Mint Chocolate Ice Cream and Pretty Earrings: In Memory of Minal

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Minal.JPG

Dearest Choti Behan,

Mint chocolate Ice Cream and pretty earrings, that’s my wish for you little Minal.

surabhi: minu is nothing like neone u wd hv met b4,..she is unique..one in a zillion..shes the greatest friend..u dont know her well enough if u havent heard her brilliant witty jokes..she has a style of her own…she is fun..she wants so much from life..a beach of her own..a bike..a musician guy..chocolate-mint icecream…lots of pretty earrings…and i wish that she gets all of it. i have learnt so much from her..i am just blessed to have a friend like her..i am so proud of her..of what she has achieved and i absolutely love her!!!! [orkut testimonial]

I hope you thrill to the crisp sweetness of white cream flecked with chocolate chips for all of eternity (white because if it’s green ice cream, it’s artificially colored, and I would only let you eat the finest). I hope that when you set your spoon down by your old-fashioned ice cream dish at whatever celestial cafe you are at, it is only so that you may open little boxes, filled with glittering earrings so lovely, they steal your breath and replace it with delight. I hope that every little box which is tied with a perfect bow is given to you by a “musician guy” as your friend Surabhi would put it, since that’s what you like. And I hope he looks at you with eyes brimming over with love, because you must know this by now– you are loved. So very loved. I cried at how loved you are, when I scrolled through every single scrap left at your Orkut profile.

I felt my throat constrict when I read

Hearing ur name from yesterday dear. 1 Billion n more people prayers r with you along my prayers. Hope you are found soon. Oh God help her.

…which was left by someone who actually changed their screen name to “Pray For Minal”, just for you. All for you. I acknowledged the faith you inspired

hi ya.. just got messages from my friend.. hope you are well.. I am not hoping; I belive you are all right.. reply…take care..

and then I saw the following, which is what forced the tears that had merely been hovering in front of my eyes to spill down my cheeks, in to my lap–

Heyy minal wassup – ! i’l get ya pani – puri’s wen r ya back. take care

But you’ll never gobble another golgoppa, will you? You won’t giggle when water streams down your chin if you weren’t careful, you will never again hear a glorious crunch while salt/sweetness/spice/sourness collide in your happy mouth. This gentle “bribe” for your reply wasn’t successful. But the mere fact that it was made destroyed me, even as I knew I must be feeling nothing relative to the pain your pani-puri-profferer is in.

And then there was this, which encapsulated a truth which filled me with wonder, because I knew in my gut it was true, that instead of being glued to India vs. Pakistan (which you would have watched, yes, you would), a whole, huge nation was horrified by the words and pictures streaming out of Virginia.

Hey Minal,
The entire country is praying for your well being!
Take care

Once, when someone fell in love with me, they created an entire Orkut community based on a very precious inside joke, so I know how significant such a thing is, in the wonderland-like world of social networking programs. Someone who loves you did the same, but I wish with every cell in my body that they were doing it for any purpose but…

We started a community for Minal Panchal, the Indian missing @ Virginia Tech….Do join it and pass it on to ur friends
To view the ‘Praying for Minal’ community page, visit: http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=30876137

So what I am looking at is a love story, as told by virtual bits and pieces of care left by strangers on a pale blue page created by a Googler during his “20 percent time”. When Orkut Buyukkotken pondered connecting others as he roamed about the Googleplex, could he have possibly known that thousands of Indians would flock to your profile and write prayers for your safety, pleas for your very life? My eyes touch the screen as if it were braille, as I try to understand who you were by being mindful of what you chose to reveal about yourself, what you might have been attempting to convey. A Web 2.0 timesuck transforms to become a 24-hour a day vigil for a girl from Bombay, then it serves as her memorial in cyberspace. The CNN-IBN article which confirmed your loss borrowed your profile pic, I think. I know, because I did that too for this post. I wonder if their journalists lingered over your words, your tastes, your choices, your interests. I looked at which groups you chose to affiliate yourself with, because I always thought that mine said so much about me. And I wanted to know you, in some tiny yet real way. So I saw:

Our Lady Of Remedy High School – Batch 1996
Rizvi College of Architecture
Sustainable Architecture
Santiago Calatrava

…and I got a sliver of a sense of you. Architect. I usually swoon for architects, but today I tripped over that date, instead. 1996. Your batch. You are my little sister’s age. The second my mind made that connection, tears fell again. Because to me, she will always be a baby, even if she nears 30…and that means someone must think of you that way, too. I know someone does– your older sister, Kavita. How I weep for her, since I cannot bear to contemplate a life without the little girl who followed me around until I was an adult; how can your didi? How could any of us? You are so very loved, Minal. All little sisters and brothers are.

