Everyday I think, may be today is the day I start referring to Saagar in the past tense. I haven’t been able to do that as yet. I don’t know if I ever will.
Everyday I think today may be the day I will focus on all the things I am grateful for and then the pain might be a bit less. I am ever so grateful yet the pain is no less.
Everyday I think may be I should change all my passwords so that I don’t have to think of him everytime I turn my phone or computer on but that wouldn’t work because he will still be there.
Now, his absence is as present as his presence was. In fact, much much more so. The things we take for granted!
I love to read what his friends have to say about him. They meant the world to him and through them I am getting to see him in a new light. They are a source of strength and solace for me. Their love for him seems pure and unblemished. I wish to immortalise Saagar even though he no longer lives on planet Earth.
“Saagar had a truly unique ability to leave an impression with everyone and anyone he ever met. He transcended social cliques and instead got on with everybody individually – a testament to which is the variety of people who showed up today. For me, the only way to explain this is with reference to how genuine a person he was. By this I mean, he was not concerned with trivial trends or social point scoring – but was instead truly interested in things that matter. There seems to be a culture that is rife at the moment whereby our conversations are dominated by the insignificant and the contrived. Take a moment to eavesdrop next time you are in the Nova smoking area and you may notice this repetitive humdrum: People insist on sharing with the world how much they have been drinking, how much sex they are having and how many drugs they have been taking. Our obsession with the trivial has become endemic. Saagar shared my frustration with this culture and was able to call it out for what it really was: infantile bullshit. As a result, a conversation with him was incredibly refreshing. He was genuinely opinionated about things that actually matter, and used his razor- sharp wit and unwavering rationality to expose things as the way they really are. I felt – like I am sure many of you have felt – that every conversation with Saagar was a blessing. A pinprick of sanity to burst the insane student bubble in which we live.
As I stand here, still struggling to talk about such a presence in the past tense, I am comforted by the fact that the lessons we learnt from Saagar will never leave us. The most important one he taught me was pride. No matter what, Saagar remained unapologetically proud about so much in his life, and this pride was truly contagious. He took pride in his upbringing, and the sheer courage it took for him to move from India, to a period of racial bullying in Belfast to the drastically different setting of one of the country’s leading public schools (although speaking from experience – public schools are perhaps not the best place to seek refuge from racism!). This did not affect him in the slightest however. In fact – he remained so proud of being brown that he resorted to smoking out of liquorice rolling papers that were as brown as he was. Proud of the friends he made, and proud of the experiences he shared with them. Whilst he may no longer be with us, this pride lives on in each of us – as we are all immeasurably proud to have known him, and prouder still of how he chose to spend his tragically short time on this earth, leaving little more than the wisdom he imparted, the compassion he shared and the untiring friendships he made.”
Ooooodles of love to you and all your friends Saagar. xxx
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