Body Blow

MK is leaving. This time for real. He wrote a farewell mail to some of us in advance and it's heart-wrenching. I want to say so much but I really don't know how to reply on that mail. In short, it feels like there's no hope anymore. Without giving a sermon - he hated long calls - he had taught us so much that whenever I saw something to the contrary in subsequent years, I always complained to him mentally and imagined how indignant he would've been. It's confirmed now, this place doesn't value the right people. 

When he left exactly three years ago, AG had put me in a similar situation, though I was not this aggrieved. I had gone to meet him and he had spoken entirely on personal matters, as if we were old friends. Of course it was as one-sided as ever and I was silenced more by this new-found kinship. He'd talked about so many things - like how he and his wife were struggling in their newly married life, what with having a baby so early, no support system, health problems of his in-laws, South Kanara, Surathkal(he's 6 years my senior in college), how his peers in the company were doing better than him and he always felt a little left out and undervalued, his salary compared to others, wanting to try new things before it was too late....at one point I felt sorry that he had to unburden himself in front of a stranger. Maybe it was easier. And he'd ended the conversation with many advices to me. What I should be doing in the near future. Now I know that he was right.