Tribute to a friend

9.45 am / 1/12/2004

I want to begin my day in office not by going detail into my work but to spend maybe 20 minutes or so to write some sort of tribute in this blog, dedicated to my closest friend from Poland, the most “sensitive” man on earth, who said goodbye to us yesterday evening. His name is Michal. How can I not write about him?

There is so much things to write about him but my time here has its limitation. The weather is getting colder and colder every evening and morning. The house of A20 is also experiencing a change in its environment as one by one of old batch is leaving.

First leaving us was Kaske, the guy from Japan, and then Hendreanekka, and then Stefani (moved to her boyfriend’s house) and now the most important guy, everybody’s best friend, the most “sensitive man” on earth, the most likeable person, the girls’ darling and the boy’s hero....He is Michal is he is from Poland.

The guy I met the first night I was here and almost got me into a fight with the rick driver the morning after. He has the most inspiring life story to be told. I just felt bad for him ( I am sure everybody also felt the same) that the lowest point of life’s vicious cycle hit him too soon, at the wrong time and at wrong place of life, the time and place where he should be happy for himself, for his newfound place and freedom, for his reunited with his fiancee (now ex fiancee).

This is a man that burned all his hard earn money and sacrificed his job just to experiencing “life changing experience” traineeship. Not knowing what would happen to him, he came here as soft as kitten, expecting everything will be just great but end up as tough as the tiger instead.

One by one of bad things happen to him. First, his fiancee which he was eager to be reunited, broke up the engagement (of 5 yrs relationship). Reason was not widely known but from what I can tell, it wasn’t any existence of third party, it was just the new found freedom and unreadiness in commitment of her then fiancee. Just when he thought he will meet his love of his life, after a long distance travelling across the sky and across the continent, with utmost anticipation and expectation, all hell broke loose when she delivered what must be the hardest and bitter pill to swallow, in his life; breaking off the engagement despited the beautiful ring, the invited guest and the booked restaurent back in Poland.

What follow by this unwanted incident was equally bad. The job that the company offered him turn out to be as bad as the broken engagement. The lesson to learn is don’t trust everything on the paper, and don’t trust the Indian. (of course not all Indian ). The company I work for is always trustable, so far so good, “no kelinga teh”

Anyway, the company hit its bad financial crisis and was not able to sustain his traineeship after a few weeks. So he loafed around redundantly throught the days, spending his hard earned money on basic daily life. If this is not the worst, AIESEC Pune add salt to his injury. Not wanting to be responsible and not wanting to seek another replacement, this poor guy was a victim of bad luck. After a continuous harsh words and lots of bugging, they somehow managed to get him a job but not for long because after 2 month of working, the company declared solventcy or bankruptcy. And again, he was back to normal.

Although AIESEC Pune paid him the compensation monthly, but the compensation always came later than expected and sometimes fewer than it is needed. This caused him to be so fucking broke, so broke that he has to skip his lunch or dinner, bread and tea for dinner or sometime no dinner at all. So broke that he had to borrowed money from friends and mates, merely to survive another day.

I know he was stress and he was confused and he was sad. Who wouldn’t if one are into the same situation; left everything dearly and lovely behind, in the new land, no job no money, and to top it all, losing his love of his life. As tough as he can be, but he still shed his tears everynight, only to be dried by the morning sunlight.

But despites the chain of unhappiness, he never failed to show us his friendship, his kindness, his humour, his companionship. Despites all of unwanted events that has taken place, he still live his life through the days, until the last day of his traineeship, jobless and redundant. Partly because he wanna prove to the world and most importantly, himself, that he will survived through the hard times and he did, therefore for people who know him and few people who know him even better, we will be forever be motivated by his life experiences. A man of courage never die, a man who truly know what it means by “life goes on”.

But it wasn’t easy to be a person like him to know what he didn’t know then but clearly understood it now. It tooks lots of pain and anger, tears and sadness as well sleepless night.

You wander how a man like this can survive through such difficult period of time where the world seems to be agains everything he does. He is to be the best example of what it means by “catch 22” or Murphy’s Law.

He survive through hard times with people around him. The love of friendship and companionship. The endless support for his life to continue no matter what and of course, the jokes of bad boys, one of the factor that dry his tears away and healing his unhappiness.

In his final speech in farewell party, he confessed that the only point to lead his life through despite all the fucking unluckiest chain of event that befallen upon him, unwanted and uninvited, he felt graceful and thankful that he somehow survived till the end, all because all of the people around him. (As a farewell gift, we sent him to GOA islands for 6 days)


Though he had a new plan in Poland and new job too, but he is too afraid to go back just because he will not have all the people he had here. But rest assured, as I think life would treat him good, and maybe better, now that the life of vicious cycle had hit the bottom. So the next point will be on the way up, to the peak point of life.

So yesterday evening was a mix feeling of both sadness and happiness. Sadness is to see him leaving and happiness is to see him finally, leaving the misery and sadness behind the four wheels.

As I said, all the A20 mates, new and old was there except for Jack Nicholson, most probabbly still trying to shut down his laptop. (He was late)

We were at the lobby. David the new Czech guy was filming and we shook and hugged, for what must be the last goodbye. Maybe we will meet again in the near future, maybe not. God’s will.

Even the “baba” (friend) security who has work there as long as anybody can remember, who never speak English, but always smiley to all of us shed a tear for Michal, saying his first English sentence (with the help of body movement) “ I cry, he’s good man”....

He watched him arrived suprised and dumbfounded, watched his happy and moment through the days, came back from party, watched him back and forth to the grocery store and internet cafe and now he’s watching him leaving...

And for one last time, we shouted the infamous greeting, the greeting created by he himself, the greeting that will forever be in our head; “NAMASTE MOTHERFUCKER!!” (Good day Motherfucker!!) and all of us laughed and walkaway....in different direction.

I am back to my daily life. I did the six pack training with Rambo again. I think I somewhat motivated by the saying “Take care of your health when you are young, so your health can take care of you when you are old” (by Rambo, the pain in the ass). He is still as crazy as usual. Shooting the poor pigeons.

Now at A20, old batch is gone, slowly, one by one. Now left the last one, Jos Stemmen, Holland, the one that look like Nickelback, and also Michal’s best buddy. The night before Michal’s leaving, we organize another small party, took place in our beloved balcony. I was completely drunk and high and so was everybody. It was fucking great!! (to quote Kaske the Japanese, his favorite expression apart from “jerk off”!!)

And now I am feeling guilty for I expected this tribute to be done in 20 minutes but took me almost an hour already. Shit, I always procascinating. And it is bad!! Because procastination is like masturbation, you end up fucking yourself in both cases:)

Thats all,

Love and regards,
Peter