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'Uppams, everybody'
Writing an obituary is something I wish no one were ever asked to do ? in 150 words! Yet, I had to do it last week, in the most matter-of-fact tone, for HT?s designer, Jossymon Thomas.
Writing an obituary is something I wish no one were ever asked to do — in 150 words! Yet, I had to do it last week, in the most matter-of-fact tone, for HT’s designer, Jossymon Thomas. My immediate dilemma was: how do you describe a person whom you see full of life one day, being wheeled into a mortuary two days later? Can you pack all that shock and significance of a man in 150 words?
Jossy, 37, was one of us. A designer, who didn’t take himself too seriously, a trait rare in anyone who gets to spend even a couple of years in the journalistic profession. Some people are like full stops that come after long-winding sentences. They are the much-needed pauses in a symphony. They bring relief to a cacophonous world filled with megalomaniacs and control freaks. Jossy was one of those people who brought this relief. There was always chaos on his desk — in his work and, probably, also in his life. But he liked chaos.
“Uppams, everybody,” he’d yell, as a signal for us to lunge for his lunch box, while he stepped aside to let us gorge on the most heavenly, fluffy uppams his wife would cook for him.
Once I saw an attractive paper watch pinned to his desk wall. “So this is how you while away your time?” I jibed. Jossy who never took offence at anything said, “That’s for Kevin.”
Kevin is Jossy’s 5-year-old son whom he absolutely doted on. Everything was for Kevin — the birthday card with the picture of the smiling toddler; funny illustrations sketched so that he could show off his father’s creations to his friends later; personal invites to Kevin’s friends. Jossy had all the time in the world for doing these little things for his son.
Whenever I accompanied him down the corridor for a coffee, I felt struck by the number of people he knew, who’d stop to exchange a pleasant word with him. I’d heard tales of him going out of his way to help a friend with cash or in kind. Blessed with a very non-caustic sense of humour, his favourite self-refrain was “Jossy jaisa koi nahin.”
He was the kind of person who had no problem retreating into the background and allowing someone else steal the show. Because it just didn’t matter to him. He’s once again retreated into the background. But this time it’s for real and for good. And that’s what makes it so painful for all of us who have known him and worked with him so closely.
