DD: A Friend’s Friend
Psychology proves that if someone has been your companion for over 7 years, chances are that the person will remain a friend for life. Our few close school friends are perfect example of that. However, if there was anyone that could attain that special status in as little as two and a half years, it would be none other than Ashish Narayan or as I know him, DD. What better occasion than his 50th birthday to relive those moments that I look back on so fondly even if only for a few minutes. Somewhere within these memories, DD established himself as a friend for life 5 years ahead of leading psychologists’ expectations.
It was in March of 1993 when I first heard about Ashish Narayan from Ashok Khandelwal. I had met Ashok just a few days prior as we were joining C-DoT, our first workplace, fresh out of college. We belonged to nearby townships but other than that factor alone, there must be something more which made us connect almost at the very first instant. Far away from home, in that bustling city of Bangalore all alone by ourselves, the next month or two would be all about sharing the last 21 years of our lives, our family, friends, interests, liking, disliking etc. This is when, Ashok (by then already he was known to me as Khandwa and I to him as Gangwa) would tell me about his Jabalpur college close friends like Hemant, Salil, Ashish and few others. The name “Ashish” stuck on especially with me and the very initial image I drew would create would be an intelligent, handsome (as Ashok showed pictures), affluent and only son of doting parents . His father being a top ranking official in telecom services, Ashish was a day scholar while the rest of the gang was from different cities and stayed in hostels. Ashish too, it seemed, spent much of his time in hostel rather than their own plush government bungalow. I knew as a fact that, for all his hostel friends, other than lots of pampering from Uncle and Auntie, making expensive long distance calls during their college days was never an issue.
Time flew by fast and after a few months, Ashok and I made our move to Delhi from far south. Looking back, both of us now wonder what made us make that decision, but that’s a story for another day. In Delhi, both of us got busy with our new work, made many more new friends and then again whittled down the numbers to just a handful of like-minded ones. We took our time and as we eventually got used to our Delhi lives, dazzled and awestruck with the capital city’s glamour and fame, the name “Ashish” slowly went into oblivion. Last I knew he was in Bangkok, where Uncle had taken an UN Position, and he was preparing for IES (engineering services examination) as he had quit the private job with Tata Telecom Services in Mumbai.
Almost one year later, in March 1994, Ashok and I decided to continue our stay together beyond the company-provided hostel. We took a joint lease and settled in our new apartment at 31/30 Old Rajinder Nagar. As it was very close to work, the place soon became a hub for the five of us. The rest of the three- Milind, Sanjeev, and Praveen- were also living nearby, but we five always hung out together. If someone had to find any of us on weekdays after office hours till almost midnight or any time over the weekend, they would first come to 31/30 to check. It was during that time when one night, Khandwa asked me quite hesitantly if I would be OK if one of his friends from college can come and stay with us while preparing for a competitive exam. He also told me that incase I didn't feel comfortable then he would understand and his friend will decide to stay at some other place, but he just wanted to confirm with me before saying anything to him. And when he said it would be Ashish, I was more than happy to say I was absolutely OK as I had already heard and knew pretty much everything about him. Also our apartment which was always filled with 4 or 5 persons at any time, so another one should not have made any difference.
