RIP Nirakara Satapathy

 It seemed to be another regular day yesterday as Nirakara Satapathy, my friend from REC (now NIT) Rourkela, a Mining Engineer working in a high level position for the Public Sector Coal India Limited and posted in Talcher, Odisha came back from his office to his residencial quarters in a sleepy, quite neighborhood around 8 O'clock from his regular day at work. He ate his dinner around 9.30 PM (unlike in USA where folks are done with dinner by 7 PM, in India its quite normal to have dinner late after 9 PM).

An hour later about 10.30 PM he lied on bed, catching up with office work on his laptop. Then he had a sudden chest pain and  collapsed. His wife immediately called his friends and colleagues who took him to the hospital where he was declared brought dead.
This incident came as a bolt from the blue for everyone. Nirakara's wife is inconsolable. His only child, his daughter who was in Rajasthan rushed back to Odisha upon receiving the news. From what I heard his last rites were completed in his native Katatpur in Puri district.

Nirakara Satapathy, a gentleman with a tall and lanky physique, was a genuinely loving and caring person. Heavily engaged in social service, he used to attend and organize numerous blood donation camps for the sick and needy during our Engineering college days. He spent a whole lot of time caring after patients in Ispat General Hospital, popularly known as IGH in Rourkela.

Fond of food, he left his mark during as Mess Secretary (the guy in charge of meals) in our Hostel in REC. He was conspicuously different from others as he took a lot of care and made every effort to ensure that the tastiest food was prepared and served ending up in a reasonable mess bill which formed the bulk of expenses during our students days when a highly subsidized tutution fee cost us no more than Rs.150 (About $15) a semester, something unthinkable these days.

Nirakara was simple, soft spoken and well behaved. One fine evening during our final year of Engineering in Hostel - 5, Nirakara who was looking for a volunteer to donate blood put a handwritten note in our mess notice board, which is normally located at the entrance of the dining hall where in order to get the boarders attention. The notice read something like this, "A man in IGH is running after the life of his wife. Please sacrifice by donating your blood and so on.." - Nirakara Satapathy. When I saw the note, I pulled out a pen and put a line under his signature "M.A. in English, Oxford University". A lion hearted guy, rather than getting angry he laughed and said - "This wit and humor carries Sambeet Dash's signature (Nirakara never took himself seriously and was good at laughing at himself, a rare quality. It needs to be noted that our friend Nirakara was pretty good in English. Remember, in our time the cream of Odisha used to clear the REC JEE or the Joint Entrance Examination. He just wrote it in haste). Those were the days !

After a long hiatus, we hooked up with each other on Facebook in the year 2012. Later on I found that he is the "SADU" (brother-in-law) of my talented, artist friend Surajit Dash. It's a small world. Politically Nirakara and I aligned a lot with similar points of view. Like me, he was disillusioned with both Congress Party and BJP, putting his weight behind the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), again to get frustrated with Kejriwal's tantrums and idiosyncrasies. But unlike me he was very spiritual in nature, his idols being Ramakrushna Paramhans and Swami Bibekanand.

Nirakara Satpathy's untimely demise is a wake up call for all of us. Now that we are at peak of our middle age it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. It's a tell tale reminder about maintaining healthy habits, moderation on splurging, regular exercise and check up is the key before it becomes too late.

As I finish writing my obituary, I am tersly reminded of this Hindi song, an ode to the nicest of human beings whose repertoire of affection towards our family was never empty.

ZINDAGI SAU BARAS KI SAHI,
ZINDAGI KA BHAROSA NAHI;
CHAAND CHHOOP JAE KAB KYA PATA,
CHANDNI KA BHAROSA NAHI.

Transliterated..

Life is for living hundred years,
But destiny is unreliable forever;
Never know when moon can go into hiding,
For Moonlight is not worth relying.

May God give strength to his family to overcome the grief in this torrid times. Be happy in heaven my friend. Om 🕉 Shanti.