Colleagues No More

 I mean ones who are no more, or who have passed away.

Recently, a former roommate from the school hostel at Hyderabad passed away. He was generally in good health, and had no history of any problems. Just died of a heart attack. 

That made me think of some others who were my colleagues or friends. One was a lively faculty member at IMT in Ghaziabad. I came to know she died after a battle with cancer, after I had left IMT. Had no idea she was ill, even. Maybe it was discovered later. 

Another three that died early. My good friend and classmate at Osmania engineering seems to have had some kind of a rare infection many years ago, and died from it, though most people survive. A colleague at IFIM, and at KIAMS, who may have brought it on himself, with his lifestyle. And earlier, yet another colleague and great friend in the U.S., who also had an early demise, probably caused by some lifestyle and consequential issues.

COVID has been relatively kind to my friends' circle and most who got it came away unscathed. Not so with office colleagues, some of whom lost a loved one.

Leaving Your Stamp on the Sands of Time

This is about our national obsession for stamping everything. From the ubiquitous request for a revenue stamp on anything and everything, to the so-called stamp duty on real estate buying and selling, to many other things, we leave a stamp everywhere. Wonder if we can ever stamp these tendencies out, the way we have tried to stamp out cholera, typhoid, diphtheria, the plague, polio and a few other deadly diseases?

The recent announcement that we will attempt to remove the “stamp” on hand baggage must be great news for hi-frequency fliers. Ours could be the only country that is still using this technique of ensuring high employment to the “stampers” who insist on stamping, and then checking for the stamp two times at least, before letting you into the craft.

The only activity of a similar kind I have seen abroad is in the waiting line for a passenger bus leaving Suvarnabhumi airport. To identify the people, the staff puts a sticker on their shirt, while they wait. 

Maybe we can have a reward for someone who collects the maximum number of stamps from his life? An incentive to deal with being stamped-upon?