Month: February 2012

Aside

The Marlboro Man – Ritesh Adyanthaya

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The Marlboro Man – Ritesh Adyanthaya

Everyone remember Clint Eastwood as soon as one says Marlboro Man… The Royal Face, The Stylish Dude, The Perfect Man… Ritesh Adyanthaya was the Version 1.1 of the Marlboro man… he was Stylish, he was smart, he was a heartthrob of all the girls around. The smart Mudikere/Mangalorean Ritesh was introduced by Tushar in the early days of Cambridge/Xchanging… I still remember Tush telling a “friend of mine who was about to buy a Copper Sulphate Tommy Hilfiger Jacket for 17 Grands” at Forum … The Smart boy Ritesh. Occasionally party at Tushar’s place made him closer to our group.

Finally one day Ritesh Joined Cambridge and the boys were on. We had a pretty big group to start with in Cambridge who always met at Bhatta’s House (BH) or at the Filling Station for Friday nights to discuss office, sip in some favorite flavors of alcohol we liked. The group started with Tushar, Ramesh, Ritesh, Bhatta, Galgale, Ankush Sharma, Srini and lot more of the Cambridge gang… The days at Cambridge were real fun as we all involved together in creating business plans, working on sales and presales, brain storming on processes, improvements, discuss about IT, Security, and what not all.. The days started becoming longer and nights becoming much longer. There were times when most of the Gang would be travelling to US and other countries to get business, work on new projects and away. Thanks to Cambridge for the most beautiful cities visited on business and fun, remembering those rides with Ritesh from Minneapolis to Mt. Rushmore, through Farmlands, National parks to Badlands, from New Jersey to New York to Philadelphia, from Rocky Mountains to Niagara Falls… the gang always was on…

As business started settling down from transitions to Operations, travels had stopped, Life started revolving around SLA, WPR, Bi Weekly Meetings, Steering Committee Reviews, Floor plans and what not.. Life in office always around 15-20 hours… we never minded those hours as we had the best of the work, with the best of the bosses, with the best of the friends…Irrespective of the workloads we made sure that we ended our day at BH for what we called PIT STOPS to relax a while discuss the issues and then work for the next day plans.. Of course with lots of fun, booze and music. Days passed on life became busy for everyone… Tush had moved to US… BH Was locked as Bhatta had moved to UK for long term that left only 3 of us in Bangalore, Ritesh, Galgale and me.

The trio was the best of the gang had the best of the times together… we discussed, argues, fought on the issues of life, life at office, Indian Cricket, Travelling abroad, Retirement age, the BH Restaurant on Bikers at Mysore road.. We planned as we always thought we are the ones and we can achieve anything… and everything. The most of the discussions happened at a place special place with special menu… the place was Rendezvous at Koramangala and the menu was Beer and Fried Cashews with French Fries and fresh Mayonnaise. Ritesh was always fond of cars and dreamt and lived in cars… he was one of the best drivers in the world… still remember the marathon 1000 mile drive between Mt. Rushmore to Minneapolis when our man drove overnight with high fever. I was always the special person to share the front seat with him. Talking, singing eating the man’s brain out. He was strong and strongest when every one’s eyes started dimming and almost slept. We had done numerous road drives between Bangalore, Goa, Chennai, Mudikere, Mangalore, and Belur…Dec 2007 was the most waited time as it was the marriage of the year with Tushar getting married and Goa. It was again the drive time… one of the best drives which we ever had…

It was the time when everyone in the gang was taking their next step towards their lives… from Bachelorhood to marriage from singles to doubles… Me and Aruna, Gal and Ranjita in 2006. Tush and Tan in 2007 and then Ritesh in 2008…I was travelling and couldn’t attend his wedding… irony to that was Ritesh wasn’t able to attend mine as he was travelling that time. Pranati and Ritesh were made for each other.. The Marlboro man weds the Princess charming.

Life had taken turns meanwhile… Ritesh moved back to Mangalore for running his business, Amit and Tush settled in US… I moved to Chennai and Bhatta back from UK to Bangalore… the boys nights vanished… the daily meets moved to weekly calls… a hi bye now and then.. But this was not what we the Titans were made for, so the boys wanted to meet and have fun and then back to what we were… we planned a trip to Goa… the trip was called ” The Tripping Titans”  – Tush, Ritesh, Ramesh, Bhatta from Bangalore go to Goa.. Amit joins from Mumbai we had the best times together… 4 days of fun, masti, booze and the long talks…

As we all stepped in early 30’s the weekly calls vanished, a monthly or a bi monthly calls… sudden visits courtesy ushar coming from US or an accidental visit to Bangalore… but life was still going on. The last such visit was somewhere in Aug-Sep 2010 when tush had come to Bangalore and we again had a reunion at BH. No one realized that this meeting was the last meeting and one of the friends from our gang would go missing. 

Most of the people speculated that 2012 would be the end of the world. We laughed at it… discussed about it… got bored of it… till the 14th Feb 2012, in the middle of hot afternoon… the phone rang.. I was in training and didn’t life the phone… followed by SMS from Bhatta… “Dude Ritesh is no more”… I went wet and blank… I couldn’t see anything… didn’t know what happened…

On the unfaithful evening on 13th… Ritesh was travelling back after dropping his friend to his place and back driving home…. while coming back he saw two buses coming from opposite side… he thought he could steer past the bus as he could see the road clear. Little did he know that he was heading towards the final destination….

 Today writing this with a tearful eyes… I can see him smile above all… saying “What’s Up Dude”… “You Piece of Shit”… “A Tall Dark Handsome Man”…. “Takliya”… “Been there Done That”…….

The Marlboro Man Rides on his horse towards the gates of heaven…leaves us all behind… Miss you a lot bro, friend. mate… now that u have gone ahead of all of us.. get ready a BH type RH (Ritesh House) for us there and wait for us to join u mate…