Dedications

That’s how his name was pronounced by his Arabian bosses and colleagues in Bahrain. The name stuck and we all called Vinod Pillai, Beenood or Beelaai. Vinod though from Kerala had an exposure to living in the north of India, so he had the blend of complete Indianness, and would dance the Bhangra to Malayalam songs, was linguistic, in his speech with Malayalam, Hindi and Punjabi and could speak in the local accents, and thus here was a guy who could blend in anywhere.

With all his linguistic abilities he fell shot in his vocabulary, as he did not know that there was a word called ‘no’. It was always a ‘yes’, to anything you ask of him. Many (including me) would leech around him, as he had a car, and in the Middle East if you are not mobile, you are as good as handicapped. To make it worse the summer heat and extreme winters, but here was a warm guy who would just reach out to help. The guy was the chauffer to anyone, the man Friday to anyone needing help, and a great host on Thursday nights (weekend in the Gulf). The guy had a taste for good things in life. When we squirreled to save, here was a guy who would pour out his courtesy (and great drinks). He thought us how to live life, and it was not only about making or saving money, but also enjoying it within limitations.

With all his goodyness, he was a riot at parties and some of his anecdotes made all of his friends, burst out in laughter, even years later. I remember one of our wild evenings, where after drinks and we all were high and tipsy, got into bouts of WWF wrestling stunts, and I got a muscle pull. The pain was unbearable, and Vinod in the drunken stupor, fishes out an ‘air freshner’, thinking it is a ‘pain relieving spray’ and sprays all over the area I was hurt. Strangely I felt better as ‘physiologically’ the cool effect of air spray, and the additional round of drinks downed to beat the pain.

Rarely does one get the fortune and honor to have genuine friends like him. In today’s world people like him are an endangered and diminishing species, as normal (read abnormal) human beings are tuned to selfishness, using friends for personal gains and dumping them after, and casually pretend to move ahead in life. I was fortunate to have known Vinod for four years in the mid-nineties, and after that I moved back to India. I could never reciprocate Vinod the courtesies he had bestowed on me, and the only thing I could do was remembering him on his birthday every year, and connecting over the Internet when it became easily available.

The joy was meeting Vinod years later when I went to Bahrain on a visit, as now here was a married man with a son at that time. Later he was blessed with another child. A guy now matured, a great husband, father and as always a great friend. His anatomy was ‘all heart’. Unfortunately it was the heart that gave up on him, and had to survive with a pace maker, but no one could never know that he had an ailment as his heart poured out to one and all, and maybe with the pace maker it poured out even more.

It was just this year that I missed out to wish him on his birthday on 06 Dec, and even if I did, I would have still missed him, as Vinod had passed away on 04 Dec. The news was broken to me by a common friend in utmost grief. In that grief there was laughter in remembrance of the good old days we spent with Vinod. All his friends will miss him dearly, but his memory will cherish our life time, and collectively our hearts reach out to family in condolence.

All our hearts put together can never match magnanimity of the heart of Beenood Beelaai.