Pen martyr

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Jammu's ace lensman Ashok Sodhi's love for stills will live on even after his death. The hands that spared Rs 50,000 for a branded camera, now part of an urn, will soon be dipped in Tawi or Chenab waters. That camera will surely make its way to Jammu from Delhi today or tomorrow but Sodhi does not live to hit click with his fingers. Sodhi, according to his friends, would itch to capture and capture `good' and it was this restlessness that he sped a good distance of 50 kilometres in few minutes before he went on to become a pen martyr. ``It took him 30 minutes to be on the spot and only three to leave it ... forever,'' his close friend Zorawar Singh laments. ``All good things come to an end but this is tragic indeed,'' rues Manu Srivatsava, his longtime companion.

I remember having met Sodhi twice, first when I was a cub desk writer with `The Indian Express' nine years ago and last year when I bumped into him at the Jammu Press Club. Frankly speaking, I did not derive much from his bulging eyes, burly unkempt body and unshaven face. But conversations often turn for good. It did not take me long to make out that Sodhi has a heart of gold and an eye of a good all-round professional. Not only a shutterbug, very few people know that he was an avid artiste. Art lovers in Jammu still remember his maiden theatre work `Ram Lila' and even today, Jammu relates to his works. Two of his Dogri plays are all time hit.

Only graduate from his clan, Sodhi rose through his humble background to become a key photographer in Jammu. Twenty-eight years ago, he started as a proof reader but his inclination to feel for reel and light made him to hold a camera even as his genial, unassuming persona make him a beloved for his friends. Srivatsava is not surprised by the people who lined up for the funeral. ``Don't get surprised if he got the ovation from from industry, trade, art, media and social workers. Many doctors who hang their heads in grief know for sure he retrieved many dying patients by donating blood.''