 A splendid torch
In life, you sometimes regret the opportunities you miss - thanks to your inhibitions or plain procrastination - of getting to know some people better, some very special people. And invariably the realisation comes too late. One such person was the late S Krishnan, celebrated columnist, translator, editor and consular official, who passed away recently after living a full, vibrant, achievement-packed life. Though I knew him for decades as the author of the popular column in 'The Hindu', ‘Between You and Me’, the parent of a friend, a father figure for writers and journalists including my wife, editor of collections of R K Narayan’s writings, and consulting editor of 'Sruti', a magazine brought out by my late uncle, I had only one meaningful interaction with him. That was when he gifted me a copy of his translation of Sundara Ramaswamy’s novel, ‘Oru Puliamarathin
Kathai.’
The memorial service at Amethyst, Gopalapuram, Chennai, last Saturday, was surcharged with emotion, and brought home to me what I had missed by not returning Krishnan’s generosity with more of my time in his company. The audiovisual presentation with Bach’s music in the background was a poignant journey in time with Krishnan and his family and friends big and small captured in all the vigour of youth and maturity of age. The most striking feature of Krishnan in most of these pictures was his laughter.
As the evening unfolded, we were introduced to Krishnan’s preferences in music, through recordings of Ramnad Krishnan as well as Bach - he was one of the few people who could appreciate both Western classical and Carnatic music, compere and family friend Lakshmi Viswanathan told us. Followed live vocal music by Charumati Ramachandran and her talented young daughter Subhashree, and readings by several friends and admirers of Krishnan from his favourite works as well as his own writings.
The readers were quite a formidable galaxy of personalities in themselves - from N Ravi and Nirmala Laxman of 'The Hindu' through Maalan and Mohan Raman to two of Krishnan’s grandchildren. Every one of them did us proud with the excellence of their tributes and their obvious celebration of a life lived to the brim.
His eclectic good taste in all things vital, his love of literature with a wide range of favourites, his vast network of friends, his immense contribution to the USIS which he served with distinction from the fifties into the eighties - and all this completed by his abiding humanism and sense of humour - emerged by the end of the evening.
“Out, out, brief candle,” Sundar Chaterji, one of the readers of the evening had read from Macbeth in his reverberant voice, and I was instantly reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s response to those words. He had said: “Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” Krishnan’s life had been no brief candle.
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