Short Fiction: The Evening Walk (PS: My first published work of fiction!)

In some HUGE personal news, I am now a published fiction author :-) My story, The Evening Walk, was picked up by The Bombay Review for their September 2020 issue. Please check out the story at the link below:

The Evening Walk, by Aditya Venkataraman

Representing Rama

At the juncture of the Bhoomi Puja of the new Rama temple at Ayodhya, the internet is awash with images of Rama, Sita, and Hanuman, some more famous than others. Even Times Square in NYC beamed one of most famous images of Rama. Sadly many of the "new-age" art on Twitter & Instagram feature veiny, muscle-laden representations of Rama that more resemble WWE wrestlers than a personality of Godhead. For instance, 1, 2, 3. 

Even rishis and sages have not been left alone by this muscle fetish. I would love to know how mendicants that lived on offerings and focused all their attention on spiritual enlightenment managed to rock such hard bods! I call it the "Avenger-ization" of Hindu mythology.

In contrast to these "physique dominant" modern representations, the classical representations of Rama focus on His intangibles, such as Karunya (compassion) and Chakravartin (universal ruler). In classical works, overtly muscled representations are usually reserved for demons and rakshashas. A pity how far the trends have reversed. 

By liberally lathering muscles onto the Gods, there is an attempt to project strength and occasionally, jingoistic pride. In many of these artworks, Rama's warriorship is commandeered to score political points; lost in this unfortunate exercise are so many of His other strengths and traits. 

I have also pondered at length about the artistic license that Rama lends. The imagery of Rama is a lot less flexible than that of Krishna. Krishna is an intensely personal God, perhaps rivaled only by Ganesha. He is like wet putty, ready to be crafted and moulded in any form to the artist's desires. From His childhood antics to his grownup machinations, Krishna's actions have been immortalized in numerous works that provide a rich trove of representational raw material. He dissembles, steals, hides, runs from battle, excoriates, and loves fine things... He is deeply human. It is in His perfect imperfections that the artist finds room for grand or silly experimentations with representational imagery.

Rama, on the other hand, is synonymous with perfection. The perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect husband, and the perfect ruler. Stoic, assured, measured, able, and duty-bound to a fault. His perfection brooks no faults. It countenances no half-measures. Any representation that fails to capture all of his perfections, fails to capture any of them. These Hulk-like pictures of Rama are as close to capturing His essence as a G I Joe toy can capture the essence of a Marine.

My favorite representations of Rama are the utsavar moorthis in some temples, notably Vaduvur Ramar. The divine is inherently ageless. Something transient like musculature cannot grasp the agelessness of the divine. Even the smallest detail in the representation of divinity has philosophical significance: each curve has a story, and each ornament a moral. In an attempt to appeal to today's western taste sensibilities – chiseled jawlines, tank-like upper bodies, 8-pack abs – we cannot discard traditional representational choices.

Art is a form of expression and the artist has the right to interpret any subject as the artist sees fit. However I believe that art also comes with a responsibility to the subject. It is through the conflation of the two – sensibility and responsibility – that we create art that transcends time and place. 

I share below a few of my attempts at capturing Rama on paper, drawn over several months. 

Virtual get-togethers

Originally published in The Hindu's Open Page. 

The virus that separated the whole world has paradoxically brought extended families closer than ever before

Thank you, COVID-19.

Could we pause, for a few moments, the constant doom and gloom of COVID-19 and reflect on some of the positives from this harrowing experience? I am not suggesting we forget the travails wrought by this pandemic and the heroic efforts of our frontline workers. I am merely stating that focusing a bit on some of the brighter spots of our day helps us stay afloat amid the tides of COVID-19 gloom.

