100 th year of a great man

On Nov 14, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Sridhar Karnam wrote:

It is the 100 th year of a great man, who was a hero to at least 50 people in my family. He loved everyone, everybody loved him. He was physically strong, morally even stronger. He inspired people around him to be ethically strong, creating role models around me, since I was young. He fought every opportunity to be immoral. His retirement, responsibilities, or illness of people around him could not shake his strong will to live happily for a full life of 92 years, well, almost. He is grand my father. Also known as ‘Thatha’.

Always, signing as BA, LLB after his name, he took pride in being a graduate and a Govt. employee. One thing, he taught me was to be a great story teller. He never had shortage of stories. His life was full of events. He was a live version of ‘Chandamama’. He never repeated any stories as he lived his life to fullest. He never had to struggle to be humorous. His wit was known to be intelligent.

He treated everyone with respect. He had same love and respect for his siblings to children to extended family. He never judged people. He gave plenty of chances to people around him. His two eyes were his loving wife and a gifted son, who lived with him forever, or until his last breath.

He means a lot to me as he personally touched my life. He made me ambitious. He made me overcome my inhibitions. He always had confidence in me, and kept telling me that I am as smart as my father to nurture my dreams. As a child, who believed that my father is my superhero, it meant a lot to me. I used to ask him a lot of questions about his times. He loved the fact that I was excited to learn about his life.

Once, he saw me struggle, with my city life in Bangalore from a village life. He saw me trying to study social science keeping two text books side-by-side, one in Kannada and the other in English. I was trying to compare word to word from both books, like a dictionary, to make sense of English. He offered me to help. He did help and he changed my life, for good.

He promised to be my pen friend. He asked me to write a letter to him every week. He offered to review the content, the grammar, the structure, and that he would return back my letter with corrections and feedback. He did respond to every single letter that I wrote to him with his corrections. This happened when I was in high-school. He changed the way I look at the world in 3 years. I learned a great deal of storytelling from this experience. In three years, I was ready to compete with the world, got into one of the best schools, and he proudly announced that I have graduated from his university.

His gratitude was unmatchable. He carried a ton of gratitude to people, who helped even in a small way such as opening the door. Once I accompanied him to the bank and power bill pay center in Bellary in the middle of summer at noon. It was 45 degree Celsius. I was standing in the line in the hot sun, all sweating in the long line of bill paying center. This was before the online bill payment time. He came up to me, and asked me to stand in the shade instead. I was surprised and I asked him why? His reply was that he is used to this kind of torture, and that I was a teenager who is used to better life in the city. I was shocked at the way he respected and treated every individual. He was 88 then.

He was a strong will-powered man. My grandmother had a close call with her life. She missed a beat due to cardiac arrest on a regular doctor visit on the doctor’s check-up table. The doctor announced that his loving wife of 50 years has decided to sleep. He was shattered. He walked to her in disbelief, and silently sat next to her. He watched her in hope that she would wake up. He was cold. He never shed a tear. His will power and love for her was so strong that she could not leave him. She got the beat back, after the doctor had stopped trying, and she went on to live a long life, or up to two years after he passed.

He loved everyone equally. However, he loved one of his sons more. He was a gifted son. He needed and deserved his love more than anyone. His son was physically and mentally gifted. His son became his best friend, and his motive to live long. He was concerned about his son’s caretaking after his life, but little did he know that his moral strengths were passed on to his children who helped and supported him in ways they could afford for a long time. One daughter gave him house, other daughter gave him care, one son gave him physical support, one son gave him moral support, and another son, my father, gave him financial stability & a promise to take care of the gifted son while contributing a third of his salary for 35 years to support them.

He surely left a dent in my universe by creating strong moral values. Happy 100 th birthday grand-pa. We love you.

Sri.