I regret meeting Raju only once in the last 25 years. My dad had chatted with him more recently. Raju was like that. We were of the age when friend's parents were generally avoided or otherwise quickly greeted. Raju would sit down in the living room and chat for a while.
Trouble found Raju even where there seemed to be none. Once, at an overnight Boy Scouts camping trip, we tried to make things more lively by daring ourselves to be the first to steal and bring back a nice juicy bunch of grapes from the neighboring vineyards at nightfall. Raju almost got caught and hid out in a tree till dawn while we searched for him for hours.
And then there was the Indian Rope Trick - the rope ladder via which Raju descended from his second story bedroom window to skip out with us and finance nights of beer guzzling in the barren rocks of Jubilee Hills. I went back there years after HPS and the ground was still thick with fragments of UB bottles.
We'll miss you, my friend - your calm smile and an eagerness to take it one step further. Vivian - may you be fortunate to have friends like Raju.
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