Saturday, April 17, 2010

In the Na(i)me and memory of Nai..

I do this in your memory. In honour of Mahesh Mahadevan, aka Nai.. truly one of the greatest human beings I have known in my life. No exaggerations.

In honour of your never-ending positivity.. infinite energy.. addictive enthusiasm for knowledge.. boundless intelligence..

In honour of your technical PJs (which only I would understand half the time :P )..

In honour of your multi-faceted talents that always left me mouth-wide-open, in everything, from music to mechanical engineering.. computers to quizzing..

Mahesh, you have always been a wonder. A symbol of something impossible to attain. Not just to any arbit junior at Bhavan's Varuna Vidyalaya, where u inspired hundreds of people u havent even met, but even to me and and the rest of your batchmates. If only you could read all your wall-posts now. Even when we won all those quizzes together because you knew all the answers.. even when we did our C++ superprogram experiments in lab with everyone else staring.. Even when we discussed problems in class behind the teachers back thinking we had solved the next biggest thing since e=mc2.. cracked away puns to the limit getting on everyone else's nerves- Dude, I was always awed, and secretly envious of you. How could you exist.. how could someone love knowledge as you have.. I think half of my outlook towards knowledge has always been you, dude, You.

I take honour in claiming you have been one of my closest friends up to date. Even when you turned heads all over Kerala with your brilliance (see this and this) I was telling people : "Thats Mahesh, my school buddy"




For the love of the world, none of us can understand how this happened to you. And no, we do NOT believe you are stupid enough to end yourself. Yet. All I can do now is hit myself on the head for not having been in touch with you for the last 2 months. Yes, you are at the opposite side of the world, but I cant help thinking I missed you out somewhere. Cant help thinking: you wanted to tell me something, but I didnt hear. Cant believe that maheshmahadevan.iitm@gmail.com will never again chat to me. Cant stop reading the chat history again and again.

Cant believe ! no one will end chats again with me with a full loud BHA! (watever that meant, originating from Butylated-Hydroxy-Anisole in Saritha maams to another hundred meaningless expansions).. that legacy is dead..




Dead.. That word has a numb feel to it. Dead. As in. No more half dazed
'Bha'rking Nai's out there. Dead, as in, the world will be devoid of your loud chuckle and sly smile forever.



You owed yourself to the world dude, and you owed yourself to us. The world needed your brilliance.




I cannot think of any way to honour or mourn you now. I'm in that mode of helplessness, and I know it will take sometime to subside. I'm in that life-death-philosophy mood that everyone goes to when they see someone so near is suddenly missing. Yea, world, be wary of philosophic Me for sometime :). I will learn to accept once again that every person I see now, it might be for the last time. And all I can do is to try even more harder than ever to keep in touch.. and listen intently to everyone of my friends out there.. I have learnt that this is the one of the hardest things to do in life.. but I will still attempt it.. for who knows when the last time will be ?

But for now, in the name of all Varunites and friends of Nai out there: I remember you, my friend. I have no illusions that this blog will do anything productive than take up kilobytes of webspace, and invite comments, but it is the least I can do. I remember you, and as long as my healthy memory permits, I will. Your memory will not fade away into the "unseen orphaned pages of the cyberspace discontinuum" like your last post.

And like someone said, I will always await that one more smartass comment from you. Or one last PJ. Yea, just once more would be good..

(PS: For those who are clueless, Mahesh Mahadevan aka Nai was my school friend from BVV Kochi. He was found dead in his university UC Irvine a few days ago.I think the rest of the blog is self-explanatory)



Please also check
- http://www.findmahesh.com/

The organisation called Surabhi is collecting money for the cause of bringing Mahesh's body back. You can donate money to help bring his body back here. There is already and outpour of funds for this, apparently.