Despite separating the whole world, the novel coronavirus has paradoxically brought my extended family closer than ever before. I hail from a large family of uncles, aunts, cousins and their spouses, and a growing number of nephews and nieces. Back in Chennai, the entire family would congregate for every festival in my grandparents’ house. Summer holidays meant cricket with cousins, and conspiring for plans to stay at aunts’ places. Even as many in my generation immigrated to the U.S. and Australia, the family stayed close. My mother and aunts would frequently get together for movies and shopping. The Deepavali congregations in Chennai continue like clockwork; even those in the U.S. get together at least once a year.

COVID-19 put an end to all this. Suddenly there were no more dinner get-togethers. No more movies. No more flights to Seattle or California to meet cousins. The naming ceremony of our family’s newest member went unattended by most of us. Every household in our family is now hunkering in isolation, hoping for better days to come.

And yet, something has changed. The family has come alive virtually. Our family's WhatsApp group, called “Namma Family”, used to be filled with unacknowledged forwards, but has now become the congregation-central for the family. Virtually we reach out to one another on the group through conversation, updates, photos, cooking experiments, and jokes. COVID-induced boredom has spawned off new hobbies and creative experiments in each one of us and the group has become the stage to share our new-found skills.

An aunt suggested a talent challenge wherein a nominee produces a creative work within a day and then nominates the next. What began as a chance for the tots to present their rhymes has now been embraced by the young and the old! With every submission, we are discovering previously unknown facets to our family members. We discovered a cousin’s passion for Sanskrit linguistics, another’s taste in poetry, and a third’s attempts at creating animations from still art. The MBA graduate created a survey to test one another’s knowledge in family lore. The questions brought back cherished memories from decades ago. Even the most reticent members of the group, and newcomers into the family have been swept into this exercise. Every creative project is met with thundering support, and feedback. The creative bar keeps being raised and we eagerly look forward to what is next.

If not for COVID-19, I doubt the Namma Family Talent Challenge would have existed. We would have missed out on so many creative masterpieces from our own and most of us would have continued spinning in the whorls of our day-to-day lives. This has been a silver-lining in my life during the times of corona.

The germ

A poem written in one sitting during the middle of COVID-19 when I was feeling particularly low and helpless. 

What life is this – cloistered, faceless, choiceless

The bug is everywhere; if not now, soon.

Be home, they say. Stay away, they say.

Washing can keep the body safe; what about the mind?

The mask used to be the jewel of the thief;

now it's law. Are we legally required to thieve?

Six Feet of separation Or Six Feet under,

are the only two options, they say.

No hugs, no dancing, no mirthful laughter;

we are all ghost ships now,

charting our silent ways across the inky sea,

no two trajectories ever to cross, 

no two journeys destined to twine;

that's what the germ demands, they say.

My home; erstwhile sanctuary, now the cruelest of prisons;

huddled inside with TP and hand sanitizers,

sink full of dishes, cobwebs in every room, 

I yearn for any guest, except for That One.

No weekend getaways, no summer holidays,

Only the sombre reflection of exponentials.

No coffee shop run-ins, no drunken pub mistakes,

Only the fervent hopes for flattening curves.

What life is this, not of the living, but the dead

Of spirit, if not the flesh.

What life is this, no future, no present,

only the fast fading memories of a colorful past.

Short Story: Kamala

The dusty train wearily pulled into the railway station. The rushing gray blur slowly came into focus to became a slategray platform, and was instantly packed with a swarming hive of humanity. Porters in red uniforms, chai-wallahs with sooty black kettles in one hand and red-orange matkas in the other, and reedy boys hauling grimy thermocol iceboxes rushed into the train like pirates commandeering a three-Master. On the platform below roamed jaal-muri chefs balancing bags of puffed rice and varieties of spices in reused malt tins, and hawkers vending day-old newspapers in the curvaceous script of the local vernacular. The midday heat was oppressive; the air over the heads shimmered and shimmied. I pushed my way through the crowds blocking the carriage exit, stepped onto the platform and briskly moved away from the frantic eddies of commerce. Beckoning for a chai, I lit a cigarette and sucked deeply. I was beginning to feel myself again. I had been forewarned that the single-gauge locos on these remote routes often broke down and for long periods. Beside the platform ran a short wall with crudely stuck posters of local political parties and rail union factions; I leaned against it warily sniffing for any wafts of stale urine. So far the journey had been a waste. Twenty one days on the move and yet my journal lay untouched. 

