40) The Social Activist

Our family has known Radha Venkatraman since a long time. My dad – bless his memory now- and her father were colleagues and when he was transferred to Hyderabad, my dad rented out the Chennai flat to his colleague’s newly wedded daughter Radha. This was way back in the 1970s.

Upon my father’s death in the late 80s, we took possession of the flat never quite losing track of Radha. She was a graduate from the famed Stella Maris college and majored in Russian and joined the Russian Embassy counsel in Chennai as their “language expert” and that position entitled her to many a visit to Moscow. On such trips, she would entrust her infant daughter at her mother’s place while her husband was fast raising the ranks in BHEL. That was in her twenties.

Her bachelor brother, a software expert was down with double pneumonia in the US and the doctors had already issued an advisory for relatives to congregate; such was the seriousness of his health. She flew to Houston and spent four months till he was on his feet. That was in her thirties.

For a neighbour watching these acts unfold was a pleasant revelation considering how selfish the world has gotten to. Here was a soul who cared for her folks even at the expense of an infant daughter; again in her mother’s care while her husband had to make do with hotel food.

Radha is now in her fifties and she would often greet me, “Sathya, what are doing for the society apart from cribbing? Why don’t you attend our meetings at Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan?”
She is member of Vigil, a right wing organization that invites eminent people (of a stature of Palkivala or a Sunita Narain) for weekly lectures. In the decade, she has risen to being its Vice President and dallies with politicians like LK Advani and others.

Now that her daughter has grown up and working, she has even more time at her disposal. She goes around the neighbourhood in her green Zen with a bucketful of curd rice. She takes a detour; spots stray dogs and feeds them. Soon the sight of green Zen is enough for the dog population to congregate. This is a daily ritual and no less than 20 dogs are fed on the beach stretch at Eliot’s.

Radha is no different from us with the trappings of a middle class upbringing. But over time, I have seen her evolve from a fantastic daughter to a socially conscious person. By the way, in the narration I forgot to mention as how she tended her father during his last days. She would visit them everyday and money was liberally spent like water as the green Zen clocked thousand of miles to and fro hospital and residence.

It’s hard to find a person who is so duty conscious and knows what filial responsibilities are.

Radha is precisely a person divas mouth when they win a Miss Femina. I asked her,” Radha, did you ever take part in the beauty pageant when you were young?”

She gave me that “get lost” look and said,” Not funny. Just because you work in that group, doesn’t give you the right to play the fool”.

In my reckoning she is a great soul who has understood life wonderfully and added great beauty to it. Being normal in this crazy, insane world takes some doing.