Arun was for me (and presumably a lot of others) the original rock n rolla, the guy to emulate from early school days. Days when we would visit each others families on weekends, and immediately after exchanging pleasantries be off on a cycle, he riding, me on pillion, in any direction, till hunger got the better of our vagabond spirits.

He would chaperone me to Kerala for the summer holidays when I wasn't old enough to travel on my own. Train journeys were never so much fun, when we would share our berth, sneaking away in the middle of the night when his parents were asleep, patrolling the aisles end to end till the vestibules prevented us, pestering ticket collectors into parting a share of groundnuts and other eatables.

His incredible stories bring back tears of laughter even today, especially of one where he convinced some of his classmates in engineering college into believing that Jim Morrison was the 4th President of the USA.

I last met him at the Tull concert, where he entered the grounds with trademark bag on back, hunched over his Yamaha. A conversation on longitudes and latitudes and the free spirit of life in Yunnan ensued before we decided to meet the next day for some drinks…never to happen.

He has "gone up the country, where the water tastes like wine."

Will miss him and his randomness.