Amit...the Amit Bordia

What could one say about him?  His laurels are nothing less than legendary. Born and brought up in Udaipur, he was a St Paulian...my Batchmate, my Benchmate. The term Academics falls short of its glory when it is used in sync with Amit.

Amit for us has been a Galaxy and all are always orbiting around him. We always wear our Alma Mater on our school blazers but some of us luckier ones had the privilege to wear the pride of our school on a tuxedo simply because we are Amit’s batch mate.

Bordia…as we used to call him…well we actually looked up the word 'Genius' because of him.. in our lifetime indeed we was the first one with whom we studied , played , laughed and lived.

Whenever he used to come on the school stage, his extempore was something worth waiting for. The way he used to spread magic through his words…indeed we all used to wait for Amit to grace the stage of St. Pauls.

We all knew that one day the world will be his stage. He did his engineering from the Indian Institute of Technolongy (IIT), Delhi and management from the Indian Institute of Ahmedabad. Harvard was his next stop. His academic journey was filled with zeniths and his professional life was no less.  We all met some years back on the Silver Jubilee of our '93 batch.

Those who were not close to Amit, they always thought he is very studious and was always a favourite of the teachers. But reality was something else. Academics was effortless for him. Extempore, debating, poems, came naturally to him.  Amit was a die hard Amitabh Bachchan fan.  I remember, when we were in the 9th standard and no Google or Internet search engines to look at, Amit used to write the names of all Amitabh Bachchan movies that he watched, in our Mathematics classwork copy. 

After several years, it was during the London Olympics, that he shared a picture of himself with Amitabh Bachchan. I commented, "AB with AB...both are AB..but for me you Amit Bordia ( AB) are more important. Amitabh is a Star but Amit is a Superstar.. Amit, we have lived with you; blessed by God to have spent time with you.

Amit despite being always the first rank holder whole his life never showed it up with us; he was modest to the core. He was deeply in love with Udaipur. During our reunion when most of us spoke in English from the stage at St Paul’s, Amit delivered in Hindi.  He was there for every event . Who knew that … it was the last time we had him among us. In the history of St Paul’s there won’t be another Amit. Dil kehta hai dosto ki awaaz dil tak jatee hai. 

Mere dost tum aasman par atte jateein the, Ab aasman tumhara hai. Sitareein bhi shaaram sein chup gayee tumhe dekh kar, Kyoki duniya se ek Sitara aisaa ayya hai jiski chamak baki sare sitoroon se zyada hai. Mere dost chamakte rehna.

As I am writing this ..in the late hours of night, the sky is illuminated with one shinning star. Its you my friend Amit. I really don’t know Amit, from where I am drawing so much courage to even jot down these lines for you. The vaccum created by your perpetual absence now is unbearable. Deep inside we all your class mates… aur tumhare aziz dost…tumhe yaad kar rahee hai. Amit we will meet again at the other side of the fence one day…you reside in all of us.