Life throws a curve ball at you


An expectant mother (model)

I graduated from San Jose State University with a MBA degree in 1991. It was an adventure by itself. My daughter was four and my son two when I went back to school. Luckily my in laws stayed with me through out the duration of my studies. I finished in three semesters with a 4.0 GPA (not bragging please) My son would bang on the door and would create a real ruckus when I tried to study or do my assignments. He would hide my books under the bed so that I would spend time with him and not with the books, but that is not the point of this post.

This post is actually a eulogy to a dear friend of mine named Krishna. My classes were in the evening between six and nine. I used to park my car in one of the side streets as getting a parking spot in that part of down town area was very tough. When I was in the first semester Krishna was in his last. He was my friend’s brother. We were in different classes, but after class he would accompany me to my car, wait for me to start the car before he left as he was always concerned about my safety since that part of the down town was not well lit and not a safe neighbourhood either.

He was a very soft spoken person and he had come to US through the sponsorship of his sister, so already had the coveted green card. Even before he finished his degree he found a good job and very soon got married to a lovely girl from Chennai. When we moved to Singapore he took most of our furniture as he was newly set upping his home. His wife was a very sweet person. When we left for Singapore they were expecting their first child.

Six months later we get a phone call from San Jose informing us that Krishna is no more. He had drowned in his apartment swimming pool. On that day both of them had attended the Seemantham of one of their fiends. He had picked up his wife from office during lunch time to attend the function. After lunch when they returned home he complained of heaviness and told his wife that may be a swim would help and went down to the pool. He was found floating in the pool minutes later by somebody. Being a working day and late afternoon there was no body else in the pool when he went for a swim. So there was no way of knowing what happened to him in his last minutes. He was a fairly good swimmer. His wife was due in two weeks. Post mortem revealed that he had died due to drowning.

One month prior to his death he had told his wife that when he was doing the internal audit in his company he had found out that his colleague had embezzled money. He wanted to inform his superiors but his colleague was begging him to give him some time to make good the theft. He was a Middle Eastern guy. I do not know how an American would have acted during such a situation. But Krishna being the compassionate type and may be in India we tend to bend the rules a little to help others, probably felt that it was okay to wait for a few days before informing his superiors.

No money was coming from that fellow and the day he was going to inform his boss about it was the day of the Seemantham. Unfortunately his boss was on leave that particular day and he could not have the meeting with him. The same morning this fellow came to his desk and offered him coke in a glass, not a can, not a bottle but a glass which he brought from his cubicle. Krishna was in no mood to drink anything offered by him. But his colleague had told him that he was really sorry for what he had put Krishna through and was ready to face the consequences.He said that he did not object to him informing his boss about the embezzlement. He had apparently told him that he would be happy if he drank what he offered and so Krishna did and left office a little before lunch time. Once he reached home he had told his wife that he was not feeling very well. He also told her about the soft drink he had in a glass offered by his colleague.

So during police investigation the wife told all this to the investigating officer. His sister also vouched for his swimming abilities and felt that no way he could have drowned in an apartment swimming pool. But the post mortem results did not reveal any kind of poison in his body and the case was closed shut.

You can imagine the plight of the wife. She had no will to live even. She was unconsolable. My husband and I visited her in San Jose just before she went into labour. Her sister in law and another dear friend were her coaches and begged her to co operate and made her have a normal delivery. Krishna and his wife did not want to know the sex of the child before the baby was born though there is an option in the US to know before hand. She was blessed with a baby girl and was given the name chosen by her husband.

Krishna’s mother in law stayed with her daughter after attending the funeral but her father had to go back immediately to India. On reaching Chennai he went to Vellore to meet a “medium”. He was quite naturally very upset about what happened to his daughter. But he was more upset about the possibility of  foul play in his son in law’s death and the irreverent attitude of the local police department in the US regarding their doubts. So at the behest of one of his friends he went to meet this person who was able to talk to the spirits who had died of unnatural causes. I believe Krishna’s spirit came on to that man and started telling his father in law about what happened prior to his death. He told him that he felt very dizzy in the pool and swooned and eventually drowned. The spirit told him that definitely he was drugged by his colleague. It must have been some kind of slow reacting poison. It also told him that they would be getting a girl baby (the child was not born yet) and also requested his father in law to get his wife remarried.

The father contacted his daughter in the US and told her about this experience. Her friends and relatives dissuaded her from giving this kind of information to the police which they would not in any case believe and would in no any way help in the investigation.

She came back to India after a year and after a few years got remarried. She has a good family life. But to this day she believes that her first husband did not die of natural causes.

11 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. shaanthi surendiran
    Oct 07, 2012 @ 14:33:14

    oh God:( feeling so bad for Krishna.Is nt it what most of us would have done.And that cheat got away with everything.But is the U.S police also so “buyable” ?

    shaanthi surendiran


    • amas32
      Oct 07, 2012 @ 14:52:03

      I wouldn’t say “buyabale”. May be discrimination? I really don’t know what to say.But they did not care to pursue the investigation in that direction for what ever reason. The culprit escaped scot free.


  2. Apoorva Sripathi
    Oct 07, 2012 @ 14:33:21

    My god! Life is certainly stranger than any story.


  3. Subtle_Sandya (@vsandhiyaa)
    Oct 07, 2012 @ 17:32:46

    What a horrible incident! But good that the wife is living a normal life now. I believe in karma and Newton’s third law.


  4. VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
    Oct 07, 2012 @ 18:08:28

    Woah. Reminds me of my grandfather’s (father’s father) life to an extent. He had a chit fund company and his friend embezzled the money and he faced a loss of close to 2 lakhs in 1970. Thankfully the friend left him to his fate and left. He used to sell stamps outside the magistrate office in Dindigul. There was a severe shortage of stamps those days and folks used to sell it at 5 times the price. Thaatha despite his situation refused to budge. He used to tell his sons an old Tamil saying, பால் காசு பால்க் காசு. தண்ணிக் காசுத் தண்ணிக் காசு. He faced a lot of insult over the next 10 years but educated his sons (8 of them) and daughters and got them married (3 of them). He passed away without regrets, aged 87. While your friend’s case is more sad and slightly different, for he was not given a chance to live, though his name was clean, life also is a cycle. We don’t know what happened to thaatha’s friend. But we guess God has been taking care of everyone 🙂


    • amas32 (@amas32)
      Oct 08, 2012 @ 03:04:29

      Thanks for sharing about your grandfather here. The autopsy result did not show any drug in the body and so the police shut the case as accidental death. But several hours had passed before he took the drink and also it may have been a drug to trigger some thing in his body which led to his death.May be the Middle Eastern guy thought that when he drove home from work he would lose control and meet with a road accident. God only knows!


  5. VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
    Oct 08, 2012 @ 03:20:16

    Technically ever drug leaves some trace in the body. But there are a few exotic poisons that are pretty rare that people might not test for them. Might actually do the trick. Again, everything is just a hypothesis.


  6. ரைட்டர் நட்டு (@NattAnu)
    Oct 11, 2012 @ 02:33:35

    I commented on the tamil version just now 🙂

    Btw, kudos on the 4.0. What course was that exactly?
    In the whole post, your determination of shutting off the door to your son is the highlight for me 🙂


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