Search for perfection in every sentence- Siddharth Krishnan

As one of Shobha's  very good friends, I had heard a hundred stories from shobha of Mr. Vasudevan's generous personality, but nothing prepares you for the perpetual humility that his company bestows upon you. I remember the first few times that I met Mr. Vasudevan, all the way back in 2005. His demeanor had the assured confidence of a personality unaccustomed to challenges that have bested him. His style of speech is something that I knowingly try to emulate, even today. Every sentence is designed to have no flaws, even if it means long pauses in the middle of each sentence. Like students in a class taught by a nobel laureate, we just sit and wait out his search for perfection in every sentence (usually well worth the wait). His understanding of the world was matched only by his boundless curiosity in what had not crossed him before. I never had the opportunity to work with him or watch him at work, but it was not too difficult to imagine how this person was, while making far reaching decisions that most of us never have to worry about. Since his passing, I've managed to gather from Vandana's website and a few books, how far reaching his thoughts, actions, connections and achievements are ... I'm now very surprised and humbled by how he would let me talk about my mostly academic opinions garnered from newspapers and books and would still express a very keen interest in what I had to say. This wonderful interest in life, this extraordinary youth and vitality was very unusual and striking and more ironically, belied all that his family had told me about his state of health (I met him after he had been diagnosed with this disease). If they had not told me that there was something wrong with his body, I might have guessed otherwise and might even have (however foolishly) have asked him what the secret to his energy was. 

             I had the superb fortune of spending ganesh chathurthi, 2009, exactly a year back with him and his family in Urbana Champaign. I had one of the best times of my life, primarily because of my interaction with Mr. Vasudevan. Like I said before, it was difficult to compartmentalize any frailty in his physical or mental faculties. His sense of humor was confidently self-deprecating, his politics socially capitalistic, his views on marriage and family, thoughtfully conservative and his interactions with and thoughts on people dissimilar in background to his own, violently modern. What a fun personality!!! Not a dull moment ... Even his anger sparkled with good humor. 

            His biggest successes were not in the very grand personality that he had built; not in creating states and in creating viatical quadrilaterials; not in heading large corporations that create the ramparts of the society of modern india lives in security of. In my opinion, his biggest success is me. 

His biggest success is in spending 4 hours with a 30 year old modern indian in the US, with very set views and a complacency in mediocrity and instilling a very strong desire to achieve something that would positively affect other people. His biggest success is in making me laugh and cry at the same time and making me understand why I'm doing either. His biggest success is in inspiring me, by just being himself. 

            I can only imagine the impact he has had on people who had the good fortune of having him as a closer friend than I did. 

Vandana, Shobha and Vasudha Aunty - He could not have lived a more complete life. His passing is not of frailty or age, but of the satisfied reaching of potential, in my opinion. We don't need a book to immortalize him. His life and its impact on all of us has already ensured that. 

For that wonderfully unscripted life of perfection, 

Thankfully, Siddarth.

The Mussorie Days-Batchmate B.N. Makhija's early memories

Regarding my personal memories of  dear Vasu, I vividly recall the Mussorie days when he used to stun me with his idiomatic and high falutin Hindi.  I used to rile my friends  and ask why it is that no Punjabi is able to speak Tamil with the fluency that Vasu is able to speak in Hindi. And for a Tamilian to offer Hindi as an optional subject in a project as risky as IAS exam, was to me the limit of adventurism or acme of self confidence.

The other lasting memory, again relating to the same subject, comes from our Bharat Darshan days.  It was December 1964 – January 1965, he was in the same batch of 20 that I was and when touring the south, probably after our visit to Rameshwaram, we were stranded in Tamil Nadu,  I think somewhere near Trichy or Tirunelvelli.  Language riots had  broken out all over the country and we were in the very thick of  Tamil fury and our train was held up at some small station for something close to 24 hours.  The platform vendors ran out of all food stuff with a whole train-load of passengers devouring all eatables available on the station.  Inside our train compartment, were 20 young  men and women constantly debating the pros and cons of Hindi as a national language, and there was my dear friend Vasu declaiming  forcefully, in chaste Hindi, against the nefarious designs of the north Indians to foist their language on a proud southern race which would have none of it.  A Tamil, speaking in Hindi against Hindi, always reminds me of those lines from Voltaire when defending the freedom of speech “I disagree violently with what you say but I will defend to my death your right to say it!”

The inimitable Vasu!