My childhood friend Prakash from Nagpur, India, called and told me that in the last month two of my school and college friends, Ashok Yadav and Indrakumar Khakhar suddently died. Ashok got rectal cancer and Indu had a heart attack. Both of them were very close friends when I was going in my school (Ashok) and early College (both Ashok and Indu) says. I met them in my last year’s trip.
We know that after some age it is common to hear about loss of family members and then friends, but when it happens it makes you think and it hurts. I have been thinking about these two people and the time I spent with them — it appears as if it was yesterday — in calendar time we were very close about 43 year ago — but memory is not entirely calendar based.
Also, whenever I hear of a person losing out to cancer, I can not help but thank Dr Lee from Atlanta who pushed me to get my cancer diagnosed and gave me a chance to win that battle in my life. I also thank the medical system for taking care of me and giving me a chance to, among other things, to write this sentence.