(The following was an assignment as part of a writing workshop to author a self-portrait in the third person, without using any adverbs, adjectives, and words with more than two syllables. Here's my fledgling attempt at self-deprecation in the form of an obituary from my wife's POV that she would read aloud to friends and family.)
For a man who sought control, it is a matter of sorrow that Rohit could not be here to read his obit. If it was to be so, he would have practiced this speech two weeks prior with some of you. That would have been after him sharing a written draft a month prior for your review. No matter the number of comments you would have showered on him, he still would have gotten back to each of you with a response for every comment. Also, you would have a printed copy of his speech in your hands because how else might he have pampered you with his footnotes. And dare I say, I need not wager much for a claim that the writing would have a verse or two of his. Some of you have survived to tell the tale of his liking for his poems. Let us not pretend we don't know what I am talking about.
For a man who sought control, it is a matter of sorrow that Rohit could not be here to read his obit. If it was to be so, he would have practiced this speech two weeks prior with some of you. That would have been after him sharing a written draft a month prior for your review. No matter the number of comments you would have showered on him, he still would have gotten back to each of you with a response for every comment. Also, you would have a printed copy of his speech in your hands because how else might he have pampered you with his footnotes. And dare I say, I need not wager much for a claim that the writing would have a verse or two of his. Some of you have survived to tell the tale of his liking for his poems. Let us not pretend we don't know what I am talking about.
If you did not know Rohit well, by now you know that he sought for order in his affairs. In fact, if he ever had an affair, he would have planned it with such finesse that I would have needed the wit of Sherlock Holmes himself to unearth it. Although, I would like to believe no such sidebars ever bothered him. For a man not wanting to spare a detour to another aisle in the store for something "not on the list", I am sure his mind could afford him no flight of this kind. His lists ran his life. I could have broken into Forbes 40-under-40 than to have made it to his list. There may have been one exception. Years ago when we were single, I mentioned to him that my parents were looking for a groom for me. His response was that he will talk to his dad. That was his way of "asking" me to marry him. I made it to his to-do list that day.
Yet, I have attained fame by forcing him to take a detour once. He had won the debate to go on one last work trip before being a parent. I should have known that an offspring of such a man might also want to beat schedule. Our son popped out in this world 3 weeks ahead of his time. Rohit was in a client meeting 2500 miles away when I had started driving to the hospital. He spent time online reading about my condition on his way to take the flight back home. I had to hear everything the doctor told me on what to expect once again from Rohit's research. I didn't get a chance to write his obit then since I spared him for making it back in time.
On the topic of research, he has endowed the people who study the ways a human mind can work with a puzzle to crack. For a man so structured in his work to be so ill-informed about the workings of a household should be a matter of scrutiny, with a focus on the topic of cooking. His struggle to tell apart Toor dal from Moong dal, Cardamom from Cinnamon, and Coriander powder from Cumin powder remained a quest till the end.
As we praise the life Rohit lived, we seek solace from the fact that he is beating Chitragupta hands down with a better list of records of his karma than the God himself might have tracked. May the Lord find some peace.