Pall of Gloom

Two-minute silence was observed in the memory of Manoj Tyagi

The Club limped back to normalcy this morning even as a pall of gloom hung heavily over us after the untimely demise of Santosh Tyagi’s son last Saturday (ref post of September 14). A two-minute silence was observed in the memory of Manoj Tyagi after the exercises.
Karun Sharma and Sayeeda Sayed were unaware of the tragedy as they did not come to the Garden on Saturday. Sayeeda was in Surat and Karun, in Bhopal. On being told of the death, Karun excused himself from the exercises, saying he “needed time to recover from shock”.
Significantly, everyone had a favorite Manoj Tyagi-story to recount. He had visited us only twice in the Garden. Yet, the impression

Sayeeda (r) gets cupcakes from Surat

he had left behind was clearly lasting. Or was it because of Santosh who used to regularly update us on every little detail concerning her son? Suddenly the sense of loss on his passing became ever so palpable.
Efforts were also made to bring about a semblance of normalcy what with Sayeeda sharing some cupcakes she had picked up from Surat. Bijoy Gupta called Shekhawat long-distance demanding that a 60-seater AC bus be arranged on September 27 to ferry us all to his village in Rajasthan.
Gupta knows (as well as we do) that Shekhawat would be the last person ever to oblige, but the telephone call was necessary, if only to deflect our attention from the tragedy that had overtaken us. After all, life must go on.
Post Script: A prayer meeting for Manoj has been arranged by the family on September 17 (Tuesday) between 4:00pm and 5:30pm at Eden Banquet, Raheja Classique Club, Link Road (behind Infinity Mall), Andheri (West), Mumbai. Please try to attend.

Karun Sharma:
I respected my emotions and did not try to rush up. It was a shock that had to be respected by my inner self. Thanks for understanding.