Bidding Adieu

There is a touching scene in the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’ which I love. John Nash is sitting in the cafeteria of his college, where a person from the Nobel Committee has come incognito to inform him that he will be receiving the next Nobel Prize. The college has a long tradition of honouring its finest people, those who have created milestones and changed lives, in a very small, simple and personal way. Those who want to honour such people just go up to the table where they are sitting and put down their fountain pen on the table, expressing their respect and admiration for them and their work. Just as Nash is about to get up and leave after receiving this tremendous news, up comes a Professor (who ofcourse doesn’t know about the Nobel thing at all) and keeps his pen on the table. And what follows is a literal exodus of everyone doing the same. It feels as if he has got the Nobel already!
I always get a lump in the throat while watching this scene. That scene, that moment; that’s what anyone would want all his/ her work and efforts to culminate into. It always feels magical to watch that scene. Having seen Nash go through everything and finally earn that, I feel like I am playing a small part in the scene myself.

Today, on Ravi Sir’s last day in office, as Sir was quietly packing all his stuff into his bag, and all of us - residents, faculty, staff, technicians, servants, everyone - was looking at him trying to hold our emotions in check, I saw the same scene running in front of me. Only the pens were replaced by that tight restrained silence, by the shuffling of our feet and the hiding our tears by turning our heads the other way, by those hesitant steps following Sir all the way to the car, by the waving of our hands one last time as he disappeared from our sight, and by the feeling of emptiness that no 10 had when we stepped back into it again.

We will miss you Sir. But then again, you have never really gone anywhere.