A great and a gentle soul- A tribute to late Mr.R.Vasudevan
Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010 7:31 PM
When I heard that my close friend Rangaswami Vasudevan passed away on 25 July 2010, I was not only assailed with silent grief, the event also brought to my mind a flood of old, personal recollections. He belonged to the 1964 vintage of the I.A.S. and was just two years junior to me. I can say in all honesty that I have come across very few individuals of great qualities like him. One of his last postings was Secretary, Ministry of Shipping and Transport.
In the years 1964-66, I was a Sub Divisional Officer in Balapur in District Akola, Maharashtra State with an independent charge. That was the time he was posted to Akola for the purpose of “district training” with a flamboyant designation called “Supernumerary Assistant Collector” invented by the British. I discovered in him not only a fine colleague but a great friend.
District life for bachelors like us was devoid of any sense of romanticism which we compensated by intellectual discussions, within our limited knowledge at that young age, on a variety of topics such as history, religion, philosophy, politics etc and the subjects were endless. I remember his profound admiration for Rajaji and his writings, which was born from his being an Iyengar as I would occasionally tell him in good humour. He would often refer to passages from the book “Vyaasar Virundhu”, the wonderfully written Tamil version of Mahabharata that Rajaji had written.
If anybody was a stickler for honesty and rules, it was Vasu as we used to call him. I remember that he was fond of Hindi movies, the only source of entertainment in Akola then, just the way I was. The theatre-fellows would often hesitate to take any ticket money knowing that we were bureaucrats. Once, he insisted on paying at least the ‘entertainment duties’ that were part of the ticket-price since the Government was not to be denied its due revenue!
Sometimes, he would not recommend some movies to be seen. Once he strongly held the view that a particular movie was very bad and senseless and felt that it should be avoided. When asked ‘why?’ he said that he should know since he had seen it three times! Vasu had a great sense of humour. Indeed, once he accompanied another young colleague of his who was going from shop to shop to buy a bush shirt. Once, when that person was disrobing for the purpose of a ‘trial’, he saw his banian and told him, “Hey, you actually need a banian and not a bush shirt! It is full of holes!”
These are a few amongst several old memories with me. While he had such a unique sense of humour on the one hand, he was on the other hand, a mixture of a Puritan, Non-Partisan, Spartan, Good Samaritan, Rationalist, Socialist and a Task Master. All these qualities governed his personal as well as his official life as he climbed his official ladder from district postings to the Maharashtra Secretatiat to the Government of India.
At an official level, he was a tireless administrator and knew how to get work done from the subordinates whom he used to impress with his personal example, candour, affability and good humour. He was honest to the core, and for him integrity was next to godliness. He was fearless with his political bosses and begged education in the art of currying favour with them or doing anything out of the way for them. He perhaps paid a little price occasionally for being forthright with his bosses. However, on the whole his character and ability won him the support and admiration of his seniors.
Vasu was not just a karma-yogi as far as work was concerned. He was also a gnyana-yogi from his deep learning from books and scriptures. He excelled in his strict orthodoxy and took pride in his provenance from the temple town of Srirangam . I admire him most for some of his qualities other than the benisson given to him as a karma-yogi and a gnyana-yogi, since those qualities are indeed most rare in modern times. There was a great sense of purity in his being which is legendary only amongst angelic characters. In that sense he shone like a ‘Manikkam’, unblemished jewellery. He was a pure soul, incapable of harbouring any negative quality such as jealousy, spite, ill-will etc. He was a non-smoker, a non-drinker and a person of disciplined habits. It is sad that he was afflicted with a carcinoma of the liver that eventually took his life away. May his soul rest in peace.
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