgia State, one of Atlanta's two big universities. I still remember his expression when we first drove his new Toyota Celica in the U.S. (which we photographed lovingly). He had absolutely no inferiority complex when he was with Americans (or anyone else), unlike many Indians during those years.

He was responsible for getting me a teaching assistantship in the US, persuading me to drop everything and do a Ph.D. at Clemson, where he was. While there, he helped me understand the U.S. academic system (along with its shortcuts), and general life. Though our interests did not always match (for example, he was not into movies or travel as much as I), we still met regularly, and discussed various things. He was always helpful, and suggesting various things which were...yes, ahead of the times.

Since I returned to India, the meetings grew less frequent, and he was a reluctant netizen, so the cybercontact was also occasional. He was a very good academic, teacher as well as researcher, and his students will miss him. He went into hospital for something pretty ordinary, and ended up getting into huge medical problems, maybe due to some errors of judgement by the doctors. It ended all too quickly after that, and the end was probably a relief from the painful treatment he was undergoing. If he is looking down from somewhere, this is my salute to a friend and classmate I can never forget. He did enjoy the short life he lived, and his qualities would be tough to emulate.