RIP Binayak Mohapatra

 I remember him from the year 1976 when I arrived in Bhubaneswar as a 7 year old as my father got transferred to BJB College. We never left Bhubaneswar ever since, nor my memories of him. He was one year senior to me in school and lived next door in BJB Flats - an array of newly constructed three storeyed government quarters next to Lewis Road.

As he was my senior in school and more familiar to the local milieu my mother put faith on him, requested him to guide me while crossing the crowded Lewis road which used to get busy with the Puri and the Secretariate bound traffic during the peak school hours. Bhubaneswar was a sleepy township of salaried government employees. The main roads were mostly empty except during the commute hours of the office goers.

We were next door neighbors. He took good care of me, always fed me the sweetest of Guavas and BARA KOLI (tiny sweet and sour berries) from their backyard. As he was a better built lad and a year senior to me, the bullying kids avoided me. It didn't take long for my schoolmates to accept me as one of their own once I scored good marks in exams and got rid of my typical accent of Bhadrak, the town where I spent five years of my early childhood, long enough to catch the local accent. My classmates in Bhubaneswar laughed at me when I pronounced KODIE CHORA (Twenty thieves) as KOODIE CHOORA, putting a "Na" after words, e.g. KHAICHU NA, JAICHU NA. He laughed too, counselled me to restrain myself and not to get reactive when someone poked fun at me. Soon I got over it and my ubiquitous BHADRAKIA accent.

He was a good organizer and had leadership qualities. We used to play cricket and a local version of basketball where you put a stack of broken bricks, throw a ball at it to dismantle it, then put them back together before someone hurls and hits you with the ball. I was at best average in sports, he was amongst the best to earn the "captain" tag and call the shots at team selection before any crucial match with our adjacent gully opponents.

We used to celebrate Saraswati Puja, Ganesh Puja, Holi and Diwali together. Once a few weeks before Diwali he came with a creative idea of his own. He brought a tin box and made a tiny slot on top of it. We were instructed to put coins inside and save them to buy firecrackers for Diwali. To keep it safe, following his advice we dug up the ground and buried our safe box. On the morning of Diwali, we purchased fireworks with the saved money. I was afraid of sound making TALA PHOTAKA (firecracker made from palm leaves) but he wasn't. He used to take pride in bursting them standing a few feet away.

He wasn't afraid of anyone, but his father, who was a thorough gentleman but a strict dad. Even if he would be batting (a cherished moment for gully cricketers), no sooner he heard the typical sound of Mausa (his father's) Bajaj Chetak, than he threw his bat away and ran towards home. It's always a desperate race against time to sneak through backdoor. 

Mausa usually took his time to take off the helmet, elongate the folded stand of the scooter using his hind leg, park and lock it before turning the handle couple of times ensure that the lock is secured. That provides his son precious little time to be at his study table, pretending to be studying.

And studied he well. After completing his Intermediate Science he studied Engineering and came to USA 🇺🇸 to do further studies. Like the overwhelming majority of us who came to America not to return back, he made a choice to settle down here and had been living in Phoenix, Arizona for no less than a decade. 

Last Wednesday (December 2) morning he passed away, apparently from a massive cardiac arrest, leaving his wife and his 9 year old behind. Only 52, he had a long road ahead. The news was stunning beyond my belief as I felt something snapping inside me. When I heard his 9 year old son saying - "Don't you worry. I am a strong boy", drops of tears fogged my vision. BINAYAK (Bapi) MOHAPATRA, stay in peace in heaven, where you rightly belong. Om Shanti.