For those with doubts, I have (kind of) verified their authenticity by contacting his sister, who has said she has been contacted by the group which says they will take care of the return of his body. For further enquiries you may mail the ids on the website itself. Also check:

http://www.clubs.uci.edu/surabhi/

Another blogpost regarding Mahesh

- http://havetimewillwaste.blogspot.com/2010/04/good-bye-dog.html

News reports regarding this :

- UC Irvine

- Asianet (outrageously crappy piece of reporting. What nonsensical yellow journalism in Kerala.)



22 comments:

The Third Twin said...

@hari,
first of all, i am not here to give u advice or my opinion on how u shud handle life and death, as i wud have normally done...,but i want to talk out more than that...
cos this time, what i see in yu, is a pain that i want u to share with us, If it makes u cry, i wanna cry along.. if it makes u to talk out, i wanna listen.. if u want a shoulder, i bet yu there are atleast 15 shoulders waiting for yu, but i wud also want to remind u one thing , thats not what mahesh wud have wanted u to do.. I agree that dead has a hollow feeling to it, but he is only dead if he is forgotten...he is still there out in yu.. in every small thing u do, in every characteristic trait of yu, there is some of him, and there lives ur friend.. He is not dead by any means.in death, there is certainly the very real pain and sorrow of physical separation. maybe this was his way of attaining immortality in ur hearts.. i do not know what made him do what he did, or did he even do it in the first place.. but all i know is, a death doesn reduce the number of friends u have by one, but it increases the love u have for others.. and thats what is most important. no one can heal the pain that is left by his death, and again no one can erase the friendship u had with him... we both know there are no rules for living, but the rules of death are clear... the only thing that is left for u to do is, love others, live some parts of ur life the way u feel he wud have lived and that wud be the best u can do for him... at this juncture it might seem impossible to see beyond the pain, but i assure u that looking back in memory for him will make u over come the pain, and thats all i care abt yu, not that u shudn feel any pain, but to tell yu, there are more ppl (with u )to carry the burden that u are trying to carry alone :D

PS:-I hope his parents are ok, if possible, speak with them...

Quest said...

When I saw that grp in facebook I first thought it was a prank grp...but upon checking it and finding there were more than 1900 persons in it I felt something was amiss...I personally don't know him but have checked upon his comments here in urs long back and did a background check on him out of curiosity as I had know him as a friend of friends......

Abhik said...

Hey Dude,
Really sorry to hear about your friend. Having gone through his background, I realize that he was an exceptionally talented person.
Your post quite conveys your feelings as you try to come to grips with this loss. Guess a long comment isn't appropriate here. May his soul rest in peace.

Anonymous said...

This breaks my heart so much. From what I have been reading in the past few days, I have no doubt how wonderful and brilliant person Mahesh was. I am truly sorry for your loss. Hold on to the memories. Hold on to his legacies. It is difficult to let go, but may you find comfort knowing that you had the chance of lifetime to meet such a wonderful soul. I hope he is at peace now.

Hari Vishnu said...

@naren

machan i appreciate ur concern, and i know if i need it i have ur shoulders to cry on as u have constantly told me, as well as a lot of my friend who would me willing to support me through this. However, I have faced it and accepted it, and it is not an issue. as i have told u many times (and u have seen it), i am ok now. however, the loss is still a loss, and will remain like that.

i needed to speak out, and i should say the blog relieved a lot of my pain, for some reason. made me feel much better after i posted it.

yes, a lot of my characteristics are from mahesh.. many of my principles i adopted from him, and they will stay the same, because i admired them. the pain will go away slowly, and im not bothered about it.i only want to take a few lessons from it, as we do at the end of every movie,story or book.

once again, thanks for being there for me.ive faced it, and am fine.thats all u need to know :)

Hari Vishnu said...

@quest, abhik, anonymous:

thanks for ur concern guys.i know, theres not much more to say.his talents and life speaks for itself.RIP is all we can say.and hope that this fate doesnt befall many more out there.

Anonymous said...

Hey dude, I am sorry for your loss man. I wonder what amount of pain he must have been going through to perform this act.
I don't believe that people who do it are cowards or selfish, but I wish Mahesh had realized whatever he was going through could either be solved or would just pass.
I hope he has found peace.

