Revathy Gopal: RIP

A chance meeting with Vidya Shrinivas triggered off a bimonthly ‘writers’ meeting’. Revathy Gopal, who has written many articles on Chowk, was the second, Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta third, and I the fourth. We met on alternate Saturday mornings for a couple of weeks and then stopped. But those meetings blossomed into an unusual friendship. I’m an avid reader and I curiously surfed the net to see what the others were writing. I was introduced to Chowk by Revathy. Each time I read one of her pieces, I gave her a call to discuss it. One or two of her essays had evoked a huge response from the readers, and it pleased and amused her to know various points of view.

It was about a year ago that she told me she had cancer. “A tiny little thingy” that was removed surgically, turned out to be an aggressive tumour that grew rapidly to her brain and spine, I’m told. Until Diwali last year, she was happy to speak over the phone. But around Christmas--or was it New Years?—she declined to say much when I asked her how she was. Not well, she remarked, but how was I? She said she couldn’t write because her mind was ‘blocked’. I don’t recall much of the rest of the conversation, except that she mentioned that she was afraid and weak, that she didn’t want to talk any more.

It’s strange, but when I was informed about her demise this evening, I went online to read her column on Chowk and wondered….does one really live on through one’s work? Possibly so, because I now seem to see her essays, specially the ones on religion, in a new light.

Dear Reva, as we called her, may you rest in peace.