Monday, December 11, 2006

In loving memory of Raja Das...

I sent the note below to my loved ones last night, but wanted to post it here as it is mostly a tribute to a wonderful human being.
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Dear friends & family,

As many of you know, I lost a very dear friend this week and I wanted to thank those of you who have offered your condolences & support. This is my first such loss in life, and surely it won't be the last. It's comforting to know I have so many wonderful people to carry me forward.

I also wanted to take time to introduce you to my friend Raja, undoubtedly one of the best human beings I have ever known. I met Raja over 5 years ago and he grew to be a very close & cherished friend and one of my most trusted confidants. He was a cheerleader for everyone he cared for and always seemed to take more pride in my own accomplishments than I did. His genuine passion for life and for people endeared him to everyone who had the good fortune of knowing him. My world was more beautiful with him nearby... I will forever miss his fun-loving spirit, grounded wisdom, and warm, charismatic nature.

One of the many things I loved about Raja was how inquisitive he was about everything - people, places, ideas... After learning that I grew up in Chicago, he became unusually fixated on Lake Michigan and randomly brought it up numerous times over the course of our friendship. I remember debating the size of the lake with him because he wanted to know if the state of Massachusetts could fit inside of it. He later mentioned in an email that he would need to visit Chicago at least twice: once in the summer so that he could float in the lake on his back (noting, however, that this could be difficult due to the lack of salt in the lake's water); and once in the winter so that he could "slip and fall on a frozen Lake Michigan." The highlight of this mild obsession was a mid-flight phone call I once received - "Seema. You will NOT believe what just happened... I *just* flew over Lake Michigan."

I chatted with Raja almost everyday online and our conversations generally followed the same pattern of shared wisdom weaved into hours of banter, unusual analogies, and ridiculous tangents; he had a quirky tendency to focus on the random details that most people overlooked and to interrupt one mid-sentence to inject affection like, "i love you!" or "you have movie star hair." And sometimes the conversation took a back-seat to the file swapping. We were our own little P2P network. Our overlapping tastes in music was one of the many connections I was quite proud of. We have the same all-time favorite hindi song... and he recently sent me a zip of music that by chance included an obscure song that I had spent all morning in search of. I always wondered how he managed to accomplish great things while splitting his time across so many friends and family.

I saw Raja at most a few times a year when he was back in the Bay (and those were always really fun times!), but I never felt the distance between us because he always involved me in the most basic aspects of everyday life. I remember getting a late-night phone call from him once because he couldn't decide which user ID to go with for his new gmail account. ...And we often watched "Heroes" at the same time, though on separate coasts, so that we could throw around theories on the developing plot. And while I had barely met his family, he spoke of them all the time. A few weeks ago he asked for my help in brainstorming gift ideas for his little brother... I asked about his budget and he replied, "no budget. he's my baby." And Sangeeta... countless times (after I had the pleasure of meeting her at work), he pinged me just to have me reconfirm how smart, beautiful, and generally amazing she is (and she is).

But most often we just talked about how the other was doing that day. Whenever I needed advice or consoling or just some comic relief, he was a mere keystroke away. And I always loved calming his silly paranoia… I went on a week-long business trip to Shanghai last year and returned to find numerous frantic voicemails from Raja... apparently he forgot about my trip (even though I had "cleared it" with him) and was worried. And after I saw him over Thanksgiving, he kept asking me if he was getting chubbier... initially I said no, but recanted after he generously offered to "fix" my face (apparently I have a crooked nose!). In one of our conversations last week, he told me he was feeling rather "Sith-like" when he always wanted to be more of a Jedi. I reassured him that he was definitely not a Sith... he was more like Han Solo - fighting for the light side of the force, but with a definite edge. Oh how he loved hearing that! :-)


There was always a lot more to Raja than he ever let on. Meeting him casually, you would never know that he was pursuing plastic surgery to fix facial deformities in children and not to give the world more silicone, or that he was a talented tabla player with true respect for the art, and a hopeless romantic (for which he blamed Bollywood), and an incredibly loving son and brother (although he *always* bragged about his younger sibs). He rarely talked about himself in social situations because he was always much more interested in learning about others.

Those of you who have known me for a while have often heard me speak very fondly of him. I loved him dearly and always looked forward to seeing him or even just arguing with him online over the proper use of some phrase... he was just always there. The pain of his loss is unbearable as his death leaves a huge void in so many lives. I can't imagine never again seeing his big toothy grin or hearing his slightly mischievious chuckle or watching him dive into a circle of pop & lock dancers even though he can't pop & lock... or wiping my forehead dry after he planted one on me. Raja had *so* much charm & character and was truly a very lovable and beautiful person. As a friend of mine so perfectly stated, "No amount of time spent with Raja was ever enough."

The last text message I received from Raja was on the evening before his death... In response to a conversation we were having that he had to cut short, he wrote "to be continued." The unfortunate irony is torture right now, but I have to believe that there is continuity in that his spirit, and his unfortunate death, truly changed me. I feel very blessed for having known Raja and am so grateful that I told him I love him.

Cheers to an amazing individual and a beloved friend...
Rajesh Ranjan Das (February 2, 1980 - December 6, 2006)


(L-R: Sangeeta, his beautiful little sister; Raja; me; our friend Rahul. 11/24/06)

Raja, you are missed and will never be forgotten.