From the corner of my eye I noticed a flower girl, around ten, approaching me cautiously. In her arms was a large wicker basket with coils of jasmine, bunches of marigolds, and clusters of loose flowers. 

"For the missus, sir?" she squeaked, offering me her basket. 

"I am traveling alone," I replied, arching to blow the smoke away from her flowers. 

My pidgin Hindi, that had miraculously survived my years in the US, was helping me get by on this journey. Her face fell. She turned and ambled towards the twisting orbs of humanity gathered at every entrance to the train. A brief flash of pink-white from her basket caught my eye. 

"Wait! I will take a lotus," I shouted after her. She swiveled, and smiled. 

The lotus. Kamala. Kamala Cafe. It came into my life when I least expected it; busy as I was smoking pot and chasing undergraduate girls. The idea gripped me, bewitched me, demented me. For four months I wrote, neglecting grades, personal hygiene, and diet. On Pepsi and pizza I wrote about that fantastical cafe in Ceylon where artists and socialites gathered for fine dining, exotic conversations, and illicit affairs. In unwashed slacks I wrote about the tuxedo-clad men and velvet-frocked women carousing and conspiring great mischief in the cafe's dance hall. Bunking classes and examinations I wrote about the occult symbols that appeared in its kitchen and the disappearances of journalists that went snooping. Ignoring friends and family I wrote about Kamala, my heroine, arriving at this eponymous cafe and getting swept into its whirlwind of mysteries behind a thin veneer of lively, yet comforting, stasis. The publishing was easy. The acclaim was universal. Copies flew off the shelves, and awards piled up in my tiny living room. 

"The freshest voice in fiction...", 

"An Indian voice shining through an international prism..."

"The normal and the abnormal twist and turn passionately in this dazzling debut..."

The book agents arrived unbeckoned, each advising to wait a different amount of time before publishing my next. The sophomore slump is crucial to avoid, they all said. Don't wait over two years, they all said. 

Five years passed, and there had not been a second book. The litterateurs that had first turned green with envy, gradually went purple with rage, then orange with vindication, then white with sympathy, and finally colorless with disdain. The agents did not call anymore. Is it better to have had and lost than never had it at all? No. 

"Reflecting self-harm tendencies...", "... uncharitable disposition towards self...", ran the shrink notes. Life became an amorphous blob; days merging with nights, faces merging with bodies, forced starvation merging with gluttonous food binges, extreme loneliness merging with drugged sexual escapades, until the phone rang one day and sympathetic voice from the distant past spoke into the dark recesses of my mind, "You need a change... take a trip... go back to India for a while... chase experiences..." That advise rang true where so many others had failed and I flew to India the next day.

India. Why didn't I think of it earlier? Like a window cracked open in a fetid room that invites in the afternoon sun, the thought of India swept inside my drug-addled mind and filled me with a cautious hope. Even when I flew out of India as a twelve year old, sitting in the middle seat between my parents, I knew my life would forever be tied to her tropical shores and untamed cultures. America, with her plastic gizmos and jingoistic fervors tries to engulf every pitiful Indian immigrant that lands on her shores, but pungent India always emerges from the cracks of the subconscious and reclaims her own. Graft an Indian out of India and eventually he will shed saps of India, bloom flowers of India, and bear the oversweet fruits of India. My amateurish short stories in high school were set in India. My first attempt at the novel, discarded after 40,000 words, was about an Indian searching for India in un-Indian places. Kamala Cafe was set in Ceylon, but its characters, occults, mysteries, and heroine were all taken from India. India, with her teeming masses, and uncountable stories would provide the story for my next book; that I hoped. 

"Wild flower, sir. Very fragrant," the girl said, handing me an unfurled lotus from her basket. 

"Does this grow around here?" I asked.