Dorm Bedding said...

I am so so sorry for your loss....my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Anonymous said...

Just curious to know if his body reached Cochin and how are his parents taking it.

Neethu said...

need ur mail id..pls..urgent..

Hari Vishnu said...

@neetu: harivishnu@gmail.com .. i thot its there on the page..

Anonymous said...

Hey...mahesh's last post on bark4nai has been deleted...And last seen shows 7 days ago...any idea who deleted just this one post??

Hari Vishnu said...

@anonymous: i can still see his last post man..

Anonymous said...

@Hari- yeah, in arabain marasmus (The art of self depreciation), its there...i dint mean this post!!check out his last post in bark4nai(stumble upon), where he wrote his intentions to commit suicide...its aint there!!!!!
http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/bark4nai/reviews/

Anonymous said...

no last post here!!

http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/bark4nai/reviews/

Anonymous said...

Must be bipolar disorder. I have heard that people suffering from it act quite normal and are fun to be with and are very good at hiding the pain which is generally brought on by unregulated chemical imbalances in the brain functioning. Lithium medication generally helps to regulate mood swings. Their should be more awareness and education for such disorders. Bipolar disorder is currently the number one killer of people in their 20s, which happens to be the age where kids are naturally impulsive.

Must be painful for those around to hear the news.

Anonymous said...

Nice brief and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you as your information.

Anonymous said...

I am a close family friend of our beloved Mahesh. Recently, I have made a visit to his home, when I have the chance to see some reports they received from the UCI authorities.
I am sure that at any cost, Mahesh will not commit suicide for simply cutting funding. Because when he got admission at UCI, his parents have made several alternate arrangements to meet the funding.
After a long waiting of nearly five months, and after several requests, they received the postmortem and toxicology reports from the UCI authorities. On going thru the reports one can found several contradictory statements. The Police as well as the Forensic Pathologist Dr.Aruna Singhania reports that the death taken place days before the body found,(because it has been decomposed at the time of post mortem); whereas the Orange County Sheriff Coroner confirms that the date of death as 15th April. Don't know how they arrived at this date. Also his face has been covered with two plastic covers - one is transparent which was tightly tied with nylon thread(which has to be cut out by the police), and the other cover is an opaque. It is an established fact that nobody can suicide by simply putting a plastic bag into face. At the time of suffocation, they will escape using all their strength,even though it will be made of some strong material. Here, no signs of escape reported and his nails and fingers are normal. This seems to be suspicious and confirms our doubt that it was a homicide/murder. Eventhough requests were made to one detective Roland Chiu (who investigated the case), to clarify as well as to send some photos taken at the location and postmortem, it remains unanswered till date, and he even not bothered to respond. It is presumed that the authorities are hiding the truth away from us. Still the mystery going on......
My request is : His parents are now in a pathetic condition. Can somebody advice what to do in this case

Anonymous said...

Isnt it possible to get help from the indian govt or indian embassy there? They can intervene and check out what actually happened as mahesh was an indian student. The last post can be written by anyone who can access his account and someone seems to be loging in n out frequently too..well, only someone in UCI can help us...i would really want to get to the bottom of this...what if our other indian students are in danger too cos of jealousy n other stuff??

Anonymous said...

Any new updates?

Dranzer said...

Losing a loved one,
Have not experienced so far in this run.
Pain shall fade off,
But scars would be what the remains are made of.
Yet as will the infinite time pass,
It would be love and not pain that the memoirs shall amass.

Empathy is not my forte, but the simplicity of this post easily reached my heart. :) May the beautiful memories become eternal and drive you in all ways towards joy.

Dranzer said...

Losing a loved one,
Have not experienced so far in this run.
Pain shall fade off,
But scars would be what the remains are made of.
Yet as will the infinite time pass,
It would be love and not pain that the memoirs shall amass.

Empathy is not my forte, but the simplicity of this post easily reached my heart. :) May the beautiful memories become eternal and drive you in all ways towards joy.