Knocking on Heaven's door
How does life appear from a bed for someone who is staring at Heaven’s door in front of him and looking back at life slipping out? What would he be thinking as his life hangs on the life support system and his family grapples with a decision that I wish no one ever has to make? He is my friend of years and I see him slipping out of my reach. I feel very sad today, mixed up in emotions that are difficult to share. However, what matters most is what he would want me to think today? Somehow I know the answer, thus this mail is to share the story of my friend, while he battles for his life in a hospital in California.
This story started 23 years ago, in 1986, when at HCL we decided to be the first to introduce UNIX in India. I walked into the R&D center in Chennai (Madras then) to meet the man who was leading the development initiative - his name was M. N. Divakar (MND to his friends). If my memory serves me right, I walked up three floors and knocked on his room with anticipation. It was a small no nonsense room, with a whirlpool of energy and MND sitting right at the center. That is the way MND is - always in the center of action.
Many long strategy sessions later, we became friends and spent significant time on Marina Beach after office, talking about our passion and life in general. I came to know the real person behind the super intellect. He was a man with a mission and wanted to move ahead in the technology race and truly believed that everything was “possible”. That made him the center piece with HCL gaining No. 1 position in Indian IT landscape led by the UNIX products he rolled out. That was the golden period for HCL and he was leading it from the front. He navigated his team through complex technologies and market challenges with his approach and he won.
Life took us in different directions - he went to the U.S. to head a business and I got busy doing other things. A few years later, I heard of his first brush with cancer. I met him during those days. He had not lost his spirit, nor his focus on work and was 100 percent sure that he will beat cancer. He systematically and clinically went after cancer and won the battle just because of his positive attitude.
Our journey connected us again in 2005, when I had the first long chat with him after many years and I saw the same hunger in his eyes. He told me “give me something very difficult to do, I want a new challenge”. I saw that he had not changed one bit and was ready to chase the impossible dream. We started the journey of transformation within HCL. Once again, he was core of the think tank and the biggest champion of change, as my friend, philosopher and guide.
It was too good to last. Summer of last year the cancer reappeared, bigger and meaner this time. He called me and shared the start of a new battle in his life. I asked him how he wants to deal with it because doctors were throwing not-so-good statistics. He said he wants more challenges. Forty eight hours later, we had a conference call with all leaders at HCL to share that MND has decided to pursue two battles - one for his life and one to transform a part of our business that needed significant change. He was excited, charged and full of hope that he will beat it again.
The cancer treatment was tough and unpredictable. However, MND had made up his mind that he will fight it and not stop working. So he would be on conference calls while in the hospital, he would send mails while the blood transfusion was going on. He was completely in charge and in control, irrespective of how bad he felt. He was focused on his promise to transform the business he was leading. He would attend conference calls with me at odd hours even if he had no energy to speak. He would only listen and you would see a clear mail from him after few hours on what he will do. Any suggestions that he takes it easy were met with “Don’t be ridiculous”.
We stopped talking about cancer, other than his emails that gave me status updates where he would celebrate small victories and talk about resolving to fight the setbacks.
January 15 was one such day and he wrote “the results of the first scan after two months of radiation looked positive with substantial improvement in the tumor. This is a significant milestone in the treatment plan.”
We both thought that he had won it again and planned his trip to India to start a new challenge and to celebrate his 30 years in HCL. I guess that was not meant to be, as his situation deteriorated with each passing day and at a speed which no one anticipated.
Today, he is in the hospital on life support, knocking on Heaven’s door. I think he has won again. He has taught me and many others, the art of fighting impossible battles and winning. Everything is really possible and he is right. These may be the last few days he spends with us and I want to take this opportunity to spread his message to as many people, as I can as I see his victory in that message. Let’s learn from him and pray that God gives us more spirited people like MND who have shown the world a new dimension to life and how to live it. It is not important whether you live it or die; it is how you live which really counts