On the 10th Anniversary

It has been 10 years since father passed away.  With time the memory of him simultaneously fades and also sharpens.  Some of the details of past events become harder to recall - yet the core of the memory becomes more solidified and the contours of his impressions on all of us become sharper.

As we celebrate him today, on Dec 8th, 2018 - one detail that comes to the forefront of my mind is this.  While father was always known for his passion for music, literature and everything classical - these days I'm thinking more of him in terms of the emphasis he placed on thinking and thought.  How he valued thought, mostly intellectual thought, and passed that value to all in his life.  Recently, my sister brought my attention to a talk given by Sadguru, a noted and popular wiseman these days. In that, he says "thinking for oneself", "believing but only by separately convincing oneself of truth" are hallmarks of quintessential Indian soul.  Those words fit father very well.  The direct impact this had on me was during my early adulthood.  At that time, I had questions, which I daresay, occur to many a young person.  Questions on the nature of existence, why we are here, what is the meaning of life etc.  The first sign of father's upbringing is that I felt comfortable bringing these questions to him.  At that time I did not appreciate how rare it indeed was to have such bond at that age.  Secondly, while my questions were indicative of my amateur mind, he communicated how special they were - thus in turn encouraging me on a life long journey of search, questioning and thoughtfulness. 

Looking back on father's life, I'm also reminded of a famous distinction drawn by a noted journalist and thinker named David brooks.  He contrasts between "resume virtues" and "eulogy virtues" - the former a measure of material success in one's life and the later a measure of the fond memories others have of the person.  Most people would tell my father that he could have had much more success than he did in life - sometimes indicating that perhaps he should do more for success.  But I suspect, he recognized the above distinction more clearly and struck a balance between immediate success and long term values.  Most importantly, as time passes, I find myself thinking of him with more love than I had imagined I was capable of. May God bless his soul.

Remembering father on first anniversary - Krishna

Here are some thoughts I shared with some of my friends here in US, most of whom knew father only through me.
-Krishna




Dear friends,

On the first death anniversary of my father - I wanted to find an appropriate way to mark the event and thought that remembering him with some of my friends is a good way.

Some of you know my father in person a little.  Most of you know him more through my words.  In fact, it is my view that all of you know him much better than you may realize - because I am so deeply influenced by him and you know me quite well.  Today I want to describe that influence with some fondness.

True & False:

For a long time I grew up thinking that I am very different from my father.  That is still true - yet, I also believe that I am very similar to him.  It is this dichotomy, this fascination with seeming paradoxes that I remember most fondly about him.  Several innocuous incidents in my childhood must have laid foundation for my fascination with paradox.  Couple of things I particularly remember are: One day he came back from a concert and described the ease with which the artist sang and went on to say - "Singing easily is really difficult".  Another time he talked about a Sanskrit poem which says: Self is to be sacrificed for the sake of family, family for the sake of the village, village for the sake of nation - but everything should be sacrificed for the sake of one".  Later on I realized the non-circular interpretation of it, but I was very struck by the seeming circular nature of it and realized the beauty in it's mathematical imprecision.  Riddles like these, some simpler, some deeper and other wiser - forever left a deep impression on me.  Conveying meaning through seeming contradiction forever holds my fancy.  Only years later - I see and recognize the zen like quality in some of his sayings.

Greatness & Goodness

Much of his life, my father talked about "greatness".  He inculcated this feeling in all around him that,  in anything one does - one has to strive for greatness.  His definition of greatness had a very wide latitude.  In fact - he would argue that you define your own idea of what it is to be great and attempt to attain it.  Through it all he exuded a sense of confidence, a sense of pride.  These feelings swept me at times, but also made me uneasy and (perhaps) pushed me towards the ideal of "goodness" as opposed to "greatness" at first.  Only in recent life have I realized a larger frame of reference that can hold both these as mutually compatible ideals.  When I coined the phrase: "It is good to be great, and it is great to be good".  I had the satisfaction of sharing it with him and seeing him relish it.

Progressiveness & Classicism:

Another set of opposing strengths that my father displayed simultaneously are progressiveness and classicism.  My father was one of the most progressive people I knew.  He always looked to the future, placed the interests of the next generation above those of previous and current. When he talked about his priorities,  for a while I thought it was the most logical - and thus unremarkable - thing to do.  Only when it came to displeasing people of previous generation, had I realized how hard it was and how determined he was. Yet, he can also be described as a stauch "classisist".  He was in love with classical aspects of all finer aspects of life - be it the classical music or classical literature or classical thinking.  Again, when I was young, I found his intensity of dislike for some of the modern trends unsettling at first.  But when I saw him appreciate selected things in modern era - I knew that he can be very welcoming of newer trends too.

These two forces came to be joined during my marriage ceremony when he gave his full support for our idea to pick and choose the best aspects of a traditional marriage and marry them with modern sensibilities.  I wanted to find a way similarly to find meaningful ways to mark this day - in addition to to the traditional ceremony when possible, in lieu of when not - each year.  For this year, it is my sharing my thoughts like this.  In addition, I also wanted to share something physical.  My mother made a symbolic gesture of sending me money drawn from his first pension cheque several months ago.  I was never sure of how to spend it.  Finally I thought on this anniversary I will share it with you in the form of books - many loved by me (indirectly by him as well) and some specifically by him.  A book will arrive at each of your homes in the next few days from the list below.  If you happen to own that book already, please feel free to donate it to someone else.

• Tao Is Silent - Raymond Smullyan
• Good Poems - Garrison Keiller
• The Mind's I - Douglas Hofstadter
• Godel Escher Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
• Impossibility: John D. Barrow
• Who Knows - Raymond Smullyan
• What is Life - Erwin Schrodinger
• Siddartha - Herman Hesse
• I thought my father was God - Henry Holt
• Themes and Variations - Aldous Huxley

-Syam Krishna

Welcome

Dear all,

We welcome you to visit this blog, created to remember our father - who was also a father figure to countless others.  Please feel free to share your own thoughts or partake in those of others.  Besides the thoughts of others, we plan to add additional content to capture father's memories (pictures), his thoughts (letters) and his voice (audio) over the course of time.

-Yours,

Veera Raju, Uma, Lakshman, Vijaybabu, Sudha, Krishna