And may the Good Lord bless Math. Eco.

For those not in the know, you have to go give sixteen papers at Gokhale.
That doesn't qualify you to become a Gokhaleite, by the way. I know people who have done remarkably well in all sixteen and aren't one, and I know people who haven't given the one but are more Gokhaleitish than Gokhaleites themselves.
Anyways, one of those sixteen, for most people in Gokhale, happens to be a paper called Math. Eco.
That happens to stand for Mathematical Economics, and even as they read this, there are people on the face of this mortal earth who'll give an involuntary shudder and curse the undersigned for awakening memories that were safely buried away in some remote inaccessible corner of the subconsciousness.
For now before their hapless inner eye pass ghostly apparitions - indifference curves and Hessians, now Lagrange multipliers and now Jacobians. Second order conditions dance a terrible dance, as do McLaurin and Taylor, damn them.
But enough said. One must not turn away readers who know not what is being said, and one must certainly not terrorize the readers who do.
But the point of bringing up to the surface such a macabre creature of the past is to introduce to you the man of the hour.
For the undersigned become a buddy for life with the said character when both suffered together the trauma of having to memorize the U11's and the U22's.
All the fine and wonderful things that can be said about Kshitij Sethi apart, and make no mistake, that is an inexhaustible list - the finest that can be said from my viewpoint is this - we studied Math. Eco. together.
Kshitij Sethi is a brother, a BBKTK in capital letters. A true dude, and a friend for life.
We've been through thick and we've been through thin.
We been through virulent fruit punches, and through the Manas episodes. Through all night TT sessions and through dropping every bloody soul in Gokhale to either the railway station or to the airport. Through Waasu Mama study sessions and through breakfast at Nal Stop.
And lots more.
But what I remember the most is walking round after round of Kumar Classic, notes left upstairs, talking about this, that and nothing in particular. With a math tutorial up the next day and resignation writ large upon our souls.
One of us triumphed in the Great Khare Wars, and one of us did not.
But Kshitij Sethi became a BBKTK, and the Lord be praised for that.
In fond memory of those walks, and in the hope that there may be a chance for a repeat performance, Amen.