02.10.2011

I hardly knew Jinesh.
In a sense which can mean Jinesh never knew I existed.
Never talked to him.
Heck, never saw him on more than one occasion all my life, which was at that one-day IEEE workshop on Networking, of which he was one of the 3 key speakers.
I remember leaving the seminar hall in awe of all three of them (Jinesh, Suhail and Antony) who handled the workshop.
Jinesh was this short, dark, long haired guy who spoke passionately.

I saw the name for a while, in mails to the google group of FSF enthusiasts in the college, of which he was the mentor. I used to love listening to Shyam talking passionately about his work on SMC, his project and his dreams, and he would mention the name Jinesh with a certain reverence. I gathered he was doing his research at the "i square i t", as Shyam used to put it.

Never heard of him ever since.
Until today.
When I digged the link that Fahad shared in facebook, which turned out to be a heart-wrenching obituary of Jinesh's by a friend, to learn of his demise.
Lukemia is a bitch.

My heart went out to the guy.
Yours would too, if you read the article and knew him just as much as I did.

He was red-carded out of his life in a way so seemingly unjust and cruel that makes you want to boo at The Referee and call out "Unfair". Jinesh though, left behind too much imprints of his, his valuable contributions to the World, his marks on many lives, to be forgotten into oblivion very easily. When told about his days remaining, I believe he must have paused to turn back at look at his trail, so bright and clear, to have left him cheerful even about the countdown to his end. It must have made him sad too - there was so much he could have done.

Made me think.
Makes me think.
About my trail.
About my belief in a day, that would never come, when the time is right.

And that makes me stop so abruptly.