"Yes sir, in the pond near my village. Full of lotuses this time of year!"

"Can I see this pond?" I blurted before the oddness of the request became apparent. Kamala. Could it be a sign?

"It's half hour by bullock cart, sir. Ask for Ramdaspur village. You can get a cart outside the station else I can take you after I sell all my flowers," she mumbled, her eyes searching constantly for potential customers.

I felt an immense urge to see the wild lotuses in full bloom. The grumbling in the train had suggested the repairs would take all day. Many passengers had stepped out for a walk around town. I could safely be back in time to catch the train or worst case, take the next one; the station seemed busy enough. I picked up my backpack and went hunting for a cart. 

"You want to go to Ramdaspur to see lotuses?" the buffalo cart driver eyed me suspiciously. 

"Yes."

"Why? You don't have lotuses where you come from?"

"We do, but not much."

"Your accent is weird. Where are you from?"

"Doesn't concern you."

He grumbled in his local tongue, and said, "Rs. 200. I won't get a fare back from that shit-place." 

"OK."

I knew I was being swindled; I hoped the lotuses would be worth it.

The ride was bumpy. After his initial interrogation, my driver went silent chewing a stalk of grass. We left behind the trappings of what had seemed a small town and entered into densely cultivated fields. After a long, drowsy ride, a dot on the horizon slowly became a small cluster of mud-brick homes. 

"Ramdaspur," my driver stated, grabbed the cash from my hand and didn't even wait for me to disembark before turning the cart around. Only after he had retreated beyond calling distance that I realized I may not find another cart from this remote village. 

I turned towards the mud homes. The village seemed empty, the men presumably away at their fields. Some faces peeked from doorways and some windows were quickly shut. A dirty boy in tattered briefs emerged from one of the homes and began speaking in his language, gesturing with his hands towards the direction I had come from.

"I have come to see your pond," I said in my slow Hindi which the boy didn't seem to understand.

"Pond. Water," I said gesturing the universal symbol of a drink to convey my search for the village pond.

The boy grunted, went back inside, and emerged with an earthen vessel with some water that had some stuff floating in it. I eyed the water uneasily; afraid of offending him by refusing this first hospitable gesture. Remembering the flower the girl sold me, I took it out from my pocket and held it to the boy.

"Lotus. Kamal. I want to see the lotuses."

Recognition dawned on his face and he gestured towards the other end of the village, down the single street that wound through it. The road led past the village and into a densely wooded cluster of trees that remained cool and dark even in the midday sun.  Within this cluster emerged the small pond. Despite the shade, the thirsty sun had managed to lap up most of its water, what remained was covered – nay, infested – with lotuses. Layers upon layers of the green leaves spread over every inch of the pond, pockmarked occasionally with the most delicate pink-white blooms. I felt hugged by a gentle breeze carrying the heady smells of the flowers and the surrounding vegetation. A few squirrels scurried down from their tree-homes and began lapping around me. From one end of the woods a wave of cawing picked up. Whenever the breeze briefly blowed, the flowers would gracefully glide back and forth on their watery stage putting on a dance. It was a place of incredible beauty – an oasis of small delights amidst a burning world. 

The lotus. Kamal. The Indian obsession with this flower is legendary. When all similes failed at capturing the ethereal beauty of Krishna's eyes or Sita's lips, the ancient bards turned to the humble lotus. When confronted with the daunting challenge of demonstrating detached attachment, a cornerstone of their philosophy, the Vedic philosophers pointed at the lotus and the water on its leaves. 

"Do you like the flowers?"

The Hindi sentence snapped me out of my reveries. I noticed an old man with a flowing white beard in a clean kurta standing behind me. 

"Yes. They are beautiful."

"We don't get many visitors in our village, especially to see our flowers," he smiled revealing several missing teeth. I presumed the boy had informed him about the village's strange visitor on his stranger quest. 

"My train broke down at the town station. I was told the lotuses here are beautiful. I thought I'll make a trip of it." 

