I knew Krishnamachari from 1970. He had a Ph. D in Chemistry from Canada and moved to Chicago as a post doctoral researcher in Chemistry at the University of Chicago. His wife (just married) Kalyani got a job at the University Book stores. He realized that the scope was little for postdocs in Chemistry and decided to switch jobs. He took an M.B.A from the University of Chicago and had his first job with a company close to AT &T . Even though I knew him as an orthodox and tradition loving person, even though with my friend T.Parthasarathy and Ranjani we used to play cards and found him a brilliant person whatever he chose to do, I had the unique opportunity to see his emotional and human side. My mother passed away in India in 1979 and I was emotionally shattered . People had assembled in my Oak Park apartment to console me. I had a call from my uncle Pattu Mama in India who said that it is my duty as her only son to come to India, not alone but with my family to do the last rites for my mother. I wanted to have a glimpse of her but in orthodox families the body had to be cremated within hours. He said even if I show up after 5 days, it won’t matter. Tara was a month old baby and Deepa’s passport and Usha’s passports had expired. Tara had to get a passport. (Hema) Rajagopalan used his charge card to charge for the flight tickets for all of us and he arranged for that. I needed some one to take me around downtown to apply for passport, get that the same day, etc. Chari had just taken up his new job. I don’t know what arrangement he made at his new office. He took me in his car to various offices, will make rounds and wait at places to speed up the process and we came home in the evening. He was crying with me with emotion and was talking about his mother and her own struggles in her life and so on.
When CTU as an organization was initiated by Dr ST Rao of Madison, Wisconsin, the excitement of organizing the Utsavam kept several families as close kith and kin. He made his best attempts to train his children to learn music under Mrs Saroja Seshadri (for Bhooma) and Sri. Prasad Ramachandran (violin for Govindan). He was very particular that Sahasranamam chanting must be a serious and integral part of the Utsavam. People like C.N Krishnaswamy, MV Sunder, Chari, MG Srinivasan were all part and parcel of the organization and so were many core volunteers. Dr. KG Srinivasan, Dr. ST Rao, Dr. Venkatraman, Dr. BN Sridharan (Madison) were very instrumental to registering the organization. While Chari was taking care of all accounting and cash collection right at the hall, during Utsavam days I heard from his coworkers at the front desk (grad students from Wisconsin that no one could escape his eyes if they ever attempted any free ride. His meticulous accounting would need a separate chapter on its own.
He found Dr M.G Srinivasan as the right companion to his tasks at the front desk and as devout and religious persons they enjoyed each other’s company at the front desk. Though I knew MG Srinivasan from early seventies, his active involvement at the Utsavam started with group practice of Sahasranamam which was often headed by Chari. That is when we all realized our recitation limitations and slowly we felt that E.G. Nadhan is the best among us for running the Sahsranamam sessions. While some of us cared for pure recitation, Chari wanted people to know the meaning of all slokas and he did independently a lot of work in this direction and has summarized the commentaries of Adi Sankara and Parasara Bhattar and so on. Many hours he spent with MG Srinivasan in proof correcting CTU versions in Tamil, Devanagari, and Roman fonts. In proof correction he was a true master.
It was only with the meticulous listening and correction on the spot in our pronunciation that we could make a recording of Sahasranamam with repetition (Sandai-Nadhan–Geetha Sadagopan-TES).
He decided to devote his time fully to temple activities and Vaishnavism in the last few years and when I asked him as to who will shoulder this task besides Sampath Ayyangar and Alamelu, his clear choice was Venkatesh and he had a real affection for Venkatesh as one very religious and quite professional in the field of accounting. Sampath and virtually any one and every one said the same. He wanted me to quit CTU activities and devote my energy to temple related activities.
Grief stricken,
TES RaghavanChicago Tyagaraja Utsavam
Obituary: CTU loses an ardent supporter
December 18, 2008
Chicago Tyagaraja Utsavam mourns the loss of Dr. N. Krishnamachari (alias Chari ) who passed away at 3am on Thursday, December 18, 2008 at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago.