Prof Mangesh V Nadkarni: Thanks to Sucheta for sending this picture of her father giving a lecture on Savitri. On 6 March 2009 Mangesh V Nadkarni would have been 76, but destiny hastened to take him on another path of progress unknown to us. Here is a short tribute to him from his fond admirer Ranjan Naik.

Nadkarni had his first Darshan of the Mother in 1956. At that time the Mother was very active and he must have seen her in the Playground and the Tennis Ground on the sea-beach. After marriage, he and his wife Mira came first to the Ashram in 1961 when they had the Terrace Darshan. In 1966 they together went to the Mother and had received Blessings directly from her. Their younger daughter Sucheta was educated in the Ashram school in New Delhi. MVN came back from Singapore in 1992 and lived in Secundrabad. He used to visit Pondicherry very often for extended stay and later got settled down here. It is here that his Savitri-sessions started becoming famous, wide-ranging as his presentations always were. My own personal contact with the Nadkarnis was since 1992. My wife and Mrs Nadkarni are great friends. ~ RYD

It is with a heavy heart, full of feelings, that I am writing this note to express my reverence to the great departed soul, Professor Mangesh Vithal Nadkarni who was a legend himself and who hailed from my great village. I am presenting here what I fetched from several sources, from friends and relatives.

“God does not take away knowledge from people directly but He takes away the scholars and consequently takes away knowledge along with them,”—such is the saying we could apply to our learned and beloved Professor, Mangesh Vithal Nadkarni.

Mangesh’s parents were from Bankikodla-Hanehalli village. Bankikodla-Hanehalli village in the western part of South India is considered as a twin village in a kind of a valley shaped by the western Sahyadri Mountains and the Arabian Sea. The spectacular rivers Gangavali and Aghanashini hop this village on its two shoulders. During heavy Monsoons this village could be a frail and shallow village with ponds and puddles, and vulnerable bridges all-around. The village has a fine community consisting of different parishioners. It is set in a well-off culture and education. The village has given birth to several teachers, writers, engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, physicians, philosophers and performers. One of the leading Kannada fiction writers, and also an academy award winner, Yashavant Vithoba Chital hailed from this village. Yashavant’s elder brother Gangadhar ranked first in the school leaving examination in the then presidency of Bombay which included current states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, part of Karnataka, and part of Madhya Pradesh.

Nadkarnis are  Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins. This Brahmin community is believed to have lived once on the banks of the River Saraswati in northern Hindustan.  Mangesh was born on 6 March 1933 at Kodibagh, an outskirt of Karwar town. Here the River Kali meets the Arabian Sea on her way, rendering stunning and spectacular scenery all around. He was the eldest child among the seven children of Vithal Nadkarni. Vithal and his wife Shanta were kind hearted, of helping nature. So were their children. Vithal was born in Gokarna, in a joint family estate. As Vithal came from a rich landlord family, he spent most of his time looking after the estate. However, the Tenancy Act fell on them as an axe and they lost land properties. With it education became the only source to shape their life and career. Mangesh’s mother Shanta was from a Kaushik family, with a maiden name Indira; she was also a Chitrapur Saraswat. Indira had lost her parents in her childhood and was brought up by her cousin, Subrao Kaushik in Kodibag. Indira Kaushik had her education in Marathi at Karwar, where she was born and brought up. After her marriage, which took place on 31 December 1931 at Karwar, Vithal and Shanta (Indira’s name after marriage) Nadkarni decided to migrate to Bankikodla, just at a stone’s throw from Gokarna. Vithal Nadkarni was a life member of the Rural Education Society, which still runs and manages the Anandashram High school built by the Chitrapur Saraswats; it continues to keep the light of knowledge burning in that village, and also in the neighboring villages.

After Mangesh’s primary education (4th grade) in Bankikodla, he joined the then English Middle School Bankikodla in June 1943 where the Head Master was Datta-master (Nadkarni). In the Kannada Primary School my maternal grandfather, Bommayya-master from Mogta village, was his 4th grade teacher. I heard that my grandfather would walk from his village, take food at Nadkarni’s house, and go to school with Mangesh. Both had a very close bond of affection. Throughout his school life Mangesh was not only very reflective, but was also an able sportsman; he was a golden-boy. As an athlete, Mangesh earned many prizes during our school's annual gathering sports events. His forte was Volley Ball which brought him many laurels, not just during school but also during college days.

