Paying Tribute to Rabin-Mr. Courage

Yesterday happened to be one of the sadest days in my life. As I was busy giving final touches to an article for Boddunan I came to know about the news that Rabin was no more and left to meet His Maker, thus bringing down the curtain on his mortal jorney. By now you must wondering aloud what is so unusual and extraordinary about a death of a friend to be made a subject of an article. Rabin looked very ordinary but led an extraordinary life. He loved ot life and celebrated every moment of his life despite knowing that he was living on borrowed time and the cruel game the fate was playing with him.

My friendship with Rabin stretched back to quite a few years and when we met for the first time at the digs of a common friend he was a bubbly young man and was doing Btech at Benaras Hindu University-may be, into his final year. It was one of his occasional visits to home on vacations and we became goods friends as ducks takes to water! After a few days he went back to Benaras to resume his studies.

Within 7 or 8 months of his last visit I was a liitle surprised to meet him on my way to a friend's house. On inquiry he told me that he was forced to undertake an unscheduled visit to see a good doctor in Kolkata to find treatment for a mysterious ailment which could not be diagnosed by the local doctors of Benaras. His otherwise cheerful face was replaced by a glum one and looked very perturbed. And I tried to assure him and advised him to go for a comprehensive medical examination. In the course of this diagonistic process and treatment and defying occasional unbearable pain in the lower part of his body he carried on his studies.

Unfortunately the doctors whom he visited and consulted could not decide on the proper diagnosis of his ailment in the intial satges and agreed on one point that the one he was suffering from was a very rare bone and muscle degenaration.

In the meanwhile I had to settle in New Delhi for some time but kept myself posted with the latest developments on Rabin. But to my utter dismay I came to know that his condition was getting worse and worse and after staying in most parts of his life in different hospitals he has almost resigned himself to accepting hospital as his home! And a major surgery was performed on his lower part which proved partially successful but rendered his movements very restricted.

Amidst all these goings-on the only news that warmed my heart that he was successful in winning the hands of a lass and the proud father of a daughter. I was really overjoyed. But on his illness front there was not progress and the progressive degenaration of muscles and bone continued slowly but treacherously.

On my return from New Delhi our meetings were regular and he kept a straight face in the face of a grim struggle in every sense of the term. His beautiful smile and sense of humour all remain intact. His ability to make light of a serious situation with his remarkable wit was phenomenal. As his deadly disease robbed him of a chance to settle into a bright career, he sought economic sustenance by giving tuition to science students. He bought a computer and acquired programming skills. Once he surprised me by bringing up the topic of central excise in our discussion which is srtictly a domain of commerce discipline and I subsequently learnt that he was doing programming on it!

He hated to accept death and even a few hours before the end came he rang up one of his students to ask her to come over for some important lessons!!