Over a billion people prayed for you; several dozen probably knew you well and shed far more tears for you than hyper-emotional I did. After all, you are not just someone’s sister, you are someone’s daughter, in fact, your Mother was coincidentally visiting the U.S. when her life became this nightmare. When she goes home, she takes with her the devastating knowledge that you will never return to it again. You will never eat her cooking or snap at her when she annoys you as all Mothers do; you will never sleep in your childhood bed.

I know what that bitter epiphany feels like, and I know that it violently rips the middle out of the word “home”. It has to. Those letters are the sound from which the entire universe is created. Your poor Mother, her universe has shattered, for she has lost you. My Mother once told me that no parent wants to outlive their child, that it’s not right, it’s not fair and I think of you again. It’s not right. It’s not fair.

Who am I to write about you? Why do I feel any connection to you at all, no matter how tenuous? Is it because you and I are exactly the same height? Is it because we might have been able to tell each other which shades of lipstick to avoid? Or is it just because I am haunted by my own loss, my own neverending nightmare, my own tragedy which is so different, especially in magnitude from yours, but it is still crippling for me. I am now beyond familiar with apparitions, guilt and unexplainable moments when what I feel races far past what I know, so I think I have answered my own questions. If “death” were on Orkut, I’d be on their buddy list.

But this is about you, dear girl. Sweet, sensitive, shy, intensely-creative-you. “Brilliant” and “so respectful of her elders”- you. You who will now eat mint chocolate ice cream every day, all day, as much as you want– and my irrational, anguished mind thinks of cavities you will never get, for angels never need to go to the dentist. Again, I have to appreciate your taste– that’s one of my favorite flavors, too. And I also collect earrings. I have a pair I liked so much, I accidentally bought them again, for the second time in six months. They are beautiful. I sincerely wish I could give them to you. I am convinced you would have loved them.

What else did you love? You once typed

assertiveness, candlelight, intelligence, sarcasm, thunderstorms

and then you outlined even more about yourself:

passions: my work, architecture, buildings, nature, architecture……

…your greatest passion in life, mentioned twice. Duly noted.

You would have been popular among our World Cup-mad mutineers:

sports: not into sports except for swimming occassionally, like to watch cricket sometimes.

If we were friends, I would have gently made fun of your love for Hari Puttar…

books: all of harry potter series, little women, sphere, timeline, to kill a mocking bird.

…but I would’ve given you earrings too, to buy your forgiveness. I would’ve asked if you had that one remix of “Be With You”, since none of my Pitchfork-reading friends will admit to owning it…

music: old hindi, r.d. burman, soft rock, enrique… and any fast music while at work.

And I would have lobbied for the first and last, but not middle if we were going out to dinner:

cuisines: indian, chinese, italian…

I brood and I type this and I know why I am doing it; I want you to be real. I want you to be more than that “Indian student who died in Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech”. I want someone to feel what I did, when I read this comment about the other visible brown victim of this tragedy. I want you to be more than– I am ashamed to type this–a bullet point or a statistic, but I have already seen you reduced to both, because your life was stolen by the former. I want that grainy picture of you that is being linked everywhere to be supplanted by memories of the amazing human you obviously were. I want you to be Minal, not a victim.

And because of that obstinate hope on my part, I want you to be thought of and remembered here, in my virtual home, if only for a moment. Because everyone who was lost on 04.16.07 deserves such respect and contemplation. And I’m reading profiles of other victims, people who were from the DC Metro area, because that’s the logical thing to do– memorialize those whom you live near, because you have something in common with them. Well, a few thousand of us at this big brown blog have some things in common with you, though none of us has ever met you. And I just wanted you to know that we are so sorry you are gone. That you broke our collective hearts, because we see you now and we are stunned at what was lost.

Every victim is being mourned, but some are being “remembered more” than others; it’s not fair, but none of this is…and such unevenness is merely the way it all works. I just wanted to do what I could, for you. It was the least I could do, for you, my little sister whose life should have continued here instead of above.

As we say in my Greek Orthodox faith: “May your memory be eternal.” May your last few moments have been painless, if that was at all possible, out of divine mercy. May your life have been filled with happiness and sweetness, not regret. May your loved ones eventually feel serenity. May a senseless calamity like the one which deprived our world of you never happen again. And may heaven really be like Orkut for you Minal, since more than a social networking timepass which allowed me to see a fraction of you, it is an old Turkish word which means “city of happiness, pleasure, joy”. I wish you bliss in your Orkut, wherever you are, choti behan. Be at peace.