While in his High School, he took part in Yakshagan also; Yakshagana is a kind of a theater popular in Southern India in which are played important rolls of Lord Krishna, in Krishna-Sandhan, and Karna a warrior son of Kunti Devi, in Karna-Arjun Kalaga (fight) of the Mahabharata. Mangesh’s younger brothers, Bhaskar and Sundar, continued his legacy, carrying his aroma. Sundar was a Professor of English at Ananad College, Gujarat. He also authored literary criticism and essays in Kannada and received several prestigious awards and honours. In a way, Mangesh did influence Sundar’s career as a Kannada writer and as a professor of English. Mangesh proved himself an ace orator and earned many laurels, including those in elocution competitions. This gift immensely helped him during college days and further in his later life. Mangesh passed School leaving examination in first class and his score of 79% in English was considered praiseworthy during those days. At high school, he was a student of Subbanna-master of Hubli, an academy award winner in poetry and also the winner of the best teacher award from the government.

After passing the examination in 1949 from Anandashram High School Bankikodla, Mangesh joined Rajaram College at Kolhapur. Gourish Kaikini, who authored literary criticism and essays in Kannada and who was awarded several prestigious awards and honors, was Mangeh’s teacher.  My father, Nagesh S Naik, taught Mangesh Science in the senior years. Mangesh would always call upon my father, his friends and his teachers whenever he visited the village. Though I was born later, after Mangesh’s high school graduation, I heard all these stories about him from my father; also from my mother Kamala and from the villagers. What my mother told me, about the role models from my village, had a fairy-tale quality and it motivated me greatly.

During the early 1950s, my parents, including my paternal grandmother, were Vithal Nadkarni’s next-door neighbours at Bankikodla. My mother was a good friend of Shanta Nadkarni, in that village they working for Mahila Mandal and Satya Saibaba Samiti. Bhaskar and Mangesh played games with my father and walked together to seashore during the time my father was a college student. Later they became students of my father in Bankikodla High School. In the school, head master R V Pandit, from Ratnagiri, taught Mathematics to Mangesh. D G Bhat, from the Chitrapur Saraswat community of Bankikodla, was Mangesh’s classmate; later Bhat retired as a comptroller of Lube India. The other noted classmate was K G Naik who was my principal at the college in Ankola where I studied. K G Naik from my village was also a Professor of Mathematics at Karnataka College Dharwar. K G Naik and D G Bhat are no more. Mangesh’s other classmates retired as teachers in neighboring villages and towns.

Mangesh Nadkarni completed his under-graduation with English as major subject under the tutelage of Dr. V. K. Gokak, an academy award winner and Principal of Rajaram College, Kolhapur. Nadkarni got his post-graduation degree in the year 1956 from Pune University. He took up a job as a lecturer of English in Commerce College at Rajkot. In 1959 he joined Nalini and Arvind Arts College. Gujarat.

Mangesh married Mira Mallapur at Talmaki Wadi at Grant Road, Mumbai, on 21 January 1961. Mira was born and raised at Grant Road.  She had her early education at St. Colombo High School and then college education at Wilson College. She was working with Union Bank of India; however after the marriage she resigned from the Bank and went to Anand in Gujarat to be with Mangesh. During her stay at Anand, she continued her post-graduation studies in History and Social Studies and came out with an outstanding result in the M.A. examination; in fact she secured the Gold Medal by standing First-Class-First in the University of Gujarat.

In 1962 Mangesh was chosen from his college as a foreign language student to study English in the Central Institute of English at Hyderabad. Mangesh ranked 1st in the examination. Considering his feat, he was offered a job in the same Institute, which he joined in June 1963. This Institute sent him to the University of California, Los Angeles, to get his Doctorate in Linguistics, which he completed in 1970. During this time Mira Nadkarni was teaching History in one of the school districts of California. It is here that they were blessed with their first child Nandita. I still remember Nadkarni’s parents back home in our village showing the photo of their granddaughter to my parents. I would say it is the first coloured photograph I had ever seen.

