What do you say about someone who was 38, who loved life, who loved his work with a passion and who would have gone to the ends of the earth to do something he believed in. What do you say when unexpectedly and shockingly, without even a goodbye, he disappears into the ether?
I never believed I would have to write a piece like this, where I would feature Dewang Mehta in a column that was his to pen and where he spoke about people he admired. To remember Dewang is to think of so many things. At 38 he had achieved a larger than life image of a key driver of the Indian software and IT industries. He wasn’t just the president of Nasscom, he was Nasscom. In fact, he scarcely had a life outside the association and most things he did were inextricably linked in some way or another, to his first love, the office. This was his domain, his fiefdom, where surrounded by mementos from across the globe, his music, television and colleagues he thought the world of, he would work through the day and often late into the night.
I often used to marvel at the almost single dimensional manner in which he lived his life. Personal considerations of health and home were placed on the back burner, because the software industry needed him round the clock.
I recall once when I told him to slow down, or face burn out, he remarked that the time to do things was now.
“I want to do build India into a great nation,” he said, Normally, I would have raised a cynical eyebrow and sniggered silently in answer to such politically correct rhetoric. But I guess it was something about the way he said it, the sincerity with which it came across, and the fact that I have known him over 11 years, that I fell quiet.
I will always remember him to be sunny soul, someone ready with a joke and a hearty laugh. Nothing really deterred him and if it did, he’d bounce back with an enthusiasm that was almost infectious. As far as journalists were concerned, they were all his friends. He life was open to them 24 hours a day, and most of us, I’m sure, had access to his mobile.
It’s sad then that a man who had a full life, who rubbed shoulders and back slapped with the rich and famous and who was considered “family” by chief ministers and key politicians, should have died all alone in a hotel room in faraway Sydney.
He leaves behind a legacy of a strong software industry, and shoes that even the best of men will find hard to fill. He also leaves behind his grieving friends and colleagues, his man friday, Babu and of course, his dog, Naughty Mehta.
Needless to say, Dewang, you will be sorely missed by us all.
