RIP, Ravi Prakash!!! Passing away of someone, whom you have not even seen, met, knew, rarely has an impact. But his demise left a mark on me. Ravi Prakash. I was one of the 14100 odd twitter followers that he had till he died this afternoon. I followed him on Twitter for the fact that he was a journalist and had often made valuable inputs on several socio-political topics. His twitter bio also said, “Living with Stage 4 Lung Cancer”. For the last year or so, since I have started seeing his twitter posts, a majority of them was about cancer. But ironically, every post ended with a positive vibe, and you started appreciating this person for how mentally strong he is. I then searched more about him. From whatever information available on public domain, I knew that he was diagnosed with Lung Cancer at the age of 45, and that too of last stage when detected first. While initial symptoms were coughing, fatigue and body pain, his last post was just a day before yesterday when he described immense breathing difficulty. The last post ended with “Aage dekhte hain”. This person wanted to live for more, despite having so much of agony. In his first visit to Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), he was told by senior doctors that it was a metastatic cancer and he hardly had 18 months left. He cannot be treated, rather only palliative care can be given to extend life with lesser pain. Since that visit to TMH in Feb 2021, he had more than 35 rounds of chemotherapy and had at least 700 tablets of targeted therapy. Just to have some more number of breaths, though with pain. Every 3 months, he had to visit TMH at Mumbai, all the way from Jharkhand where he lived. In between these 3 months, local doctors were his mainstay treatment. But amidst everything, he never ceased to live, merrily. While fighting with the deadliest of cancer, he travelled to Goa, Gulmarg, Sonmarg, Srinagar to have some last breaths of fresh air. In Mumbai, after OPD visits at TMH, his evenings were spent at Marine Drive, with golgappas and paobhajis. These could have been his favourites, I guess. He said in one of his posts, “I said thank you to cancer for allowing me some free time to dance at disco theatres in Goa”. In the backdrop of all these things, he knew and so did his family that he was to die sooner than later, with one member of family wiping tears of others. He had once said, “I do not want to die on ventilators. Allow me to live with family members in my last days.” Having read all these things about him on internet, I used to often check his twitter time lines to see how he is doing. It gave me comfort that he was surviving, though with difficulties. The last that I remember was his visit to America early this month for treatment. But his smiling pictures assured that things are not the worst. Suddenly this afternoon, a journalist had posted about the news of his demise. Since then, memories of all things that I had read about him, his pictures, the positivity that he brought, kept flashing in my mind. I never met him. I knew him only through his words on Twitter. I wish that he is now at peace having undergone so much ordeals in last 3 years. RIP again, Sir!!! Though short-lived, but life lived well. I will miss your posts on Twitter…