After returning to India, in the year 1970, Dr. Nadkarni stayed on the Osmania University campus at Hyderabad, working for the Central Institute of English from 1970 to 1984. It is interesting to note that later his English and Kannada teacher Ekkundi-master in Bankikodla High School came to Hyderabad on a training programmme at the same Institute, thus becoming a student of his earlier student for one year. I was then an 8th grader from the same high school in Bankikodla.

In June 1984 Dr. Nadkarni was selected and appointed as a Professor of English in the National University of Singapore. In the same year, I happened to be in Hyderabad visiting Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd on an assignment from the TCS Mumbai, then Tata Burroughs. I called him from a hotel in Hyderabad. He invited me to attend the Ganesh Puja at his house on the University campus. This was not the first time I met him in person. Earlier, I had met him in 1973 at his brothers’ house in Borivali, Mumbai. As he had just returned from the USA, he narrated to us his experiences at the UCLA with great relish. At his house in Hyderabad, Nadkarni celebrated the Ganesh Puja the way his parents did in Bankikodla. He managed to get right idols of Ganesh, Gouri and Ganesh’s vehicle, Mouse. I was quite surprised to see these idols, because Ganesh festival in Hyderabad is not that popular as in Mumbai, Karwar and Bankikodla. I enjoyed talking to him and his family for hours. He looked very bright and his vibrant metal-tone voice impressed me much. I was given the Prasadam. Now my visit to him at Hyderabad turns out to be the last meeting with him.

A few days later, my wife Jayalaxmi and I (with our little one-year old son) decided to drop in at Dr. M V Nadkarni’s house. But the family had gone out somewhere, except his daughter Nandita. Not too long after that, they left for Singapore. In Singapore, Dr. Nadkarni successfully completed his teaching and research assignments and returned to India in the year 1992. He spent his retired life in Secunderabad and Pondicherry.

Nadkarni dedicated his retired life, till he breathed his last in the early hours of 23 September 2007, for the cause of Sri Aurobindo’s work, particularly giving discourses on the epic Savitri. This is a poem which is quite difficult for a layman to understand; but Nadkarni was a master expounder and could take it with ease and grace to larger audiences. He travelled extensively throughout the US, Europe and the Far East, not the least length and breadth of India, carrying Savitri with him. In spite of his heart bypass surgery that was done in Delhi in 1995, he did not seem to slow down his activities and hectic schedules. This is how he kept himself busy in a dedicated and purposeful manner.

Nadkarni was always cool and had a well-balanced persona. He was always ready in attending family needs. The crown of their family and the best friend of the friends of his village, he helped everyone. Villagers from Bankikodla-Hanehalli and the neighbouring villages would remember him as a friend, scholar, writer, performer, teacher, role model and a preacher of Sri Aurobindo and, to top all, a perfect all-rounder. Last May, in 2007, he stayed with his younger brothers, Bhaskar and Appa, in Mumbai for about five-six days; this was during the house warming ceremony of Bhaskar’s son Amogh. Later, in mid-July 2007, he visited his village on the way from Bangalore. That time, while he was in Bangalore, after two long decades, I bumped him on his cell phone from the USA. He could not identify me for a second, but understood when I told him that I was the second son of his beloved high school teacher N. S. Naik. He inquired about his teacher, my beloved father. I whispered into his ears that I would love to meet him this time in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and attend his talks on Savitri. In Bankikodla, Nadkarni met several villagers, his old friends and relatives. He stayed at his youngest sibling Jaya’s house in Kumta, a town near to his village. His younger daughter Sucheta, son-in-Law Padmanabh, and grandson Pranav who live now in New Jersey had accompanied him. It was Dr. Nadkarni’s inspiration to show to his grandson the milieu of Bankikodla where he—the grandfather—was born and raised. His two daughters are well settled in the US.

Mangesh Nadkarni’s body was cremated in Pondicherry, in the tradition of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. But the last religious rites were performed at Bankikodla Matt of Chitrapur Saraswats’ Vaikuntha Samaradhane; this was done on the 4th October. His old friends and people from the Saraswat community, including his relatives from the neighbouring town Gokarna had gathered to pay the final respect and obituary to the departed legend. May Dear Mangesh’s soul rest in peace!