Love,

A K K A

::

Thanks, brown_fob.

CNN-IBN: Virginia Tech’s missing Indian student dead

100 thoughts on “Mint Chocolate Ice Cream and Pretty Earrings: In Memory of Minal”

  1. Anna, I was just reading Minal Panchal’s Orkut scraps too.

    BTW, here is a blog post by someone who knew Minal Panchal personally. He lost touch with her a few years ago, and then was a little shy about writing her via Orkut. Now he regrets not dropping her a line…

  3. Anna,

    That was extremely moving and heartfelt. In these days of deadened senses and overexposed minds, you made me feel again…Peace Minal, and peace to your family.

  4. ANNA,

    If I did not know you, browsing through this post I would have concluded that YOU WERE her sister. May her memory be eternal.

  6. Somehow the words bring me comfort:

    “Lead me from the unreal to the Real from darkness to Light from death to Immortality…” – Upanishads

    may she be forever Immortal. love and peace.

  11. We will cherish, the Prasad u used to give every single day using the Ganesh Festival. We will miss that sweet and genuine simple and our beloved friend.

    A request to those of us so inclined: This year, during Ganesha Chathurthi, please offer prasadam to the lord on at least one of the ten days, in Minal’s name. She’s not here to do it any more.

  13. I brood and I type this and I know why I am doing it; I want you to be real. I want you to be more than that “Indian student who died in Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech”.

    Thank you Anna for doing this so well.

  14. What a terrible tragedy for the friends and family of Minal. I wish them luck in coping with this tragedy.

    Out of curiosity: The people here who are wishing ‘RIP’. Is that out of the Abrahamic belief of resting peacefully in grave till judgment day or people are just using a term commonly used when people die.

  16. or people are just using a term commonly used when people die

    That’s my hunch. Most people don’t know what to say in order to offer comfort to those who are reeling from the death of a friend or family member. I learned that first hand; it’s not a point of criticism, it’s just the truth. Such situations are awkward, emotional and sensitive– very difficult to navigate, communications-wise.

  18. great writing.

    deepest sympathies for her families. can’t imagine what they are going through. minal’s father passed away only recently, too.

  21. Minal was an alumni of my college. She joined Rizvi College of Architecture in 1998 and graduated in 2003-04.

    She was a batch junior to my wife. A quiet intense girl, she was pursuing a masters in architecture at VT. Her batchmates who were studying/working in nearby Raleigh, are on the way to blacksburg to be there with her family. This has been a huge shock to all of us at college and the alumni the world over.

  22. May you build palaces and eco-houses up there Minal! May you find peace and comfort among the others much beloved. You will be missed by all your friends and family. May your soul rest in peace, Little Princess.

  23. ANNA

    The CNN-IBN article has factual errors.

    Minal joined Rizvi College of Architecture (my alma mater) in August-September 1998. She graduated at the end of the academic year 2003-04.

  24. this is the first time that virginia tech has been able to even touch me. thank you so much, anna – and also not – for that.

  25. Anna,

    That was a beautiful tribute.

    My thoughts and sympathies are with Minal’s friends and family. This is yet another senseless and tragic loss.

  26. As we say in my Greek Orthodox faith: “May your memory be eternal.”

    Anna, you have made sure that I will remember Minal, who I never knew, for a very very long time. A mere name to me this morning, I already feel like I’ve known her forever – so vivid is she in your portrait, which I dare not call an obituary. And may God give Minal’s family the strength to bear this loss. I know they will probably read this sometime, and it may comfort them a little to know that they are not alone in their grief for so promising a life so tragically cut short.

    Thank you, Anna, and please take care of yourself too.

  27. Thank you for writing that beautiful, moving tribute, Anna. Sounds like a person loved much by many. Condolences to Minal’s (and Dr. Loganathan’s) family. Words are really inadequate. It’s so hard to believe that this all happened.

  30. Thank you for this wonderful tribute. I am also in tears. My thoughts to the families of these tragic innocent victims.

  31. Great tribute A N N A. I have been changing channels and skipping web pages all day to avoid reading any more of this tragedy after yesterday. It’s too terrible to continue acknowledging in a way. After reading this post, I’m glad I got to know at least one of the victims in a more personal way than any of the news sources. Thanks for researching all this information about Minal. Peace to her.

  32. I was just going through her profile on Orkut, and it seems within the last couple of hours thousands have left her a message. I fall short of words though, because no matter what you say, it doesn’t make up for the loss of what is really invaluable, and what was snatched away inconsiderately – a human life.