"Our lotuses are the most beautiful. Where have you come from?"

"America."

"America?" his eyes widened in shock. Even in surprise his demeanor retained an affability that instantly put me to ease. "What brought you to our country?"

"Just traveling. I am a writer. I am searching for ideas for my next book. "

"Did you find any?" he asked with a glint in his eye. 

"Not really," I paused for a bit and continued, "it has been a while since I wrote anything. I thought your lotuses might help me write again." My honesty puzzled me. Perhaps the thought that I would never meet this man again allowed me to shed my usual filters.  

"If all you needed was a lotus to write your next book, you need not have come all this way. The lotus is everywhere," he smiled. 

I returned his smile, not caring to explain that not every part of the world was tropical. 

"You don't believe me? What is Lord Krishna's eye? A lotus. Where is God? He is everywhere. Ergo the lotus is everywhere," the man burst into halting laughter at his own wisecrack.

"Do you know who planted these lotuses?" I asked, hastily seeking to avoid a sermon. 

"The lotuses were here before we came, and they will be here long after we are gone. They can survive through anything, even humans. Do you know? Every year each plant sheds thousands of seeds to the bottom of the pond. Most get eaten by fishes, providing life to so many. The few that remain wait patiently for the right time to germinate. Some wait for days, some for months, and some for years. A few even wait a thousand years. Why does one seed wait so long while others sprouted earlier? Because it knew that what was right for others was not right for itself. Why rush, it asked."

He walked up to a tree and sat on a large, raised root, beckoning me to sit beside him. I walked up to him and sat on a rock by the tree. 

He continued, "When one seed didn't germinate for so long, while all of its siblings did, did it ever question its location? Did it pick up and travel all over the world to find a better place to germinate? No. It remained where it was, knowing that its time will come. Only a restless mind expects solace in movement. The lotus is calm." 

"It is a lotus's nature to wait and germinate. Perhaps it is not my nature to write, which is why I couldn't do it in America," I interjected. 

"Maybe. No matter how hard it tries a lotus cannot any more of a lily and equally it cannot become any less of a lotus. If you are a writer, you cannot stop from being one even if it takes a long time to germinate. Why the rush?" he asked smiling. 

Both of us sat in silence for a few minutes. The breeze picked up again and brought with it the smells of dung and cooking from the village. Unbeknownst a tear rolled down my cheek. My tummy began to grumble at the smell of food. I remembered the train at the station. I stood up and bid adieu to the old man asking whether he would walk with me back to the village.

"I will stay awhile with the lotuses. Farewell, my friend," he smiled. 

Back at the village it seemed as desolate as before. I began walking towards the town braving the searing sun. The sun beat me into a pulp and I felt myself going dizzy. Suddenly a dot emerged from the distance and progressively grew larger until I could make out the faint outlines of the horns of buffalos surrounded by a halo of dirt kicked up by their trodding feet – it was a buffalo cart! Soon I realized it was the same cart that had dropped me off at the village. Seeing me, the driver yanked the beasts to stop.

"I thought you may not find another cart to come back. I thought I will come and check, but it will cost Rs. 300, sahib," the driver said. 

Handing him a 500 rupee note, I jumped onto his cart unable to control my smile and said, "Keep the change."

Beaming with happiness, the driver turned around the animals and began riding back towards town, "My name is Kamal Jeet, sahib. What's yours?" 

I broke into a smile. Perhaps the old man was right – the lotus is everywhere.

What is family?

The following is a poem I composed for a Talent Challenge series on my extended family's WhatsApp group. Archana insisted I try something outside my comfort zone, hence here is my very first attempt at poetry. 

Video: YouTube

What is family, but good times and cheer,
What is family, but support far or near;

What is family, but memories set in song,
What is family, but friends that come along;

What is family, but a shoulder to cry on,
What is family, but getting your urulai fry-on;

What is family, but comfort always on call,
What is family, but Deepavali presents for all;

What is family, but trips to near and abroad,
What is family, but amazing performers to applaud;

What is family, but summers playing cricket,
What is family, but begging for the last Rajini ticket;

What is family, but shared joys and heartbreaks,
What is family, but celebrations with candy & cakes;

What is family, but a fresh filter coffee brew,
What is family, but Bala the next challenge is for you!

