"He would order a side of French fries just to eat the ketchup. He would have a whole bottle of ketchup with a plate of fries!"

"Someone asked me once, does he flirt with every single girl he meets?"

The stories rolled out and there was the joyous sound of laughter while tears rolled down cheeks. And for the service commemorating the life of Shafayet Reja, SBU alumnus and former President of Bengalis Unite, laughter and tears were truly appropriate. Shaf, as he was known to his friends, was renowned for the smile on his face and the playfulness with which he treated life. For the 50 plus friends who came in the pouring rain to help find closure for a life too soon taken from them, the stories they told would have made anyone laugh, and they hoped Shaf was laughing with them in a higher place.

He graduated in 2007 but still came back to Stony Brook almost every week to see friends. It was on one of those trips that he lost his life in a car accident. Since many had been unable to make the funeral service, Trisha Barua organized a commemoration on November 8th at the new Curry Club in Lake Grove and Farah Rahman led the event. Friends came from near and far. Sharobi Chowdhury, first President of Bengalis Unite, flew in from Miami. Another friend, Nihal Advani, came down from Canada.

It began with Farah talking about Shaf - his life, his hopes, his dreams. They had been the best of friends and because he spent so much time with her family, he was treated like another brother. She had been driving in the car behind him, both going home to Queens, when his car had swerved on the rain slicked road just near the Mall.

A photo montage then filled the screen with scenes from his life and with all of his friends. And in each one, always the smile. With Farah in tears, Trisha took over to introduce the other speakers.

Prof. Sridhar, choking back his feelings at one point, told the story of Shaf wanting to do study abroad with him and asking if he would speak to his mother. Sridhar laughed at how it is usually the mothers of girls he has to speak to but after a number of phone calls, Shaf's mother finally believed he was for real. Shaf was able to spend the summer with the Sridhars on their annual study abroad program to Bangalore and encouraged others to go because he had had such a wonderful time.

After a break for a delicious buffet of Curry Club food, Farah's brother Richy, along with his guitar teacher, played a piece Richy had written for "his brother." You could feel his anguish as he strummed each note of the melancholic tune.

Prof. Mukhi, Director of Asian and Asian American programs at the Wang Center, was the advisor to Bengalis Unite as well as Shaf's professor. She addressed her words directly to him:

Dear Shaf,

I imagine you with my Mama in jannat (heaven), making her laugh at your tall tales as you did when you used to come and visit me at the Wang Center. Do you remember how long your papers used to be for the Bollywood class you took with me  - I only required five pages per film but you wanted to write and write and I had to read 10, 15 pages every time! You are probably now with Rabindranath Tagore exchanging writing tips - you badmash (naughty)  boy. I also remember how wonderfully touching the Tsunami memorial turned out - how you mobilized all your girls to be part of it. I miss you and we all love you.

The floor was opened up for anyone to share their stories. Fahmida Sheuly, another close friend who had drawn his picture dancing, recalled how he was so excited by it because she had made him "look hot." But a petty argument, he had told her to lose weight, had kept her from seeing him at the end in the hospital because she had not understood it would be the end until it was too late. Kerman Mehta told the ketchup story from a different time - it seemed that everyone had been with Shaf at one point or another for a ketchup dinner. Trisha talked of how he had dragged her out of her room in the middle of the night to judge a basketball contest between him and another friend - "which of them was better" he had to know.

On Shaf's Facebook page it said, “I never get tired of learning the new things that life has to offer.” Shaf taught a lesson as well - that a life well lived, when you care for others, will be a life sorely missed when it is gone. But gone does not mean forgotten, and through his friends tears, hopefully they will remember Tagore's words - If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.