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| 1 Apr 2019 | |
| Deaths & Obituaries |
| RAVINDRAN, Jaya Shanker Died on 25 June 2018, aged 48. Toby Solheim (PS 83-88) writes: Jaya, my greatest friend, you above all the people I have known understood me the best. We met in September 1983 at Tonbridge and were inseparable until we left school in July 1988. Our friendship was, in your words, forged in that crucible of a “tough, English boarding school”. We were the only two non-scholars in a class of very smart young men, I remember well how inadequate we both felt amongst such talent, yet we always held our own. Pushed in to taking far too many O levels we both excelled, and shared our love of chemistry and biology at A level, both wanting to go to medical school. You went on to Nottingham and did precisely that: driven by your desire to serve others. I sold my soul for History at Cambridge and went to the City. To many we were unlikely friends: you a hardworking, shy lad from Malaysia and miles from home and me the competitive, annoying head-of-prep school type who needed taking down a peg or two. We shared a crazy sense of humour, a love of science, a passion for 70s rock and we attended our first concert together, watching Bob Dylan in 1986. I always admired your immense capacity for hard work: and if there is any success I can claim from those school days academically, I owe so much of it to you and your patience, when rather than revise what you needed to revise, you would be helping me learn what I had should already have learned. I took you to our farm in Kent for many weekends over the years and you became one of the family. I taught you to ride motorbikes on our farm, drive huge tractors and operate heavy machinery: all quite outside your comfort zone but you were always game for an adventure. I remember when we were stopped by a charming policeman miles from home at the age of 16 for riding two up on the road on a bright yellow moped with no number plate: you were my passenger. I am sure you had told me this was a bad idea but I was never very good at following your sensible advice. I was wearing an old 1930s helmet and you were wearing a riding hat. When the policeman asked me who you were, I told him you had just arrived as an exchange student from India, couldn’t speak English and had reluctantly agreed to my mad bike ride idea. He turned and asked you what your name was, asked you why you were wearing a riding hat and you, quite brilliantly, patiently shook your head saying: “No speak English”. “Ok”, said the policeman, “I’ll leave the Indian Gentlemen out of this but you son” (pointing to me): “I got you on 7 charges…you had better come down the station”. That story sums up our relationship: me and my hairbrained schemes and you always there, quite aware of possible disaster but always game for an adventure. In 1989 we travelled in Thailand together for 2 months: two young men on one huge adventure. We hopped from island to island in the south, and explored the remote north on another motorcycle, covering 1500 miles of wild territory armed with a small backpack and one map…a map that you famously lost when we were already lost. “I have lost the map” you told me calmly. You have always reminded me of that story and how angry I was with you and how patient you were with me knowing that it would all be fine in the end. We lost touch around 2001. We were reunited in the spring of 2017 when your wife reached out to me to tell me of your illness. When we first spoke on Skype the magic was still there: it was as though we had never been apart. I learned of your illness and all I could think was how courageously you had faced the events up until then: never bitter, always grateful. I dragged you kicking and screaming into new technology: we opened a WhatsApp chat line and chatted every day. We spoke after you had learned of your relapse: and with immense courage you decided you would face the task of survival one day at a time and launch a long wished-for project: to publish your poetry. We married this objective with your desire to give something back and raise money for two blood cancer charities. Together with a formidable team we launched Project Hope: your poetry was published, the fundraising started and we raised £26,000. New to the digital age, we had you working on LinkedIn and Facebook and Giles Pittman (PS 1984-89) filmed a series of video logs. Whenever you forgot a password or couldn’t access a platform you would call me and tell me: “I have lost the map again!” Your Video logs are themselves some of the most honest, courageous content I have seen, and a testament to the grace and bravery with which you faced your illness. You told me that, when you learned of your relapse in 2017, you felt that you were drowning. I remember swimming with you in a dark Malaysian sea at midnight in 1989 and you got into trouble and I swam out to rescue you. You were panicking and I told you that if you didn’t stop panicking I would have to knock you out and drag you in. You stopped panicking and I pulled you to safety. We shared this story again, and Project Hope became your life raft. I was utterly privileged to have been part of this project. We saw each other again in November 2017: despite your predicament you were there: funny, modest, patient and so intelligent, and for a moment we were like boys again at Tonbridge. And in April this year when you were admitted to hospital we talked every day. As your health deteriorated we talked about the best rock bands of the 70s, the poetry of the First World War, the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, the classical education instilled upon us by Geoff Allibone and our memories of Tonbridge. I rode a motorcycle across the Rockies and shared with you photographs of those amazing snow-capped mountains and we laughed so hard when I told you I was staying in a tiny camper in the Utah desert all alone in the middle of nowhere too scared to read the scary book I had brought. You would ask what band I would listen to on the road that day: Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles or the Rolling Stones? We both agreed that Abbey Road was probably the best album ever written. And during the last weeks of your life I read you the war poetry of Sassoon every night and put together a series of lectures about the American Civil War. You listened, I would talk about my own utterly insignificant issues and neuroses and you would just listen, patiently, with those eyes that always said: “I understand you”. Your last words to me were: “I love you my brother”. We were on a video call, I had a picture of the two of us in Thailand from 1989 clutched to my chest, but words escaped me. Jaya, you are a part of my family, part of all my memories: you are my Viking brother. You are the bravest man I have known; I count myself lucky to have been your friend. Rest in peace my friend. (PS 83-88) |
