An Encounter

I was on a flight back from Dubai to Los Angeles on March 8th when I came across a man, probably in his mid-late sixties, sitting next to me. He was kind of struggling with operating the little gadgets on the plane so I offered to help. He thanked me, and went on to watch some TV. Last thing I remember him watching was Quranic recitation.

We did not speak much after that, but toward the end of the 16 hour long flight, we chatted a little. I found out that he was coming from Pakistan to visit his daughter. He said, at his age, it gets a bit hard to travel on such long flights VS young men like myself. We talked about my aging father. He also talked about some immigration related issues.

When we got off the plane, he used my cell phone to call his family to let them know we had landed a bit early. Since I had to go through some special immigration process, I told him that I'd have to hurry, and may be we could catch up outside, I didn't see him after that.

A couple of days later, I came across someone on facebook who had the same last name as him, Dadabhoy, so I just randomly inquired about him. To my shock and despair, I found out that Mehmood Dadabhoy passed away yesterday morning due to a heart related episode.

This was just over a week since he had landed on US soil.

I spoke to his sister and son-in-law yesterday (since I had the number saved in my phone), who told me that he passed away while sleeping, in peace.

Mr. Dadabhoy had a certain glow to himself. Even in such a brief encounter I couldn't help but notice that he was a very intelligent and refined, loving and considerate man. Part of how I gathered this was not just by his words, but by everything else that's part of a live conversation.

This is the first time I have ever written about something like this, and I'm not sure what to make of it, but this incident fills me with humility, for lack of a better word. I had virtually no connection with him, yet I feel some sort of a void knowing he is gone.

May his soul rest in eternal peace...