Remembering 959 Aaditya Vol. II

RIP my friend.

I was 4 days sober (that half paper glass of wine doesn't count) into my week long sober program, when it happened.

I got pretty drunk with the bottle of cheap rum I had from costco (obviously, after someone finished up my cognac, you better bring me a bottle from china biyatch). Usually when I get wasted, I end up doing one of the following:

1) drunk call my exs or call my latest crush.

2) Scream and get angry and throw stuff like how I tormented my poor household when I was 5. My friends who have seen my acting have taken a liking to that of "The Hulk." 

The Indian Hulk that is, yuk.

Amazingly, none the above happened. Instead, I happened to remember an old friend. A friend I wasn't particularly close to but a friend all the same. From 2000 to 2006, we grew up in the same school, the same environment eating the same shitty food that the school provided us (yeah they had to cook for a 1000 people, not easy) and basically doing every shit that the school enforced us to do. I say that in a good way.

I wrote a piece on 959 Aaditya long time back [HERE]. I don’t remember the exact events of that day, however, I do remember we were all out to watch our school play against some other school in a game of cricket. Aaditya was one of our better ballers (maybe) and he was out there in the field while the rest of us suckers watched on from the stands. News soon came across that Aaditya had to be rushed to the hospital by the Principal as he was puking out blood all of a sudden. The game went on, I think we won, and we all headed back to school.

Eventless. Or so we thought.

In the morning, we woke to the news that Aaditya was there no more. He was smiling and walking and talking the day before but he wouldn’t be able to do that from now on. Till eternity. That took a toll on the boys, emotions ran high and the word was that the school hadn’t made an appropriate effort to provide him the best medical assistance possible. Students started blaming teachers and things became quite ugly. Some of my more emotional friends had to face severe repercussions later for demonstrating their feelings all too well.

….

*Sighs*

I am not here to talk about that incident though.

All I remember, quite vividly, is the day we all set out to see Aaditya a final time. His lifeless body was just laying down, motionless. I looked down and noticed that his nerves on his chest had surfaced beneath his pale skin. They meandered and twisted and turned and reminded me of those little rivers that make more rivers and those rivers make more of the same. They were all blue, all across his once functioning lungs. Ironically, I took a long, hard breathe to appreciate my own, glanced at his face for the one final time and walked out of the room.

What a loss. He was such a talented, honest, diligent student who showed good promise. I am not sweat talking since he’s long gone, but that was who he was. If there's one thing I learned, that's there's no sugar-coating reality. 

That made me thinking. I stared blankly at myself in the cleanly wiped bathroom mirror thinking what exactly  had I done to deserve the life that was in front of me. Why was I so fortunate and not him? As much as I love myself, it deeply bothers me that people like me stay behind while the rest smarty-pants kiss us goodbye. All I can feel is the weight of their responsibilities being dumped on our shoulders. 

I guess that's what you strive for. The pressure that comes with it, the pressure to do what you can and to do it well. To be alive and to feel alive.

And boy, do I feel alive.