  33. Anna, that was a moving & honest tribute. Thanks.

    RIP Minal and all the others who died in this senseless tragedy.

  34. beautiful post, anna. it truly moved me to tears.

    May Minal and all the others who lost their lives never be forgotten.

  35. Anna, you made me cry. May Minal’s family have all the strength to cope with this tragedy.

  36. Thanks for this. Sometimes the media reduces a person solely to his or her ethnicty, and that’s it…Minal was the “missing indian girl” but this post brought to light how she was so much more than that…and how her life – any life – is comprised of the small things…the ice cream, the earrings, her interests…and it’s amazing how something so seemingly trivial as an Orkut profile could give us this peek into her life. And just how important it is now, if only for us, the living. And you can even imagine her thinking with a sly smile, “Oh no, I didn’t put that much thought into my profile!” Like we all say. But whatever this profile is – the composite is a picture of a very loved girl from Bombay who right now is reminding me of my shy yet earnest pig-tailed cousin from Kerala.

    And that’s just it, right? Because how do you mourn for more than 30 people you never met? I didn’t know, I don’t know. While I sincerely prayed for all of those who suffered in this tragedy and their families who mourn them, I also felt a certain gap, an almost lack of privilege to be feeling the way I do. I felt silly. But reading this made me realize that it’s okay that I didn’t know Minal, because the lesson here, for me, is that the random nature of the world makes the line between life and eternal shuteye so unbearably thin. Because last week she was just like us. And now it’s over. And that when we mourn for people like her, we must also commit to celebrating those who are still with us, who still mean so much to us.

    I don’t want to seem like I am romanticizing her death or being emotional for the sake of being emotional, but I was just so touched by the blatant affection shown by her friends in those “scraps” on Orkut…before and after this incident…there is a sweetness there I can’t quite put my finger on…

    Thanks so much Anna…

  38. hey anna,

    i thought it was crazy of me to go through her profile… try to read her scraps.. see what she was like.. cos I feel a connection too… being an international student in another country and then….. its just unbelievable.. i’s just appalled… she was so beautiful and intelligent.. and she definitely did not deserve this… its breaking my heart.. and tears are non stop welling in in my eyes…… its just too sad… your article.. thank you so much for it… in a sea of people who prayed for her and went on… i felt alone trying to stay back and grasping whatever was left… but u gave me company.. and thanks for that………………..

  39. Anna, Thanks for showing the real person behind the headlines. My thoughts and sympathies are with Minal’s friends and family. Two deaths in two years. They have suffered a lot. I am sad and speechless.

  42. “I want you to be Minal, not a victim.”

    May peace be upon her and the others who lost their lives.

  43. Sisters are one of god’s greatest blessings; there are none that can match their love because it really is one of a kind. That love has the power to last 1000 years and beyond. There should be a day for sisters. We bhai’s have ruksha bhundhun, (think that is how you spell it) not sure if there is one for bens. But in the end (as someone has written) it is the small things, little details that we remember, the ones that mean more then anything.

    Thoughts and Prayers to your sister, family and friends

  45. It is such a tragedy for so many families who have lost their dear ones at such a young age.All the aspirations and dreams came to an abrupt halt because of one misguided depressed soul.I hope the families find the strength to cope with their loss and find peace.May all those who are connected with this tragedy learn to move on without being affected or scarred by it.Hopefully the coming days will bring peace to all the families.Thanks for a good article on Minal.I am sure her friends and family will find solace in your beautiful words.

  46. What a waste of life! I have been reading accounts from friends and eye-witnesses. But your tribute to Minal touched me really deep. I have read (and enjoyed) many of your posts here ever since I discovered this blog and so far admired your great sense of humor; but this one, and your straight-from-the-heart post about your own loss (in your other blog), gave such a real sense of tragedy, and how real the loss can be for those who remain behind! Hope all the loved ones of those who died get the strength to see themselves through this terrible tragedy.

  47. Thank you for the beautiful tribute, I’m in tears. May her soul rest in peace.

  48. My prayers with you & your family, my eyes are full of tears by reading & watching the news on VT massacre. May your soul rest in peace. And also my prayers for Prof D.V Loganathan & his family, May his soul rest in peace.

  49. Anna: Great Post and a truly moving Tribute to Minal Panchal. I pray to GOD that he will grant strength to her family to cope with this loss.

  50. Thank you Anna, for showing me who she was and for ensuring that I’ll always remember her. My prayers are with her family and the families of all of the victims.