REJU - MY FAVORITE COUSIN

So Reju left to join his Creator. He was young compared to me.. 58 and his departure was so sudden and it hurts.

My first memory about him is when he was around 10 when he came to Ullannur. He used to keep us entertained with silent 8 mm movies for which he provided his own background music from a tape recorder. Then he went off to Bangalore for schooling and our roads rarely crossed.

It was when he landed up in Hyderabad for his training at the State Bank of India Training College that we met him after several years. We had some inkling of what was cooking and hence his marriage to Nalini did not come as a real surprise. He had a different attitude to life which was very refreshing.

During my business trips to Mumbai we found time to meet up and enjoy a lunch of rice and fish curry. I still remember one such lunch for which he came in pure white shirt since he had an appointment with a client after lunch. A drop of fish curry landed on his clean shirt. He never fussed about it and enjoyed the lunch unlike me( i would have been worried about my appearance for the meeting and it would have spoiled my mood).

When he heard about Anup's passing away he managed to fly from Bangalore to Mysore and then take another flight from there to Hyderabad to be in time for the funeral. He was the only one representing my family. His presence in the house after the funeral when nobody else was there was a big solace for molly and me. This is one incident which I can never forget.

Ten years ago we had met up for a wedding in cochin when we all noticed a swelling on his neck. It was the starting point for another chapter in his life. It was confirmed as the dreaded disease and he was on to a long fight. He took the brave decision to migrate to new Zealand where he could get better treatment. The first few years must have been nightmares when his health deteriorated. He was advised bone marrow transplant but the cost was prohibitive and his age also was a bottle neck. Strangely his health slowly improved and he was almost back to normal with a few breaks in between. He started his own property consultancy business with his son avinash also being part of it. Nalini also found a job and also Aneesha as a successful Chartered Accountant.

He made a few trips to India and we managed to meet up every time.

Things were not that bad and his health was was not creating a big concern. Hence his going off all of a sudden was a big shock for all of us. But then God has His own plans..

So reju... take care... we will meet up for another round of rice and fish curry.....