Calls from Yonder

Last evening, the insistent ringing of my mobile phone made me look away from the screen that I had been gazing for almost ages now. It was a number that was not stored in my device. Usually, such numbers are either credit cards sellers or wrong calls and I tend to ignore the rings. But this was a mobile number and an outstation number at that. I was almost sure this was a wrong call and as I pressed the green button to answer it, I was almost feeling sorry for the person calling, as he would lose money just to realize he had dialed a wrong number. But the voice that answered by 'Hello' brought a huge smile to my face.

It was Atticus Finch.

Well, not really the character from the timeless book, but the man who is so inspired with the book that he dons that identity in the cyber world of blogging ( and who knows where else ! :) ). The most remarkable attitude about this Atticus is his humility. He has scaled a lot of peaks and yet remains bow headed. From a self proclaimed basketball playing small town boy from down south in TN to an IIM graduate associated with the Tata Administrative Services, his journey has been one of achievements and no mean feat this! But on all this, he remains, to this day, the most humble soul that I ever knew.

I have seen him, pained by the hypocrisy that we call acceptance of Life. I have seen him miserable seeing the pain of others and the desperate want and need in him to somehow contribute. And contribute he does, with his time and most of the resources that he has. And to top all this, he has this unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He can debate about anything under the sun from occults to atheism, from mythology to nuclear physics ( well, prob not nuclear physics, but pretty near! :) ), from ethics to management! But among all this, what I will and can always remember is the humility.

I was not able to meet him yesterday. His time was completely booked by the professional responsibilities that he had. And all I got was a message late in the night that he had pack up for his travel early in the morning so, probably next time. I am not a childhood pal of his. I don’t even know, what I would have talked to him had I met him last night. But I did want to meet him. To see and feel unabashed admiration in the peaks that my friend has scaled and continues to.

This small bit of time and space is dedicated to the wonderful human I know.