" Ashirwada" - the blessed done and gone!

From tuppence to tuppence, from string to string and from paper to another you knit it tightly and gently. You had your own wings; you had your own dreams with your feet on the ground. You weren’t just a bird in the flight, but a special one. You held your fist tight to the strings of your kite. Pulled it soaring up through the higher skies. At times the air was clear, at times it was haze. Haze was your kindred. The one who pushed you higher and higher till you were lighter than air. The one that taught you to dance and sing over houses and trees. The one who taught you that there is a thin line between laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy and humor and hurt.

Sometimes life will only leave us a little space to think, to do things, to make love, to break relationships and even to make promises. Life loathe at times that it is enough for us to part so quickly. Remember the note you hunted down on Facebook   three years back?  It was a long promise to show what is best for everybody, a promise to form the right attitude so that nobody will give up and that impossible is nothing.

22 years of his life wouldn’t have had much to do with such a promise. It’s indeed a difficult task. Yet the little things that crept into his life proved that thunder is milder in rain.

Ashirwada Pahan was an Undergraduate of the School of Computing in the University of Colombo. He was diagnosed of a Third Ventricular Colloid Cyst with Obstructive Hydrocephalus and was in an extremely critical condition. Consequent to the initial treatment, he underwent multiple surgeries at Sri Jayewardenepura Hospital. For some time he crossed the crisis time and was recovering to a semi-conscious state where he was eligible to perform normal but with meticulous care.

Pahan was brought up by his father after his mother died at the tender age of six. His father was financially unable to meet the expenses for medication. Thanks to many helping hands who most generously volunteered to treat Pahan free of charge and those who bore expenses to fill the cost for his surgeries.

Pahan was headstrong and ambitious. Despite the deadly disease he managed to finish up his first year education at University. He never let life play with fear instead he hit most of the times with a good laughter. That was a rare spirit of someone who could hardly think of standing on their own feet and enjoy life the way they want. But Pahan was different! He was wrapped in stitches. Spent numberless days in hospital beds. Yet he lived the days happier as he can because death was certain.

Karma was too bitter and strident on him. He bit the dust sooner than we thought. For him it was well known and noted. But for a father who nurtured him single handed isn't biddable.

May early each day to the steps of his soul the good things come, in the way he loved and bestowed in   his people. While overheard “sublime happiness fill his skies”.

“Anicca vata sankhara, uppadavaya-dhammino;

uppajjitva nirujjhanti, tesam vupasamo sukho.”

( Published on the 9th February 2014 in " The Nation " )