Passing of a 63er, Nana

I have, with deep sorrow, to announce the passing away of a 63er, Narayan Sankaran, on Saturday March 25th.

As his friend 63er Ranko Ivancevic wrote a few days ago:

"...the loss of our good friend, a wonderful man, someone who had a big heart for all of us - but it seems not big and strong enough for himself."

I did not personally know Nana, as he was called by his friends. But Nana, was a regular reader of this blog.

When 63er Mithoo Malani sent me (and his classmates) pictures of the various section of the Class of 63ers, Nana sent this email to all of us:

Dear friends from ‘Long Ago”:

I am very happy to receive these outstanding pictures. I am sure that my daughters will add them to their albums. I still am amazed at what Mithoo and others have done for us!

Thank you Mithoo - three cheers for all those responsible!

Believe it or not, I am on my way tomorrow to hang out with my dear friends ‘Lucky’ and ‘Billy’ in NYC. It ought to be a riot (for our age anyway)!

Narayan Sankaran

Quite recently, when I put up a maths teaser on the web, it was Nana who sent a mathematical explanation for the teaser and also gave us the way to make it applicable for any year.

As a special tribute I publish here his email which explained the workings of this:

Friday, November 25, 2005 6:37 PM

The solution to the ‘age’ problem is an algorithm that goes like this:

Let the original # be x:

(2x + 5)*50=100 + 250

Adding 1755 (or 1754)

100+250+1755(or 1754)=100+2005(or2004)

Let Year born be=y

Now the last step:

100x +2005(or 2004)-y=100x +(2005-y)=100x + Age....the three digit #

That’s it! This will work next year as well...just use 1756 (or 1755)...and the year after that...

QED :) ......Pass it along.

When in school, Nana lived in St James Court on Marine Drive - the building belonged to the K. L. Nayar family, all Cathedralites, 58er Vinod (HSc), 59er Vijay and 63er Anil, who was Nana's classmate. 59er Ashok and 63er Billy Kapur, who was also Nana's classmate, also lived in that building. 58er Earnest (HSc) and 59er Jack Haskell were amongst the other Cathedralites that lived in St. James Court.

That corner was the evening meeting point for many many Cathedralites, around the year, even during the monsoon time.

So many of you would have known or seen Nana.

While he was not at Cathedral right from KG, he joined the school in Standard IX or X, and was there till Standard XI. (Therefore, he would have been after my time in the school.) He was, in WILSON HOUSE. He was reasonably good in studies and participated in some sports as well.

He hung out with 63er Ranko. Nana recently re-connected with Ranko (thanks to 63er Mithoo in Florida).

Nana had a sucessful business, importing leather goods that were made in India, probably having teamed up with former Cathedral schoolmates who were doing that business in India.

Nana was a friendly easy-going guy, somewhat shy and did not go to the School Socials and Wild Class Parties others used to go to !!

He married a Sindhi girl named Lalitha in Bombay. They have 3 daughters, Shilpa, Nandita, and Sonya, all of whom he was attached to very much.

Mithoo met Nana in Bombay by chance many years ago (1986) when he was visiting India and that is when they renewed contact. Nana lived in (snowy) Wisconsin. They exchanged several phone calls for a short while, but then lost contact until 2002-2003 when Mithoo was getting the Class of 1963's 40th Reunion "Party Celebration" fixed up.

While 63ers, and also of us, will mourn this sad loss of a Cathedralite and Wilsonite who had the nickname "SHAG", he can certainly be remembered for his running to get to class on time or picture him as a healthy "NANA" trying to do one more run on the "HORSE" during Mr. Morecroft's PT Gym Class.

Anil Nayar wrote on Tuesday, March 28, 2006:

Nana was quite sick for the last 15 years; body did not make enough red blood cells and he had to go in for blood transfusion every 2-3 weeks. As a result, he started accumulating iron deposits as well as fluid in the heart. Apparently, a person usually dies within 10 years after they start blood transfusions due to excess iron complications or heart issues. Nana's heart has been functioning at 20% or less in the last 3 years. He was in ICU for several weeks; moved to a research hospital in Madison and finally was advised that that he did not have many days left and was moved to a hospice. I did visit him last Monday and Tuesday and said my final goodbye.

He was cremated today and there was a service for him at 5 pm cst.

I am in grief .... we have lost a very dear friend ; kind of a goofball at times, especially in school, and that made him even more endearing. Also, I found out last week, he wrote some very interesting poetry, played the sax and loved to sing.

It is sad to lose one of our "community" and our hearts go out to his family at this time. From all the email that I have received, it is evident that Nana was loved by all his friends. All his family will be remembered by all of us at this difficult time.

(Compiled from contributions by 63ers Mitho Malani, Ranko Ivancevic and Anil Nayar and email recerived from Nana, himself.)