A phone contact

 I am going to delete a phone number from my mobile. The person whom it belonged to , passed away recently. I was having a tea with a friend today and he told me unexpectedly that this person has passed away. When  I asked him further , he told me he got a call from someone a week back informing the death of this person. Apparently his number was on the last call list. Just before his death it seemed that he called my friend.

This person who died was a bachelor. He suffered a massive heart attack shortly after a meal. It was because of him I made the first travel to himalayas. My friend gave me his contact when I told him casually that I wanted to visit himalayas. When I called him he told me he will pick me from airport which he couldn’t do at the last minute. But it gave me enough confidence to set my plans moving. He gave me an address in haridwar where I could find an accommodation. I stayed there, at  a beautiful ashram much away from hustles and dust of a pilgrimage town.

After my visit I met this person for the first time. He was in a temple near to kerala -tamilnadu border. My friend took me there. He looked young, robust and made a fiery conversation. I looked at his eyes with gratitude for the help he did. After that again I met him for the last time, when he was in my hometown recovering from a surgery. He had an assistant boy who spoke a dialect of the hills. He spoke to me for a while complaining about the pain he was suffering.

For a long time I didnt have any contact with this person. But during my last visit to himalayas, while I was returning from yamunotri , I thought of staying at Dehradun for a night. But I didnt see the modesty and serenity when I reached and made a quick plan to go to Rishikesh. Since Rishikesh was at peak pilgrimage season ,I wasn’t sure where to stay. While speaking to my friend he suggested me to contact this person. When I called him , he remembered me immediately and suggested a place to stay which I did. I guess I didnt meet or call him after that.

When my friend came to know his death , he travelled immediately to pay his last respects. It seems death happened in Coimbatore , where he came down from Delhi on the same day. My friend performed his last rites and he told me he just want to forget him.

After that conversation, I looked at my phone, his number was still on the contact list. While gazing it for a while, it seemed to me that contact has just disappeared away with time .I couldn’t accept that for a while.

It may be easy to delete a contact , but some people form very hard impressions and it never goes away with our time.