Portrait lessons

Profiling “people” who left their mark on me was something that came intuitively. Actually it was in May 2006 when I wrote a profile of 14 characters that convinced me that writing is one vocation I should pursue no matter the returns at the box office.  Writing is a lot of fun activity for me and so any money it fetches for a middle-class existence is okay.

            All I was striving for was to paint these characters on a palette but since nature has not endowed me with any skill with the brush, I used words as tools. I tried to capture the mood of the person, the circumstances and the times in which they lived. Then a funny thing happened – the more I thought about them the more I was finding an insight about me. This bears repetition: The more I contemplated on each of these characters, the more I was learning about me. Truly every person who comes into our life is mostly not our choice but they come to teach life lessons. Destiny is infinitely kind and looks after you as a mother to a new born kid. Everything happens in perfect time, space and sequence and where none of your silly fantasizes and wet dreams need apply.

            I am making this post for another reason; I have over 65 Portraits and I want them in one page.  So here we go:

Portraits (Family); There are two posts of my father (Appa and Appa's greatness), one on Amma, and siblings. Writing on Viji and Latha were difficult – they were not considerate to me but theirs are hugely successful lives as they have built wonderful families for themselves. So even as I wrote on them, I was more than conscious that their stint on earth has more meaning and depth than mine. This family section also pays homage to dead members: Paati, Rajamani, Durai, and Prakash. I have not left myself either with “Being Sathya” and “My Upanayanam Images” of a bye gone era.

Portraits (Bahrain): There are four posts that captures one of the shortest, sweetest time period of my life. Ajit made me worldly wise, Mona and Mariam were two Bahraini women who made a strong impression in my mind and Usha of course was a jackal of a manager. But those three months – September, October, November of 2003 – were indeed rich and memorable.

Portraits (Friends); Here again I pay homage to those who passed over: Ravi of my school days, Brig. Mehta was perhaps one of the most complete human beings who I was fortunate to chance in my walks at Theosophical Society gardens and Sarada Mami without doubt a human being with a lot of compassion and a mind as sharp as a scalpel.

            Working on Ishita blog taught me one thing rather reinforced my stance. PW was both a ANGEL and a DEVIL and where she failed was in the morality department. Serious to god and no sour grapes, you can live either with a ANGEL or a DEVIL but you can’t live with one who waxes and wanes like the moon, Slippery character this. Jekyll and Hyde types. 
           P Whorewani (2009) and Endless Suffering (Jackal) in June 2017 are posts that capture my thoughts on this very devious sub-human. A PhD with 25 years in social sector and history will remember her as a dubious character from these writings is sufficient punishment.                

            There are friends like Balakant, SDP, Dr. Rajaram, Mani, Vinod and Priya for loud banter and lots of fun moments. They made me feel young without a care in the world. Then there are reliable friends who held an umbrella when the storm got intense like Ranga, Vivek, Manisha, and T H Iyer Mama.  I also did blogs on Thangam and Meera who helped me in the kitchen for a decade. Seriously they served me daily and on sheer utility rank on top of the heap.

            Now I am left with Dauntlesssathya posts. There are 36 posts here. The difference between thinksathya portraits and this is not the intensity of familiarity but these are mostly profiles of people who came to my life and exited for a short duration – mostly office colleagues and bosses, distant relations, school teachers kinds. I don’t scorn at these posts rather take as much pride in them and the efforts that went into Thinksathya ones. I divided these profiles into three categories:

Sattwic: Fr. Kadavel, Lucas Indra and Mark  from my school days at St. Patricks, office acquaintances Desikamani, Badri, John Kuruvilla and some truly memorable encounters with Navneet at IMT, Vijay and Parvati Mami at TS, Meena at distant China and Krishnan who is a sailor and a terrific person on zest and humour. And my chanting guru the venerable Venkatakrishnan Mama

Rajasic are those characters who did not particular leave me with fragrance but they were moments and this is mostly the bosses crowd: Vijay Iyer, Narasimhan, Sriganesh, Minnie, Sonny, Umita, Bimal Nair, Karthik, Devarajan and one with a slight romantic possibility in Lakshmi.  Friends like PR Venkateswaran and family relations like  Athai, Visalam, Rajamani, Ramani, Srinivasan and Pozhichalur. And finally Tamasic ones who brought nothing but sorrow and turbulence as in Sanjay in Triton, Krishna Kumar at Percept, Ramesh and Swami. 

            I still have a list of over 20 profiles pending on Dauntlesssathya which I will attempt to complete before 2017 draws to a close. I take these portraits damn seriously, more than looking out of the window they show up an aspect of me.  
         I also learnt an important lesson: you don't come down with a hammer on your friend's foibles at times. You learn to grin and bear them when there is still a long term projection to it and this leads to another breathtaking insight: You treat yourself kindly and also the people who matter regardless of wrinkles and creases. Oh, the mind can play such tricks though you may be blessed with the wisdom of a Solomon - truly destiny as a factor in my life has been a towering shadowing presence. Not complaining, just observing. And waiting for it to write a better script.