A Reflection by Varun Subramanian ’24

Yash and I have been neighbours for eight years now, and I would say that he was by far the best neighbour I have ever had. When hearing of his passing, one of my first thoughts were of memories that I have made with him. I feel that the best place to start was when we first met.

When I moved in, I think Yash had been living there for about a couple months. For our house-warming party, my parents invited the Varmas over, and my mom made me talk to Yash. I am very happy she did. I don’t recall every single detail, but I remember I that I did not catch his name on the first day, but he knew mine. 9-year-old me used to call him “dude” until my mom told me his name. This is where we clicked.

We began hanging out at his place often, because he had the better video game console, the Xbox 360. The day Neeti Aunty and Yash asked me whether I would like to join them for dinner at Boston Pizza for his birthday was the day I realized how close our families truly were. Although we may have not met each other’s extended family, we would occasionally talk about them—and obviously say positive stuff. But when it came to school, we had only become classmates this year, despite having attended the same school just for two years. I joined St. Paul’s in grade 10, and he is somewhat the reason I decided to join.

So, Yash, wherever you are up there, I would like to thank you for all that you have done for me and thank you for all the memories that we got to share together.