Our friendship with Ashish’s family goes much earlier before he was born  My husband and I knew his grandfather from i973 Dr Kalia a renowned scholar of his time and a.very charming man  . He would often come and stay with us for he bacame our friend philosopher and guide though  more of a friend inspite of the age difference Ashish s mother Suman also taught for few months with us and we bacame one big family . It was. Natural when his parents got married we participated in all the festivities

After a year or so Kalia sahib   Had gone to Srinagar to escort Suman with her young baby  and spent a night at Chandigarh where we met Ashish who was. a few months old for the first time.A. Cute cuddly baby with a  winsome smile even friendly with the strangers

Years passed and we never met though we were always in touch . We got a pleasant surprise one day that his father was posted at Chandigarh . We were delighted with the news and.by this time Ashish had grown on to tall handsome boy Mature a little quiet but totally committed to his studies Two years passed his father was again transferred and by this time Ashish had joined the prestigious Chandigarh engineering college  since his hostel was.very close to our campus house his visits became frequent  By this time he had bloomed in to a lovely young man confident about his self extremely good at conversation with an uncanny sense of humour  we loved having him over and he also enjoyed coming over that phase was the best part of our life and he left an indelible imprint on our lives and we never  metafter that

He went to states and we kept on hearing the good news that how well he was doing there and got laurels from his teachers and colleagues

And then we learnt about his illness and how strongly and bravely he fought on that front And then the time came to say final goodbye  We will always miss you Ashish and treasure the happy memories of the time spent with you you will never go away for you would always remain embedded in our memories God be with you