A few days back, I read on a friend's timeline that the man in the picture is no more. Since then, many other friends from FTII have acknowledged the influence this man had on them. I've been struggling to put into words my feelings about him too. For more than 4 years of my life at FTII, this man was an abiding presence. He appeared one day on campus while we were in our first year, and stayed there. The whispers were, he was an alumnus, who used to work at O&M, had suffered a deep personal tragedy and was probably suffering from schizophrenia. He was adopted by the students and made the campus his home. I was just discovering the comfort of being within the four walls of the Institute, and likened it to returning to the womb. My fellow students would talk to him about life, films, scripts. But me and him, we hardly spoke a sentence to each other. Every time we passed each other, we would just exchange a smile. I didn't know how to express this mutual understanding between two silent unexpressive men into words. Till today an email by Priya Krishnaswamy, a senior at the Institute, perhaps summed up the jumble of my thoughts.

"I felt that he was very self-contained, happy in his own world, and that it would be an imposition to approach him, and so I never did.

But he was every where... one of the first faces I'd see at the canteen at breakfast, walking quietly down to the Tree, waiting for a screening outside the MT.

I'd see the students talking to him, and the gentle way he'd respond.

I'd hear the love and protection and pride in their voices when they spoke of him.

The overriding image I have of him is this - he was so self-effacing. He took up so little space, and yet, he was everywhere.

RIP"

Good-bye, Rahul da. I will miss you.