Fast forward couple of weeks and I found myself waiting there with Khandwa and few other friends at IGI airport to welcome Ashish. I still remember it being a late night Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Delhi. Making a trip to IGI on bikes and scooters and standing outside in the waiting area to welcome someone had its own excitement those days, just like one would see in a movie. There he was, looking dapper in a black blazer and khakis, smiling as he pushed the baggage trolley coming out from the customs. I don't recollect how he greeted Khandwa and others, but to me it was a big hug saying “Babu there you are. So nice to finally meet you ”. Up until then, I had heard so many nicknames for myself ranging from Neelu , Bhaya, Indro, and Ganguly, but Babu was a first for me. He didn’t have to explain me that Babu was from Babumoshai of Anand fame. However, I can tell you today that if me being called Babu solely due to my Bengali heritage was justified, then the way Ashish came across that night would be a true replica of the Protagonist Anand Sehgal (Rajesh Khanna) himself. His attitude towards his friends and his joyous, cheerful nature was striking at the very first sight. Within just a few days, he became the most popular person in our group. He had that magical power to become the center of attraction where people would want to strike a conversation with him or just be around him. His adaptability to his surrounding people was simply amazing. He could start a conversation with anyone according to their likes and steer away from the topics which one would not like. This helped him to bond with anyone immediately. One moment, he would be talking philosophy and existence of god with Praveen, and the next moment he would be talking to Milind about Mehdi Hasan Ghazals. He was as fluid with Marathe on Mayapuri Gossips as with Khandwa on Kishore Kumar or Gulzar. It was simply mind blowing for me, as so far I had seen very few with such a wide range of knowledge and likeability index . Because of this sheer characteristic, soon a few of my college friends and our C-DoT colleagues also became close friends with him. While I was observing and enjoying all this he always ensured that when all of our friends left for their own apartments to sleep, the three of us would still spend another hour or so way past midnights talking about various things. It gave that close knit family thing for the three of us in 31/30 ORN. We had found our home away from home.
His arrival also changed our life style drastically. He brought some discipline into our day to day life, ensuring we have our regular breakfast, dinners and not skip any meals. Weekends would be special as he would force us out to go for grocery shopping and eat in some fancy place. Every day around 7–8PM the million dollar question would be put by him Babu, what we do for dinner tonight?. Khandwa, with his carefree attitude, wasn’t bothered much and left it on me to figure it out, but Ashish would try his best to make sure that the house ran with some rules. Sometimes it would irritate me as well but now I can only admire it knowing that Ashish hated monotonicity and boredom. For him, everyday had to be a new experience. It was he who took initiative for us to take vacation and go out of Delhi to our first trip together to the mountains of Kumaun in Kausani.
We made couple of more memorable trips after that, which upon reminiscing, makes me regret why we didn’t agree to more of his travel plans. During one such trip, our group of six were christened as CIRCLE by Khandwa. Another thing we discovered soon during these trips was Ashish’ extra ordinary talent and passion with photography particularly for wildlife and anything nature.
While he was there with us, his mother visited us a few times and blessed our apartment with all the luxury one could imagine, like a color TV, a refrigerator, microwave among other things. Our house was the most furnished among all of our friends. With Ashish around, my eating out became more interesting as both of us would devour on Tandoori chicken, fish , meat, all of which I used to avoid earlier while eating out with Khandwa. The another thing which amazed and quite often awestruck us, was his ease and familiarity with the elegant upper class stylish way. How to dress, look smart, order food at restaurant, use branded perfumes and cologne, enter expensive stores and talk to those sales associates even if there was no intention to buy anything, go to various concerts and parties, speak smartly and impress anyone with his refined English, or recite Urdu poems and Shayri or quote Ghalib and Faiz at the appropriate occasion, he had become our style icon.
Once settled in, it was time for the real thing. i.e. preparation for IAS, his dream job as he would say. He would read the novel English August (A masterpiece satirical novel about a recent IAS recruit posted in a remote village) multiple times, highlight certain paragraphs and ensured we too would read it and enjoy. That was another phase when he would try his best to motivate us also for taking the IAS prelims and gave us lectures on Ancient and Modern Indian history. We even bought many UPSC textbooks and decided to keep motivating each other for our studies. Khandwa, Mats and myself were initially excited but soon realized it is not our cup of tea with ongoing work pressure, but Ashish carried on relentlessly with his preparations. While in day time we were at work, he would study, save time to go out for lunch by eating cheese sandwiches, and then all six of us would look forward to the evening and dinner together in Shankar Road Dhaba or occasionally cook at home. The Delhi’s notorious winter onslaught of 1995, was weighing on and we at 31/30, post dinner, sipping coffee would indulge ourselves in pure unplugged and senseless bakar. That is when the word dalaiyya mode had come into existence, still used by us and our family alike, very fondly.
