An Ode to a Classmate

An Ode to a Classmate

P K Routray

 

A bolt from blue

on Kali and me two

by a Kedar’s relation

in Rabi’s peace prayer session

that Kedar, our dear is no more

tearing our bleeding hearts' core

“When, where and how” on his demise

his nephew could not be so precise.

Over a Kedar’s old mobile number

confirming his hubby’s departure

his spouse Lata with choked emotion

on tragic end of Kedar, touched upon

in a breathe less stretch of deliberation

as she guessed me a friend of Kedar and her own.

To Kedar, friend Ttribeni’s tributes intrude

upom Alexander Pope’s ode on solitude

centering Kedar as the hero of the poem

envisaged in the eighteen century the theme.

Born with us with a destiny to live unseen unknown

and to die breathing village air without a tombstone..

Blest with a birth and rearing up in an atmosphere

technology and metallurgy woven with his genes’ core

Jamshedpur the maddening city was his breeding ground

but at Korakora a dusky village, the air for his last breaths he found.

Meritoriously graduated from REC in metallurgy

for a subject of his love and choice, he was crazy

Post graduated from IIT an institute of repute

His bright future in an industry none could dispute.

Unseen, unheard suave studious as a teenager

grew among us with blemishless character.

Ever busy in study skipping his sleep and dinner,

to study- cheaters he looked to be a funny character.

Envying his bright household life and professional career

we joked at him, smilingly he bore the fun and laughter.

Our five years of close-knit togetherness had seen never

Kedar losing his temper and his cool calm composure

befitting to be a successful man as scriptures tell

but Kedar proved an exception with his woeful tale.

Now with Kedar all the scenes of Rengcol days

tinged with sighs and tears, other friends around, blaze.

His first marriage broke with a lethal blow to his career

because of his beau acratic father-in-law’ love for his daughter.

The bureaucratic wrath of his father-in-law

caused the divorce breaking Kedar’s jaw

Kedar lost his job from a state sector

which was ruined till Tata took ot over.

Since then Kedar with qualification and merit

slothed for a job to feed his new family in plight.

My visit to them in Saheed Nagar I remember

when with them stayed his retired sick father.

On Indian marriage, I have a postulation,

that Kedar’s life has given it a confirmation

that groom status should be higher than the bride

or else the harmony will disarray with bridal side pride.

After a painful separation, Lata has come to his life

to soothe him, his parents and stand by him in his strife.

With Brahmja and padmaja as two daughters

son saigovinda, to rear up them to an expected stature,

without a befitting job and salary to support to row through

to the mental agonies, his health issues started to grow.

Shifted he to his native village Korakora since a year

as if to breathe air there, live on the fruits his trees bear.

But succumbed he to a brain stroke struggling for a fortnight

driving his spouse Lata and teenager kids to the untold plight to fight.

“Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

x x x x x xx

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.”

But Kedar our dear! we will search out you

from cremation ground of you land to the place where you flew.

We, your left out classmates in chorus pray with tear

for peace to your soul and courage to Lata and kids dear.

 

(N . B -Kedr Nayak was our classmate in REC wef 1965 to1970 in REC Rourkelas. Rabi was also our classmate both have lft us within two monthe for their heavenly abode. We all his class mates were shocked at the loss. Tribeni, jail ar his classmates. Lata is his spouse. Korkora is hi village where he sighed his last breath. Jamshedpur is a city where he was reared up.)