On Knowledge and Change

I recently finished reading Amitav Ghosh's genre-bending novel, The Calcutta Chromosome. Is it science-fiction? Is it a historical novel? Is it a mystical thriller? Why not all three? The book held me in spellbound attention and left me with the aftertaste of philosophy. An epistemological insight that is oft-repeated in the novel is the inherent nature of Knowledge to cause Change.

"Knowing something, changes it."

"One can only know history because the act of knowing something, changes it so that what one just learnt is already obsolete."

If knowing something changes it, can one make something change in "a certain way" by making it be known "in a particular way"?  That is a guiding premise in the book.

Isn't it a wonderfully fascinating idea? It gives me goosebumps to even imagine it.

When I first encountered this premise in the book, a few disconnected ideas flashed in my mind like shooting stars. I remembered an echo of a long-forgotten lesson in quantum mechanics of how the act of measurement or observation ("knowing") alters the object under observation into just one (a rather mundane unary) manifestation of its otherwise plural possibilities.

Almost immediately, my mind train chugged along to other stations of knowledge induced change. Why, I was reminded of the childish game of Chinese Whispers. Convey a secret message to the first person in a long human chain and have them convey it to their neighbor. By the end of a long train, the secret is often altered into an unrecognizable mess, albeit a bit funnier.

Is it a fundamental nature of the human mind to change what it knows? Is it impossible to make something be known and yet make it fool-proof to change? I was instantly reminded of something I read in Frits Staal's book, Discovering the Vedas. This primary challenge of passing knowledge without change transfixed the Vedas's earliest composers. As eternal truths, it was paramount that they not be allowed to change from mouth to ear to mouth. And hence, they codified error-detecting and error-correcting codes within the texts themselves and the teaching methods of the text. As any Veda-paatshala student can attest, the emphasis in Veda learning is initially of rote-memorization; of not just the words, but primarily the tone, inflection, and spirit. The text themselves are composed to certain mathematical meters and any destructive change that affects the meter can be instantly recognized and fixed. Perhaps here at last is a rare success story of knowledge not leading to irretrievable change.

But is such knowledge-driven change necessarily a bad thing? If preventing change needs a lack of action, then why know anything at all? Is the world to be a museum of wonders held behind bullet-proof, sky-high glass walls? Sights to be admired from a distance, but never to be touched, rolled on the floor, handled among friends, stained with the accidental spill of coffee or wine, or changed and altered in even a microscopic way? Are we to be relegated to the roles of bit-parts in this vast world and never aspire to create wonders of our own to be left for the progeny to admire? Isn't newness, by definition, a change from the usual? If change through knowledge is a terrible idea, how can any newness come into the world?

If you are of the analytical bent of mind, imagine the following flow-chart. There exists a "Thing" in a circle. An arrow of "knowledge" emerges from the circle and leads to a second circle, "Action". An arrow of "change" emerges from the "Action" bubble and hurtles towards the first bubble "Thing". What happens to "Thing" now? Why, of course, it becomes a "New Thing". And the cycle continues, ad infinitum.

One can trivially imagine examples of highly destructive cycles of change. Man learnt about the usefulness of river sand to create mortar and concrete. The knowledge resulted in action that created incredibly useful newness in the world  – schools, bridges, temples, office complexes – but also immeasurably destroyed rivers and riverine ecosystems through the plunder for river sand.

Perhaps a happy compromise is that knowledge-driven change is A-okay as long as it is channeled towards something moral and honorable. In the river sand example, the change towards bridges and schools is great, but the change towards dry rivers and sunken river-beds is to be avoided. If the analytical mind begs for another flow-chart, imagine the previous one and make two minor alterations. The arrow of "knowledge" is now replaced with the arrow of "knowledge guided by moral worldview". The circle with "New Thing" is now termed "Better Thing". And thereby, we have a virtuous cycle of change.

