Remembering Sachin – My Best Friend!

Remembering Sachin – My Best Friend!
On this Friendship Day, I dedicate this blog to my childhood friend
Sachin Pradhan, who passed away on March 4, 2006

I was for sometime searching for an opportunity to dedicate a blog to Sachin, and what better day than Friendship Day! For all the extroverted personality I carry, I don't have a social circle as such, which essentially means over the years I have made friends mostly from my professional life. As I moved on, my friendships too have kept moving on.

But for a long time there was one constant friend – Sachin Nandakumar Pradhan, my childhood friend (langot yaar, as they say in Hindi). Our respective parents were great friends, naturally leading us to bond deeply. We grew up together, ate at each other's home, absorbed each other's culture (he was a Maharashtrian, while I am a Tamilian), played together, chatted, exchanged notes and loved each other's company.

Yet, we were quite unlike each other. He was a more withdrawn personality, measured in his words and deeds, whereas I was more boisterous and loud. We drifted into different paths (academically there was no comparison. He was an MTech from IIT and me an MA), operated out of different cities, but always felt and stayed connected.

The greatest common ground for us of course was our spiritual connection. In the year 1989 he acted as a perfect medium and took me to meet our Guru Dadaji in Pune. Dadaji initiated me into meditation (he already was initiated), and life never has been the same for me since then. Besides the great memories we share about Sachin, my greatest gratitude to him lies in taking me to our Guru. Somewhere, my Guru also gave me the strength to bear the loss of Sachin, who succumbed to a painful battle with cancer.

An incident that highlights his affection for me is when he specially flew down to Calcutta (now Kolkata) from Pune to meet me and my wife, as he was abroad at the time of our marriage. When he too got married, a close bond was forged between our respective families. Every time I moved out of Mumbai, whether it was Kolkata, or later Bangalore, he made it a point to visit us. But when in 2007 we moved to Kerala, he was no longer there in the world, and my wife and I kept telling each other how Sachin would have visited us there too if he had been alive.

A great quality he had was concern for the poor. If I remember correctly, he used to contribute in some way to help poor children for their education.

It's been over six years since he left us, but he still occupies a very important place in our hearts. Sachin lived a short life, but left behind a lifetime of memories.

Miss you my friend! And Thank You for being there in my life.