Ravi NayarSend a message to

Ravi Nayar

Ravi Nayar

Narayana Elechen was my father's younger brother. He was one of the early scholars in our family. He got his MA in Psychology in the mid 1950's from a university in India and then went on to do his post graduate studies in Industrial Psychology at Liverpool university, UK . I think it was in the year 1960, he returned from UK and was working in Glaxo in Petaling Jaya. I admired his beautiful car, a Ford Tanus with 2 tone paint work. Petaling Jaya was just beginning to take shape at that time. The Federal Highway was almost completed. And construction was in progress for the EPF building. At this juncture, I was a teenager, going through the adolescent confusions, often getting into mental traffic jams. I remember him at that time, as a helpful and caring uncle. His training in psychology was put to good use on me. Through dialogue and discussion he helped to overcome many issues. Later in 1969, when I started working in Kuala Lumpur, I used to visit him often during weekends. Jayakumar and Mala were small children then. Shyamala was a baby. I remember going with him to University hospital to bring home Sathya Chechi and Sudhir who was just born. On one of my Sunday visits to his house at that time when we were sipping tea, he told me that I should, in my work place always adopt the principle of “stoop to conqueror” with my superiors. He also told me that in the early part of his career, he didn’t follow this strategy and consequently made some mistakes. And he illustrated the point with some examples. The advice made a deep impression on me because it was conveyed with total frankness and sincerity. The advice was also timely, because at that time I was working as a manager for a Printing factory. My boss was the owner of the business. He would occasionally bring his friends over to show them the factory. His favorite pastime on these occasions was to scold me for no reason, simply to impress the visitors that he is the boss. My subordinates in the factory were amused!! Anyway I followed uncle’s advice and remained in the job and in the process gained valuable work experience. Subsequently I have passed this valuable advice to my children also with good result. Sometime in July 1981, on a Saturday evening Narayan Elechen visited me at my house. I was very happy to see him after a long time, because he had shifted to Johor and I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. We invited him to stay for dinner and he agreed. While my wife Geetha was preparing the dinner, we had a long chat like olden times over a couple of beers. When it was time for him to take leave, I walked with him to his car. At that time I felt that he didn’t look too well. We wished each other goodbye under the street lights and he drove off into the night. I didn’t realize then that I won’t be seeing him again. A month later, I received a call to say he passed away. I managed to attend the funeral and pay my final respects. I will always remember him with love and gratitude.

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