Y'day I heard of someone's death on twitter. someone I barely knew, but liked a lot and remembered very fondly. I had met him on that summer school in Jerusalem in 2013, many years ago now. He was either a lil older to me (I was doing my PhD then and he was a postdoc) or probably just my age as I have spent years of my life doing detours and u-turns. He wasn't quite a star yet, but he was really smart and rising, and yet very humble and normal and sweet. I remember a few moments, one where he caught something in the speaker's presentation that no one including the speaker could understand immediately, it took us all a lil while to get it, and I don't remember if I got it at all. Another where I had just come back to the hotel after exchanging some money and was paying off my room at the reception, after which he beckoned to me from the adjoining lounge holding his laptop in hand, and asked for advice on how to fill in a couchsurfing form for some travellers group/network. He said I looked like someone who would know. I told him I had no clue but wished him luck. That same day or the next probably I saw him in the corridoor outside a door a few away from mine. And he grinned like a child and we expressed surprise at boarding in rooms so close. Another day at breakfast he was organizing a group for a day trip up north for a hike and swim. I didn't go cos I was a lil scared in that country. Another day he and I were talking about running and how I had left my running shoes back home cos this was a long trip and one needed clothes more, and I think that conversation led to him wondering aloud how and where we could do laundry .... small conversations but each somewhat reveals his persona. An enthusiastic and very bright economist, he was also an explorer, who was measured and careful, and a humble one at both those things and as a person. He was probably a six footer, I always felt like a pygmy with him, but he would bend softly. And he was tall metaphorically too, I came away from that trip thinking v highly and dearly of him. I never met him again. He was on my facebook but seems to have deleted his account; he used to post v rarely, some pics from an Arizona trek, monument valley, ... some other long trip with a friend, once in a couple years. He is still on my Goodreads friend list, but wasn't regular or updated on it.

I was stunned when I read that he died. In K's swivel chair with my phone in my hand, waiting for my laptop to start as I had planned an evening of work on my teaching notes. And then I went a lil frantic. The twitter post had a black screen accompanying it, so I went online to check if it really was him. The post said something like 4 days ago he died while hiking some mountain in Switzerland. It sounded like him... "One is still what one is going to cease to be, .... One lives one's death, one dies one's life." I did find an official note on his University page, he was already a full professor. Lots of ppl retweeted the first post, someone used the word "kind" for him. Rare words in this profession, in this age. 

I suddenly wanted to connect with anyone who might have known him. I wrote to my only friend from that summer school, I wrote to one of my profs cos all European economists know all others. I fretted about it for hours, I cried, I slept and dreamt strange things, and I woke up feeling dazed. How can someone just cease to be without warning without illness, someone bright and healthy and genuine and nice and kind and enthusiastic, and successful and with so much promise. And why?

Watching orange is the new black is not helping. and reading a memoir of growing up in Kashmir in the early 90s (Rumours of spring by Farah Bashir).

in this yr and a half I have aged a great deal. in my thoughts and realizations, in the news of demise I have heard. I feel old and yet not all these passings away are due to age. Joan didion wrote The year of magical thinking, after her husband's death, in her year of grieving I think. I need to read that now. but I am already a changed person. And it's not just covid related. it's been some long months of digging within our minds too, for other reasons, and finding both worms and flowers there. K and I have been mind explorers while being locked out from others' company. sometimes I wonder if the pandemic arose to give us this space. sometimes I wonder why other ppl are leaving us for other reasons now. Why now? Why at all?

This morning when I woke up, and opened twitter to check if that was a dream, that black space turned into a photo of him, with red hair mustache and beard. Y'day my phone was probably misbehaving and the pic hadn't loaded at all.

and now I keep wondering if he was trekking or hiking alone, if he fell or if there was an unexpected storm, did he go missing and was found days later, what happened really. Cos the news was announced some 4 days after the announced date when he died. did he see it coming, what were his last thoughts...