I knew him as Ramachandran. Alladi Ramachandran Iyer!
I met him when I was working in CIFTech Solutions which was
selling hospital management software.
He was the Chartered Accountant for the company.
Slowly I came to get acquainted with him. He took his time
to be friendly with me. May be he was studying me. He must have felt after time
that I am a harmless person!
He was a great fun to talk to. The puns of his were so good
that I used to call him ‘pun’dit!
My days were so good when we were working together in
CIFTech. The way he was giving twists to the words, wow! Unbelievable!
He was well versed in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil as well.
He was once talking about Wockhardt Hospital which is a
heart hospital in Bangalore. He was
making a statement like this : unDEdhe okka heartu.. be careful! Meaning we
have only one heart, so, be careful! The name Wockhardt had given him this
chance of making pun.
One more time I was almost sure that he is reading my mind.
I was making an article about some subject.. (now I have forgotten what was the
subject). I was struggling from the morning and finally thought it’s enough for
now and wrote at the end of the Word file ... so far so good...
I closed the computer and Ramachandran walked in from
outside. I told about the article. He quipped “so, so far so good?” I was
stunned.
I travelled with him to Andhra Pradesh many times – the border
cities like Anantapur, Kadapa and even the capital city of Hyderabad.
I came to know that he is not married and he is diabetic. He
was 1958 born, which makes him 8 months younger to me.
I went to his house many times and met his parents. We were
all (yes, his parents, himself and I) eager crossword puzzle solvers. They were
experts and I an incumbent. Any time I had a doubt about filling any box, I used
to call him. Either himself, or one of his parents were helping me!
He used to pick up some Sundays to come to my home. His
route was via Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazar. He was buying 12 Masala Dosas
for which we five (I, Usha – my wife, my 2 kids and my mother and himself) were
the eaters!
My kids used to say “oh, Masala dosa uncle!” those days.
Usha used to prepare some delicacies. We used to eat together,
spend some time together. Great time we
had!
His family had come once home. I had taken by family to his
house.
I had given my absurd novel ‘Gaathe’ to his aunt to read. I
believe she was talking utter nonsense for a week after completing the novel!
Out of the blue, a few months ago he called one day and said
that his mother passed away. I felt very bad.
More recently he called me and asked for some Kannada books
for one of his aunts (no, not the one I mentioned above. She has passed away).
I told that I will come at least in the pretext of giving the books.
I went his home on 12th May 2012. He was on the
bed, looking quite bad. But he was the usual cheery person. His sister, he and
his father sat in front of me and we had a good chat. It was as if there was no
gap between my earlier visit and today!
He remembered his aunt being little out of sync when she
finished my novel Gaathe. Incidentally my Gaathe had been reprinted and I carried
a copy of that to give to him.
Today morning Usha calls me and says that she got the news
that Ramachandran alias Bunty is no more.
I have no words to express my grief L
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