And hence, perhaps the only thing worth preserving against wanton change or mischief is this sense of morality or a moral worldview that can guide the application of knowledge towards actions that can result in constructive change. Perhaps the only things worth preserving are rules or edicts that can timelessly apply to every scenario and guide the knower into selecting better actions and avoiding destructive ones. The only things worth guarding against the winds of change are the moral principles that can midwife better change in everything else. Perhaps, now I better understand why the Vedas are so zealously preserved against change.

Lessons from a father

Note: The following is an article written by my mother after the demise of her father in March, 2020. I edited the article and felt its content will be useful to everybody. I have retained my mother's usage of the first-person. 

The year 2020 has been a mixed bag of emotions for my family. The year dawned with great promise and joy thanks to the marriage celebrations of my sister's son, and then my own son in quick succession. Attended by a host of relations from near and afar, both ceremonies were presided over by my stately father, aged 94 and still going strong.  

My father at my son's wedding in January 2020

Shortly after, on the 6th of February, I was met with the shocking news that my father had fallen in his home, where he preferred to live alone after my mother’s demise a decade ago, and had fractured his thigh bone. That fateful accident triggered a steady decline in his health until he passed away on the 25th of April. I write this post on the 7th of May, shortly after the conclusion of his Subham, the ceremonial thirteenth day funeral rites. Thanks to the raging pandemic sweeping across the globe, the funeral rites were sparsely attended with just the closest family - my siblings, and their significant others. 

A large colored photograph of my father in gilded framing was placed on a table for the rituals. As I stared at the slender, dark-skinned man in the photograph, with his prominent forehead, sharp nose and astute eyes, I was reminded in colored flashes of my childhood, the small and big sacrifices made by my parents to raise their five children into respectable stations in life. I was struck by his ironclad will and peculiar zeal towards his family and was reminded of the incredible life he had lived. 

My father, Sri T. R. Srinivasan was born on the 17th of January, 1926 near Kumbakonam. Hailing from a small village called Tiruvalliyangudi renowned for Kolavilli Ramar temple, a prominent Vaishavite shrine, my father was schooled at Little Flowers Convent in Kumbakonam. Growing up in extreme poverty amongst seven siblings, he was the first person in his family to clear the SSC examination (standard XI by today's metrics). Through a stroke of good fortune, at the age of 18 he entered Central Government service as a Lower Division Clerk in the Office of the Protector of Emigrants and posted to Mandapam camp, a refugee center near the coastal town of Rameswaram. At Mandapam, he quickly learned typewriting and shorthand to become the personal assistant to the Camp superior who was an Indian Civil Services cadre bureaucrat. Through his boss, my father acquired a taste for the exalted administrative services and vowed to raise a bureaucrat in his future family! 

The caption is in my father's hand

On the 15th August 1947, as India celebrated her newfound freedom with crackers and festivities, my father got engaged to my mother Smt. Saroja and acquired in her a most worthy life-partner. Their partnership lasted till 2010 when she pre-deceased him and their long union gave their children a chance to celebrate their 60th, 80th, and golden wedding celebrations. 

My father shares his birth date with Tamil Nadu's former Chief Minister and film superstar Sri. M. G. R. In his own way, my father was the superstar of the lives of his children! Since he was denied a chance at higher education, he was determined to ensure all his children were graduates or higher. He pushed us to strive a little further at every stage of our lives. After college, he encouraged all his daughters to work which led to all of us joining the Banking sector. His son joined the Indian Administrative Services, fulfilling one of my father's oldest dreams. All his children have had long and successful careers, enriching marriages, and today his grand- and great-grandchildren are spread all over the globe. 

