I have been planning this post since the last several months,but due to multiple technical problems and the inability to arrive at the right words, it never quite materialized. This post is an obituary to my late grandfather Mr. Ahmed Kutty, fondly called 'Auppa' by all of us. It is a late valediction,as he passed away last Ramzan,yet I do not feel anything strange in it, as the memory of Auppa is not something that threatens to blur or fade with time. It remains with me as strong and clear as though he still walks among st us, spreading his magical smile.
Auppa was a a very,very,very special person. When I type this post,I feel like I have to use a different,stranger language because it is not everyday that you sing elegy to such a special person.Too many words well up inside me.
He was one of those people who made others happy by instinct,not interest. More than any of the things he was proficient in, I have always wondered at his incredible skill at making friends. Because Auppa had friends Everywhere. From his old days back in Thirunelli, to the different hospital beds where he spent some of the last days of his life, he collected friends like other people collected souvenirs. He never hesitated to strike a conversation, be it a train compartment, the "old men's gang" around his daughters home in Mankav or an unsuspecting Fabi Basheer sitting in her veranda. Not friends in high places,but simple men like himself. It was not an empty "friends' list" that would remain meaningless even when it ran to thousands. Each one of them was saved,remembered and cherished.
Auppa was one of the best writers I know. If I possess any talent that might even remotely be called literary,I owe it to him. The beauty of his writing is stamped in the hundreds of letters he had written over the years. For most of us in the family, his name brings the image of his armchair,as he sat in his usual place by the window writing away letters to friends,grandchildren, nieces and who-not , hilarious letters that brought each of us a touch of home. The letters would never come again,but every scrap of it would be cherished by each of us who had ever received one, Allah willing.
In all of the roles that life cast him in , he performed with a sincerity that is hard to find in these narrow times. As a son,husband,father, or brother, and above all as a human being, Auppa was an endearing individual. I do not call him flawless,because no man can attain that,and every man would always be inferior to the Prophet (pbuh).But I sincerely feel that in losing my grandfather , I have lost one of the most outstanding examples of a human being that I can hope to meet in my lifetime.
"Inna lillahi va inna ilaihi raji'oon" .
