Revathy Gopal: RIP

We received the following yesterday from V Ramaswamy in Calcutta.
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Dear Friends

This is to inform you that Revathy Gopal, a columnist for Chowk, passed away a little while ago.

Revathy had been battling cancer since April last year. She and her family fought a very brave battle, keeping up hope and untiring efforts even in the face of grim reports.

In the last week, her condition took a severe downturn, and she began sinking. And in the end, even when she was completely enfeebled and disabled, her mind, her voice, her will and her faculty of infinite love remained undiminished.

Revathy was my mother`s youngest sister. She has been a part of my life from my infancy. It is a devastating tragedy for us. She loved life, loved her family, and was an awesome care-giver. She would have been 60 this year.

Farewell dear Revathy. Its the pearly gates for you. We should celebrate your liberation from pain and suffering. You shall ever remain a source of love and inspiration to us.

V Ramaswamy
Calcutta / INDIA

Unfinished Portrait

(My sincere condolences to Ms. Gopal’s family members, to her friends and to chowk website on losing one of its own. In her May 6, 2006 write-up on this site entitled “A Moment in Time”, Ms. Gopal discussed some of the complex feelings that breast cancer patients undergo. Here are some of her own words – in a different format …and in a very different and very final context!)

“…Without warning?
Well, not necessarily.
Your body,
old sturdy mate,
friend,
the one you trusted
to go on unshakeably
forever,
has caved.
No more
junkets,
fad diets,
loading on the pounds,
maligning,
(that mal-word again!)
undermining
at whim…
… what is it,
if not dread?
No,
I robustly counter.
I am not afraid.
Is this not a moment
we have encountered before
in dream
or playacting?
…The whole martyrdom scenario?
See,
how calm I am,
my hand,
look Ma,
no trembling,
no quivering lip.
Underplay,
underplay,
this is the role of a lifetime!
No pain.
No pain is good…”

I am deeply sorry to hear this. It`s not often we lose one of our own. How old was she may I ask? Cancer survival rates in the west have improved dramatically in the last decade or so. I hope the same happens in pakindistan.

That`s sad news. I hope she did not suffer too much. She`s at peace now, anyway.

#33

She was young 60 years old and she died in India...reading her articles they were spread over short period of time ......form 2002 to 2005

May god bles hr soul and may she rest in peace

May her soul rest in peace.

SHe will be missed by us all here.

Death is always a sad thing in a man`s life. I didn`t know Revathy Gopal well although I had seen her columns at Chowk. The news of her death saddened me. Death is a debt we all must pay as Euripides wrote.

Also many of us fear death although frequently it is a release from pain and misery. According to Bernard Shaw, ``Death is for many of us the gate of hell; but we are inside on the way out, not outside on the way in.``

May she rest in peace.

Mohammad Gill

To the family of Revathy:
Please accept my most sincere condolences on the loss of your loved one.


I remember reading her article last year about her struggle against breast cancer, quite touching.

Here are a few selected pieces from Revathy Gopal interacts on this web-site – they read even better when taken out of their context. :)

On Religion

{I have specifically said ``freedom from religion,`` not freedom from God. There`s a difference.}

{I am in no way stomping on any one else`s right to believe in whoever or whatever they will. Just don`t get taken in by the hollow claptrap offered by gurus and godmen and yes, godwomen too. Being rational and still a believer is quite possible. The comfort of faith is tremendous.}

{Everything has to come into living, celebrations and charity and compassion and cleansing oneself of prejudice and bigotry. Again, taking the best from all religions, what`s wrong with that? The Sermon on the Mount, and Mohommed`s teachings of equality and justice and Jain teachings of reverence for all life... one can see good in all great philosophies.}

{Burning people alive has become a hallmark of the Hindu Right.}

{Humanity as a whole seems to have lapsed considerably into tribalism instead of bringing barriers down crashing and seeing the strong common threads that hold us all together. What boring gods we have created! Little better than the angry old men of the tribe, gods who are petty and vengeful, gods who have created a violent, unjust world. The word `religion` stinks, but let us admit that man and his need for transcendance have created great art, great literature, great music.}

{It`s only a few years back perhaps that I got rid of that feeling, force-fed at convent school, that there was this great eye-in-the sky looking down on me, giving me brownie points for `good`and subtracting several hundreds for being`bad`. Not that that eye kept me from being `bad if I really wanted to. I think, people pretty much do what they want, regardless of whether they think they will be punished or rewarded.}

