My Lost Friend Sastryji (standard:Fan Fiction, 1127 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Oct 31 2010	Views/Reads: 2699/1800	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A sad story about a fictional character Mr. Sastry

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

a Brahmin. 

Bhajanlal always offered Indian pastries, some sticky with sugar syrup
and others hard like rock but sweet. Juggernaut had no complaints since 
it brought some nostalgia of India. 

Sastryji was well known among the expatriate professors from India on
the campus and he introduced Juggernaut to some of them.  Professor 
Krishnan, a dark-skinned and curly-haired professor, after living 
several years in England, came to Trinidad with his British wife.  In 
social gatherings, he behaved more British than his English wife. He 
left Trinidad after a short stay; Trinidad was too Indianish for him. 
While Juggernaut's graduate work was going at full swing, he had 
serious doubts about Sastryji completing his work any time soon. 
Sastryji came almost three years earlier and now almost seven years had 
passed since he came to Trinidad. His work was no way close to 
completion. He never discussed his work with anybody. Sastryji wasted 
time and money on Pundit Jairam and Dr. Mohan in socializing at the 
expense of his graduate work. Though Sastryji sent some money home, 
Juggernaut felt sorry for his wife and children back home. It was 
certain that his family missed him. 

On some days, Sastryji got up from bed in the afternoon hours.  He
continued to smoke cigarettes like a wood-burning stove, as much as 
three to four packs of Broadway cigarettes, a local brand. The Indian 
maid emptied a plastic pail (the regular ashtray over-filled so often, 
the maid replaced it with a pail) full of cigarette butts and ash so 
often, the chore disgusted her. 

The maid was always worried that Sastryji would never return to India to
join his family. Juggernaut consoled her by saying how Sastryji may 
stay put in Trinidad like her forefathers from India. 

When Juggernaut left Trinidad with a Ph.D. degree, Sastriji was still
working on his thesis work. Several years after, Juggernaut contacted 
the University where Sastryji worked in North India. After several 
months, he received a letter from the University Registrar indicating 
that Dr. Sastry died of natural causes soon after he returned from 
Trinidad. His death could be anything but natural from heavy smoking 
for so long. The University provided Sastryji's family address living 
in South India but he didn't see any need to contact them, after all 
they don't know Juggernaut. 

Juggernaut always wondered about his dear friend Sastryji, how he spent
his time, almost a decade away from his family, just to get a diploma 
for a promotion to professorship that benefited neither him nor his 
family. He was a loser by any count. Both the Pundit and the Indian 
doctor wasted his time and money. Juggernaut was not sure how the 
regular puja helped him either, may be he received some solace from it. 



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