Admin from hell - old style

Prashant was one of those people that have a special precense. He was THERE and you could feel it. He was a happy person with a wonderful sense of humour and was easy going and not complicated. He had a very bright head stuck on his shoulders and as top of his class he had several degrees behind him. Dedicated at work with great attention to details without being micro manager he also approached everything in a very structured way and this is what earned him success in whatever he undertook.

After another successful day at work his colleagues said good bye and see you tomorrow, he went home to his wife and 2½ year old daughter and enjoyed a nice evening. He felt not well and had a bit of indigestion so he went to bed. In the early hours of the morning he spoke to his wife and still had pain in his chest but thought it to be the stommac but his wife insisted that he should go to the hospital. Confident that it was nothing he wanted to bring his clothes and everything so he could go from the hospital straight to work because surely this was nothing. Then he suffered a massive heart attack and died.

Prashant was a healthy young man in his mid thirties with all possibilities ahead of him. He did not smoke and led a very healthy life attending the gym several times per week. He went to the doctor every 3 month to have his checkup to make sure that everyting was in order. A man in his prime was taken from us.

In both Buddhist and Hindu way one would say that is was his time. You have your life to live, only thing is that you don't know when it ends and you don't know what happens after that. The younger generation are not so prone to beleave that the spirit will move on when the body dies. It is more rational to say that when it is over, it is over. You trust in what you see and we do no longer train our senses to see beyond.

Just before this, on Sunday afternoon, I decided to go for a walk and perhaps do some shopping in a more simple area of Kolkata. Walking through the inner maze of a market place I neded up in a shop where they had a corner full of religious items that seemed to be made of dark metal or in few cases brass. These were tourist trinkets and among them I saw several head figures of Lord Buddha. It came over me like a chock and I started crying with big tears from my eyes. The feeling of darkness, pain and death came over me and I stood completely still and prayed to Lord Buddha for strength but also for all those who suffer in the world. I tried to be strong and reach out and share my compassion but the feeling was so overwhelmingly strong and I had to slowly back out of the shop. The people in the shop looked at me with big eyes and one of them guided me out into the daylight. It took me long time to recover and I still don't know what it was but the feeling was so strong, so over powering.

As soon as I return home I will visit a temple and pray and hope to be able to talk to a monk.
I do treasure every moment for I know it is dear but I also know that I have to learn to let go
because that is the way of Lord Buddha teachings which show the path away from suffering.

Most of my colleagues here at the office are now attending the ceremony for Prashant and cremation that will follow. I have not joined as I was explained that I should better stay behind and that they would convey my condoleances. Hindu ways are also diferent from those of the Buddhist.

So this turned out to be a different day at the office compared with what I had expected.
But then again you never know, do you ?

Yours
//Jake