{We are told stories, myths, legends, other people`s ideas but what are the facts as you and I have really experienced and understood, outside of religious belief and the need to believe? I have experienced miracles in my life but that does not compel me to jump to conclusions. I have adopted a wait and watch attitude. The world is a vast, beautiful mystery. For me poetry provides answers or at least hints and suggestions}

{Holiness is not conferred by some lazy journalist sitting at a desk or by right-wing parties from the Centre.}

On Society

{You really must rid yourself of these stereotypes, dear Harimau. For you the comfort of being Tam Brahm and raising it at every juncture is the same as someone in a burqa feeling protected and safe and complete.}

{In an ideal situation, you would not even be asked which community you came from. Just to say one is Indian would be, should be enough. But we are far from living in an ideal state aren`t we, my brothers?}

{In a country where the majority community cannot see its way to being generous and large-hearted, instead invent ways to keep minorities cowed down and poor, one cannot even begin to speak of one nation, indivisible.}

{Our societies are so layered... how would someone who hasn`t even had two square meals a day, react to the comfort and seeming security of a middle-class existence?}

{There are Goa`s and Goa`s. Yours is a romantic, dream-scape, I think I`ve seen a not-so-rosy side.}

On FMG

{I read this with my heart thumping madly. I wanted to scream. How can women do this to their own children or to any child at all? It`s not just Muslim women but all women who live whole normal lives who must protest worldwide. How can such things be? Why do men allow it? Do they want their women in constant pain and danger? Where does love come into all this?}

On Caste

{Caste and its subtext, discrimination against other humans, will exist in one form or another for ever, But if each one of us who inveighs against society and fellow-contributors to Chowk(!), can contribute time to teach, send one child from a poor family to school, or help with nutrition, hygiene, uniforms, books, fees, it can make an immense difference.}

On Understanding

{We are so fond of yelling insults at each other, (just take the responses to this article), we lose sight of the main picture. The worst thing is to say,``I``m fine, and me and mine are fine, I couldn`t care less what happens to the rest!``}

On Women

{I think emotions play a far greater role in women`s lives than in men`s, for whatever reason. To be able to regard emotions with wariness, examine them intellectually and then dissect them in prose or poetry, is to have travelled a great distance from being slave to them.}

{Fighting your individual battle to remain who you are, the multiple-personed `you` is really the good fight.}

{Love is such a bit_ch, isn`t it? Whatever you may do, not do, there`s heartache. Women can never seem to get it right, and other women do them in!}

On Writing

{I know my family sniggered when I said I wanted to write, probably because I was such a dud where important things like math and science were concerned! One begins writing almost furtively, under cover of darkness as it were and attempts to work one`s way into the light with an almost defiant stance. Clarity comes with writing, one is fighting obscurantists, orthodoxy, to subvert prevailing cobwebs. Am I being at all clear?}

{Can you imagine a baby crawling around where there is wet paint flowing? The only consolation I can offer is that babies become grown men and women and you recede into their past, or into the dark corners of their mutilated imaginations and psyches!!}

My personal favorite!

{Hello BeeJay, Thank you for your posting in response to this piece... fidelity to country, such a beautiful idea but you will find so many contrary voices trying to take the easy way out. Everyone questions the very idea of patriotism, or the need for a nation as such. Is it condemned to remain only an idea? Most young people resent having to study history--that is where I began the article. So the stored memory of the past has to be made attractive enough to offer the young and not by just saying how wonderful that past was, or by making films like Mangal Pandey but by trying to establish the facts of the time. Making kids do their own research would be valuable, so one must utilise modern methods of teaching, sitting in libraries, consulting the Internet, doing small projects. It is truly daunting to think of the vastness that is our history, but how does one begin to understand? }

This is sad.

Re: # 9

Thank you for extracting these quotes from her comments on Chowk. We`ll forward it to her family.

I always respected and looked forward to reading Revathy`s work. I am saddened to hear of her passing and pray that it is a peaceful one.

#9 she was such an enlightened old soul

Sad news.. At least she`s free from physical pain and suffering.

Revathy Gopal was a Pearl.

``Ek shamma jul rahee thee so voh bhi khamosh hai``

I re-read her piece of May last year on the subject of her diagnosis with cancer, and was struck by how bravely she faced this ultimate challenge. ina lilla hai wa ina elehai rajioon. May she rest in peace.