“Lalitha Akka and Sundaram Athimbar, you must stay with us for a couple of days,” insisted Kannan and Chitra, as they bade farewell to us after attending the Sampoorna Narayaneeyam the other day.
Kannan is Mami’s only brother, and Chitra, his wife. They are a fine Finance team – one a Chartered Accountant (among other qualifications), and the other a Cost and Management Accountant. They divide all their work at home – one prepares the worksheet for income-tax return, and the other checks it. One tallies the total in a bill, and the other pays. Even in the case of an edible item that both equally relish, one divides and the other gets the first choice.
This spirit extends beyond home. Kannan called it a day much before actual retirement time, after wearing MD, CFO, COO and other hats in international firms of repute. The driving force? His constant desire to pursue greater purpose and happiness. As for Chitra, she gave up her lucrative job just for upbringing her two boys, both of whom are doing well in life in the States.
Kannan now runs a Trust which focuses on upscaling the skills of the not-so-well-to-do boys and girls of merit pursuing their engineering degrees in colleges of Tier three cities like Mandya, Maddur…These colleges seldom attract campus interviews. Kannan’s Trust adopted a two-pronged ‘attack’. First to upscale the skills of these bright ones to be picked up; second, to negotiate with firms of repute to either extend campus interviews to these colleges, or to contact his Trust to recommend to them suitable candidates. Thanks to this, as many as 100 boys and girls have found jobs, with attractive salaries, more than trebling their family incomes in many cases. An equal number has managed to get jobs on their own using the upscaled skills.
Kannan and his Co-Trustee funded the first three years of the Trust’s operations. However, enthused by the impact of the initiative, a few companies have now come forward with CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) contributions. The Trust now runs from an office in Rajajinagar with staff and the necessary paraphernalia. In addition, some like-minded persons and institutions also are collaborating with him with technical assistance. In a nutshell, these genuine efforts from all around keep Kannan busy – and, to say the least, happy at the end of the day having given something back to the society.
As for Chitra, after seeing off both their children for Master’s in USA, she drove straight to the Spastics Society of Karnataka and registered herself for a post-graduate diploma course. She came out in flying colours. These past few years she works there as a psycho-education consultant. She listens first to the parents and then conducts an educational assessment of the affected child’s problems and suggests possible remedies. Their recommendations for suitable accommodation are accepted by all the education boards like IB, CBSE and ICSE. For example, should she recommend that the child’s thinking and writing capacity are not properly aligned and hence he/she should be given ten minutes extra time or be provided with the services of a scribe in the examination hall, these Boards would consider it seriously.
This is what we were able to decipher from the two days we spent with them, aside from visits to Chula Chauki da Dhabba, Orion mall, snacks stalls... As we got ready to return to SFV, we observed Kannan carrying two or three earlier model Apple laptops and chargers to the car. “Kannan, but you need only one laptop?” “Yes, Athimbar, these are for office staff.”
“Saravanan,” Kannan requested his driver as he got down near his office, “please drop them at Sobha Forestview Apartments – the place we went for puja the other day.”
A few minutes of silence in the car. We then looked at each other. “I think we too should also do something similar,” my wife said with a look that suggested that my actions in life left much to be desired. “By all means,” I reassured her. “However, for now, we shall add it to our “To-Do, Later” list and tick off our “To Do, Now” list: Before Going to Coimbatore list; prepare and probate Will; Aquaguard – buy new or renew contract, update KYCs of banks or…
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