It took me days to get over the shocking news of Pankaj Uniyal’s extremely unfortunate demise in an equally unfortunate and tragic accident. When I thought of penning my thoughts, after the initial shock, I just could not do it. The shock would continue to hound me. Later a note written by Praveen (Ranga) encouraged me to say my final “Good Bye” to him.
Tragedies happen around us all the time but when its closer home like this one, it shows the unpredictable nature of life and our futile attempts to plan, save and hold it.
Learning about Pankaj’s death at a young age of fifty is shattering. It is still difficult to believe that the ever relaxed person with ever smiling face is gone. ‘Hero’, I would often address him as and he would reply , endearingly, with ‘Darling’, like a couple of teenage boys
Though I left Dehradun, long back, but Dehradun never left me and I make it a point to visit it often.In all such visits, few of us,classmates, ritualistically ,would get together for drinks where Pankaj was omnipresent,often picking me up and dropping me off. For most of us he was always the gook looking one, the lucky one ,without a care in the world.He was also blessed with a lean athletic frame besides an extremely relaxed attitude. I don’t think anyone has ever seen him a wee bit stressed or disturbed ever.For me, as most would agree, he looked at fifty exactly the way he looked when he was in class IX. I bet his clothes of grade nine or ten would still fit him.
As kids we were envious of his good looks, attention he drew from girls and of course his Kawasaki Bajaj. I think he got the bike in class IX and in eighties and even early nineties having a bike meant you are a stud and a dude combined , if there is anything like that . Of course these words were not used then.
He never seemed to age and we often joked about this. But in our last get together, on 01 May 2022, when once again he picked me up and dropped me off, in that ill fated car, he mentioned something about him , also ,aging and putting on some fat on waist. I smiled and said,” Finally,age is catching up with you too.” We all had a good laugh on that one. While dropping me back I shared my plans of getting back to Dehra after retirement , I knew he would help me as he had helped me around twenty years back when I had bought a house in Dehra .He said “ Tu aaja , tab dekh lenge “
We almost grew up together bonding over cricket and a relaxed Pahari attitude. A born athlete, he would never practice but end up doing well and had a hailing arms bowling action like that of Madan Lal. Even in school days he would often pick me up ,and later drop me ,for Cricket matches, as we stayed in some part of town.
The good or bad part about Dehra being a small town is you keep bumping into each other and we would bump into each other quite often. We grew up from carefree kids to carefree adults experiencing life’s milestone like marriage, fatherhood around the same time.
It is quite a coincidence that my first bike also was Kawasaki Bajaj, he had accompanied me to take its delivery and later for trip to ‘Datt ki Devi’. My bike, as with his bike, stayed with me for ages before both of us moved on to Royal Enfield, Bullet, which we own and ride, till now.
Around three years back, while dropping me off on his bike after our ritualistic evening get together at President Hotel, a favorite joint then, he took me through some , long forgotten, shortcuts trying to evade Cops checking for drunk driving at night,they were quite strict then.
While he was the Relaxed one , I also had the opportunity of watching him cry , literally shedding tears . I had hosted a Daru party , basically arranged Daru , for available classmates on getting Commissioned in 1993. This party was in Cheela Dam guest house , so that we can drink to our heart’s content and don’t worry going back home. Pankaj ,who was always a social drinker, sticking to Beers,got overtly emotional after some .He cried, shedding tears, for a long time on Nalin’s shoulder blabbering sentences like “tu mera bhai hain”.
I can go on but strange are the ways of life. It just passes by when you are planning it. He leaves a void among us and its difficult to even imagine the void created in his family.
Dear ‘Hero’, I will always wonder whether you left because you just refused to grow old.
Good bye and rest in peace.
Written: After the tragic death of our ever youthful Pankaj Uniyal in an extremely unfortunate accident in 22.
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