In 2018, I retired as a Deputy General Manager at SBI after thirty-eight years of service. Over these years I have been known as an extremely hard-worker, a skilled Banker and a qualified financial adviser. However, most of the golden truths of professional and personal life were instilled in me by my father much before I joined SBI. I share a few of these life-lessons that he passed down to his children through his words and lifestyle. 

• Spend within your means.

Every month my mother and father would sit together and jot down the mandatory expenses for the month. Instead of splurging on notebooks, my mother would carefully tear old calendar sheets into quadrants and use their backsides for accounts keeping. Once expenses had been listed, they would ensure some amount is always reserved for future savings. Whatever is left after that is the only discretionary spending for the whole family. Decades later, despite reaching a much better place financially, I am still driven by this model of money-management: identify expenses, reserve savings, spend whatever is left if needed.

• Increase your income. 

A large family necessitated my parents to find new ways to augment their income. A small portion of our home was rented out to a succession of tenants for several years. Being a shrewd orator and effective writer, my father would write short stories, articles, and poems in local newspapers and magazines for small remunerations. My mother provided tailoring services to neighbors, sold postage stamps, and even reared two cows to sell milk! In such varied and versatile ways, my parents increased the family income and made it possible in later life to send their children to college, marry them well, build a home, etc. 

• Savings vs Liability.

At the young age of thirty, my father had the brilliant forethought and daring to purchase a large plot of land in a swampy neighborhood called West Mambalam in Chennai. With a meager salary and four children already, it was a big risk, albeit a calculated one. He procured a loan from the local bank to buy the land and construct a house. For many years after, paying back the loan EMI was the foremost expense in our home. I still remember accompanying my father every month to pay the monthly EMI. Those trips to a bank at an early age inspired me to become a Banker in later life. This experience taught me that savings alone are not enough. It is also important to cleverly use liabilities in pursuit of grander objectives. Today the plot of land he purchased for Rs. 500 is worth several crores and has provided homes for several generations of his progeny. 

• Live with contentment.

My father was always simple in his lifestyle. In his early years, poverty made any kind of luxury unimaginable and yet, even in his later years when he was financially much better off, he never sought nor cared for luxury. Perhaps the only extravagance I remember of him was applying for a Bajaj scooter and waiting patiently for six years for its allotment. He used it sparingly, mostly preferring his cycle to commute to work. My father cared for the few things he owned and didn't care much for any other material possessions. Over the last decade of his life his austere living became even more minimal as he disposed most of his possessions. His most prized possessions were liberally handed over to his children and grandchildren and he retained only the barest essentials for himself. Despite living in a mostly empty house for the last ten years of his life, I cannot remember him being more content. Truly, contentment is a state of the mind.

• Do your duty.

Despite being from an orthodox Iyengar family, my father was never overtly religious. He rarely discussed religion or faith with others and was wary of such topics. Likewise, he was never inclined towards charity. He was living proof of the idiom 'Work is Worship' and all his children imbibed this ferocious devotion to one's work. Despite beginning at the lowest rung of the ladder, his career took him all over the country (Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Bombay, Madras) and he eventually retired as the Public Relations Officer, a gazetted position, of the Regional Passport Office at Bombay. 

During my own retirement ceremony in 2018, with my father in attendance in the first row, I was honored when my CGM commented on my Herculean work ethic even a few days before my retirement. I remember with great fondness my father's interactions with the CGM after the retirement function where he beamed with pride at his daughter's successful career. Doing one's duty with rigor was considered the foremost dharma in our household and I have strived to uphold that throughout my  career. 

My father at my retirement ceremony in 2018

To summarize, it is known that the Bhagavad Gita extols three ways to transcend our human condition: Karma Yoga (the path of duty), Jnana Yoga (the path of knowledge), and Bhakti Yoga (the path of faith). My father exemplified the life of a Karma Yogi. Through honor, discipline, grit, and visionary thinking he uplifted an entire family into a higher sphere financially, culturally, and socially. While his time on earth has come to an end, his words, memories, and influences will guide his children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren for decades to come. 

- Smt. Kousalya Venkataraman