A friend in deed
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For Raghavendra, Poornachandra Tejaswi's dear friend and publisher of Pustaka Prakashana, he was a man of many parts
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PASSIONATE Poornachandra Tejaswi with his friend's wife Nirmala on one of his fishing trips
Tejaswi was a man of many interests; and all of them on an equal plane. For Raghavendra, his friend and publisher of Pustaka Prakashana, this is also the point of his great dilemma. He doesn't know which Tejaswi to talk about: the passionate bird watcher, the crazy fisherman, the intense writer, the technology freak or his dear friend, philosopher and guide. It's a difficult task for him to separate one strand from the other, in this man who was many things rolled into one.
"I've known Tejaswi sir for almost three decades and have been very close to him. I've seen the various facets of this man from up close. Technically, he was old enough to be my father, but he was my best friend. There was hardly anything that we wouldn't discuss with each other," recalls Raghavendra, who is still too stunned by the sudden demise of Tejaswi.
The first thing that strikes Raghavendra about Tejaswi in the man's absence is his enthusiasm for fishing. "We have gone on hundreds of fishing expeditions together. In fact, that's how we met," he unwinds. When Raghavendra's family moved to Jannapura, 12 kms from Mudigere in 1978, Tejaswi came everyday to fish in the river Hemavati. Raghavendra used to meet him in these daily outings and became his companion for life. "He knew so much about everything and would take great pains to do things the right way. Tejaswi would tell us so much about the various fishes and even knew which variety of fish was found where." Tejaswi would go looking for them, befriend the localites, camp with them for days on end and would get back only when he was fully satisfied.
But his fishing expeditions or his bird watching trips weren't just that. Raghavendra observes how it was also the study of situations and human behaviour for the writer. He distinctly remembers the days after Tejaswi started writing for the Kannada weekly Lankesh Patrike. He had become very popular with the younger generation readers. They had once gone to Sakleshpur. Tejaswi and Raghavendra were busy fishing, when a college boy walked upto Tejaswi and asked: "I was told Tejaswi is here. Can you tell me who it is?" Immediately, Tejaswi pointed out to Raghavendra, who was sitting a few hundred metres away and said: "That's the man." "The boy walked up to me and was extremely gracious and offered to do anything for me. He was so reverent and full of admiration it made me uncomfortable. All along, I was trying to figure out the reason for this behaviour... ," he remembers. It was only much later, Tejaswi told him of the prank he had played. "He was a keen observer of how man reacted to varied situations and watched it with a quiet, persistent curiosity."
Tejaswi was a man of dogged resolve. If he got hooked on to something, he would work feverishly over it. "He would keep impossible schedules and live up to it. For instance, when he took up writing work, he got into his room around 9 a.m. and worked continuously till four the next morning. Except for a coffee or lunch, he wouldn't stir out." Raghavendra remembers that when Tejaswi wrote the 16-volume Millennium Series, he had vowed to finish one book every month, but would end up finishing it much before the deadline. And complete with the cover page, illustrations, and the layout. "You couldn't bare to look at him, he would look pale and weak... but he wouldn't rest till completion."
This was exactly the way Tejaswi mastered the computer. He got it through a friend in the US, way back in 1986. Tejaswi sat with the 286 machine, night and day, till he had cracked it. "His constant research and experimentation made him an authentic voice for Kannada software."
Tejaswi never worked for fame and publicity. He was at a task because he believed in it. Raghavendra talks of those heady days, when both of them toured various parts of the State on Tejaswi's scooter as part of the election campaign for the Third Force. Similarly, he took great pains to propagate "Mantra Mangalya", Kuvempu's pronouncement to simple marriage. He would go out of his way to convince people???. But when it came to globalisation, Tejaswi's views seemed an oddity. He always told Raghavendra whether one approves of it or not, it was bound to happen.
"What left him very dejected was the manner in which the reading public responded to `Hastakshara Ramayana'. He worked very hard on it and when it was cold shouldered, he was sad. `The West would have celebrated if they had found a handwritten copy of Shakespeare's works. Here, nobody bothers,'" he would often say.
Raghavendra is still unable to come to terms with the sudden demise of his dearest friend, Tejaswi. "He has taught me so much. Each time I see a bird, a fish, the computer, I see Tejaswi. There's no question of us being separated... ," Raghavendra's voice trails off.
(AS TOLD TO DEEPA GANESH)
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