Then the time came when Ashish Bhaiyya (as he was fondly called so far) transformed to DD. IES results were declared and he was selected for DoorDarshan cadre. After endless hours of discussion, all pros and cons sorted, he finally decided to take the painful decision to quit the IAS preparation and give his 100%, to Govt of India through his services at Doordarshan. For the next few months, the other five of us would become experts in how TV broadcasting works, how the studio’s recording system is maintained and other minute details of Doordarshan Bhawan’s day to day affairs. Every evening once he returned from office he would explain in detail about his day, boss and subordinates. Naturally after few days couple of us did not find it that interesting anymore. It was during one of that long discourse by him, when Praveen (by then already nicknamed Bhagwan, as one of us saw an aura around his head in the wee hours of one night while he was strolling in the balcony dangerously close to tipping off the railings and humming Hotel California) who said from today you will be known as DD. It was said in a nonchalant way, but for some reason it just clicked and for the five of us, he became DD forever.
Fast forward to the year 1996, when we had to leave our beloved home 31/30 ORN to another place in KarolBagh. Our landlord Mr. and Mrs. Bahal were truly apologetic when they asked us to look for a new place as they were planning to sell off the house. Till date it is doubted if that was the case or they were not liking the extra ordinary attention 31/30 was gathering. The new place we finalized (courtesy DD’s relative) that house was little old and needed much restoration work and neighborhood was not as hip as ORN. It would be few kilometers away from office unlike 2 minutes walk from our old place. We were not too excited but had no other alternative as well. We all tried our best to decorate and make it as beautiful as possible. Around the same time, DD got his Maruti 800 from Patna and that brought us some much needed thrill to a sudden lull in our life. Once again, it made us the envy of many colleagues and friends as we would be experiencing Delhi roads in the night, coming back from South Delhi and Connaught Place restaurants, Vigyaan Bhawan concerts or just a casual evening visit to Delhi Haat.
It was late 1996, and job landscape in India was changing rapidly. Many of our friends from C-DoT had started actively looking for greener pastures and the temptation was knocking our door as well. Meanwhile Khandwa had enrolled for part time Masters from IIT Delhi and suddenly got very busy with his college stuff and office works, staying away from home a lot. He would come pretty late after his classes or catching up work at office in night. We could see Khandwa used to feel guilty when he had to decline our offer to catch a movie or going to restaurants because he had to prepare for some assignments, but we all understood. Weekends and evenings suddenly were not that as exciting and charming as it used to be even a year back. Mats, Bhags and Mike’s apartments were no more at a stone’s throw away distance yet six of us being together on a daily basis was thing of past now. Me and DD would be spending our evenings watching TV or listening to music or preparing dinner.
Things were changing fast and we could feel that our days of togetherness is coming to an end soon. Khandwa’s marriage talks, my new found interest for few of the new chip design centers coming up in Bangalore, it was all inevitable that the way three of us lived for the last 2 and 1/2 years was not going to continue for long. DD and I decided that if Khandwa gets married first, then we two will move to another apartment and let Khandwa continue in Karolbagh house. I didn't know it then, but destiny had some other plans in store for us. But none of us ever expressed that sadness and the strange void feeling ever to each other and tried our best to continue living as we were doing it so far. There one evening while I and DD were sitting on that big rooftop deck of our Karolbagh house, he told me, “Babu…remember this very evening, this very moment. 25 years from now we shall still remain connected with this same bond and should be able to remember this exact time very fondly”. It is little more than 25 years now, but yes I do still remember it very much and am sure he does as well.
Though I was focusing on joining some chip design center in Bangalore, when there was an advertisement for a walk-in interview from WDC Singapore, DD, Khandwa and Milind convinced me to take a shot at it. A few of our other CDoT friends were already working there. Till then the idea of going out of country for a job was very far fetched to me. Reluctantly though, I did agree and on the interview day DD asked me to wear his blazer and his red lucky tie. He dropped me off at the Oberoi where it was scheduled to take place. Few weeks later again it was DD who told me about the phone call and the Fedex shipment he had received at our Karolbagh home. I was away attending a cousin’s marriage in Calcutta and had missed all of that sudden development. To my surprise and little bit of somberness I found out soon, that it would be me who was going to become the first in our group to leave Delhi.
