“The lives of great men often teach us
That we too can make our lives sublime
And departing,
leave behind us Footprints in the sands of time”

DR N. Radha Krishnan or simply Radha to his many friends was clearly one such person. Whether it was a fellow medical practitioner, an unwed mother seeking medical support and common sense counsel, a stranger he had met by chance or his fellow connoisseurs of the arts, he touched them all in his imitable manner... he spoke from the heart and he gave of his time, with grace and generosity.

It was this amazing generosity that set him apart. In every sense of that hackneyed expression, he “gave and he gave until it hurt".

As president of The Temple of Fine Arts, he was singularly its role model who strived to live the words of his master “Serve, Love, Give, Be Good, Do Good".

But Radha was not the kind of president who graced the social pages at predictable intervals. He was a reluctant president, having had the title and the role thrust upon him by his spiritual guru and mentor Swami Shantanand Saraswati.
Over the years, since the passing of the swami in July 2005, Radha played multiple roles; keeping an alert eye on the vision and the mission of the institution, lest it gets sullied by the commercial urgencies of survival, steering the physical development of the institution as it rose from nothing to five storeys high, while managing the countless crises that beset voluntary organisations.

Despite the competing demands for his time, his private O & G practice, a fledgling organisation in transition and his own family of wife and three loving, tender girls, Radha made sure everyone got what they came for. Such was his incredible strength of spirit fuelled by his desire to give to all those who came to him.



On the afternoon of Oct 1, Radha decided to take some time for himself. He had chaired a committee meeting in the morning and, with the clinic on holiday, he decided to take a quiet drive to listen to some restful classical music.

He had done this in the past whenever he needed time to get away for just a while. This time, however, he did not return.

Somewhere along the Elite highway, he passed on to that other Reality, he was so acutely aware of and for which he had prepared himself for 59 years.

A cultural tribute to Radha will be held at the TFA in Brickfields at 7.30pm this Friday Oct 10).