DD ,Khandwa, Mats, Mike, and Bhags each went the extra mile to make me feel best of myself, when I was about to put my papers in C-DoT and start preparing for the move. Almost every day for the next 3–4 weeks or so we spent our days and evenings like we will never get back it again. Even to make it extra special, for the last couple of days all of them shifted to our Karolbagh home so we could stay awake whole of the nights discussing past, present and future, sometime in cheerful mode and sometimes pensive and getting emotional. I had my own apprehension of leaving a government job, family and friends back in India, as well as excitement to go to a new country, a new company. I felt a little guilty as well to be the first one to leave this wonderful group of friends from whom I got this much of love and affection in that short span of couple of years. We all knew it was just a matter of time till everyone of us would eventually leave C-DOT and settle somewhere else, but still, being the first one to go was a little different. The night before I was set to travel, Khandwa & DD made a very nice card and presented to me. It was a simple card with a big CIRCLE and words saying “CIRCLE wont be complete without you”. Then on the night of 14th March 1997 as I started pushing the trolley towards the entrance of crowded IGI I avoided looking back and found it difficult to hold my tears. This time I was on the other side of the gate while DD and rest of them kept waving me off as long as they could see me.
Next time I would meet DD it was December of 1999, both of us were married and we proudly introduced our better halves to other one. This was when Marathe was getting married, the 4th wedding in our group. During that trip itself, Khandwa and Shai also shared the great news that next generation of the ‘Circle” is on the way!
It has been almost 20 years since I had met DD last, but never more than a week has passed in which we have not been in touch through either email or phone or whatsApp. Soon after we had last met, DD got deputed to TRAI and then moved back to Bangkok to take a position in ITU. He would travel all around the world and keep checking our geography knowledge, sending some landmark pictures asking us to guess where he is.
His passion towards his job was well in display when he volunteered to go to Kathmandu soon after the massive earthquake in 2017 to coordinate the restoration of the country’s basic telecom infrastructure. It was optional but he never hesitated for a second despite knowing there were still severe aftershocks taking place. Recently one day he sent me a few melancholic messages after he started watching Aspirants (TVF series about IAS aspirants), saying that not being able to become an IAS remains his biggest regret. I told him, “DD what you are doing around the world, what you did back there in Kathmandu, it is obvious you were meant for a much greater cause”. Cliché? Maybe, but did I mean it truly? Yes.
We have kept the same camaraderie as if we still are stuck to those days of our lives, which can be some dark humor, double entendre jokes (which used to be DD and my specialty even though a few of our friends would get offended or remind us that we are not 25 years old anymore) or talking about those golden Delhi Days. We’ve kept each other updated as we progressed through various phase of our lives during these two decades, with arrival of our kids, their small and big achievements alike. In the past year, another hidden talent of DD’s came out as he started writing and reciting poetries and shared some of the best poems I have ever come across. The exclusive release would happen in the CIRCLE whatsapp group and almost all of his works we could relate and knew what triggered this thought. With his permission I would forward it to Mithu and few other friends and feel extreme proud to just say “This is DD!”
DD had been with us always in our times of need. If there is a long silence in the group he would nudge and make sure we all respond back. He is one of those rare ones, who can maintain a perfect balance between the spiritualistic and materialistic domains of ones life. The spiritual part is something which runs in their family and he is continuing the legacy by devoting his time daily in prayers and meditation. On numerous occasions, whether it is me or any member in my family going through some uncertainty or difficult period he would be there to say “don't worry. I will pray for you and all will be OK”.
So, DD, here’s to you on your 50th Birthday! I really wish you another great run on the next 50. On my part, I just consider myself extreme lucky that you had decided to stay with us at 31/30. If not, I would have never known that a friend’s friend could create such a big impact in my life.
From Babu. 20th July 2021.