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Everyday Heroes  Pavithra Krishnan: Visions and Revisions -- by Mark Jacobs "Sometimes it feels like the world is forever reaching out to touch my life with love, laughter, respect, compassion, and celebration ..." Accham Illai! Accham Illai! Pavi Krishnan has an imaginative plan for everything, and our arrival in her hometown of Madurai was no exception. Scheduled to pick us up at the train station, Pavi e-mailed us a secret recognition code: "These things usually begin with some comment about the weather, don't they? So we will say, 'I think it may snow in Madurai tonight.' You must answer, in your best Tamil, 'Accham illai! Accham illai!'" It is a steamy 36 degrees Celsius when we disembark the train. One can be reasonably confident that Madurai has never seen snow, not even during the last Ice Age; and in any event, Pavi, at age 24, is several eons too young to remember it. Our lines in this secret-agent-like kabuki - which translate to "No Fear! No Fear!" - are plucked from the poetry of Bharathiar, and became a famous rallying cry during India's fight for independence. Frivolous? Of course. But within Pavi's ironic couplet, the warmth and cerebral playfulness of its author are on full display. Like so much of the magic she produces, these clever lines combine joyfulness, a desire to make others feel at ease, a deft comedic touch, and an erudite poetic reference. It all comes easily to her, and she is utterly nonchalant about the pleasure she creates. It is almost as though she doesn't understand the impact of her intellectual gifts on those around her. A writer is born Pavi was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, in 1978. She moved to the United States before her second birthday, living in Madison, Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, until she was 11. Pavi's mother credits a series of "wonderful teachers" in the United States for fostering Pavi's marvelous creativity and sense of self-confidence. "They never criticized the problems; they always took care to find the good things and make her feel good about them. It really encouraged her," she recalls. When Pavi was in third grade, the storyteller in her began to find its voice. "The Smelly Sneakers" was Pavi's initial stab at creative writing. "Her teacher was so proud of that story, she put it together in a book," remembers Pavi's mom. That first manuscript has been lost to time, but the momentum it generated carries forward to today. Coming home When Pavi was 11, her family moved back to India. The return to India was very difficult for Pavi. She was not well prepared to make new friends, to learn a new set of social customs, to communicate in a language with which she had little practice, or to move about in such confined personal space. "I vividly recall my first image of her," recounts sixth-grade classmate and lifelong friend Nandini Krishnamoorty. "She was wearing gray pedal pushers, a floral patterned top and a big bow clip on her hair, and was sitting on a bench blissfully eating a hamburger." Nan's account is marginally fanciful, of course. Where would this elfish vegetarian get hold of a hamburger in Madurai, even if she wanted one? Still, it illustrates the cultural distance that Pavi and her new schoolmates would have to bridge. Pavi's own normal eloquence turns to an impassioned stammer as she tries to convey the depth of her feelings about the move back: "I hated it. I hated it so much. I hated it from my gut." Ultimately, she says, it was the closeness of her extraordinary (and quite extended) family that allowed her the comfort, support, and time to make peace with Madurai and eventually to grow inseparably fond of it. If she was quiet and self-reliant on her return to Madurai, it was not from a lack of courage. In the sixth-grade interclass competition, she recited a lengthy poem and walked off with first prize. Pavi's classmates were stunned. With her funny American accent, her marathon recital sounded only remotely like English to them, and they chalked up Pavi's triumph to favoritism and a "collective hearing impairment of the judges." Two years later, the same interclass competition would turn many of Pavi's detractors into admirers. In the elocution contest, Pavi described the difficulty of her homecoming. She spoke with equal candor and humor about her instant loathing for India and her gradual reversal of judgment. The speech won her both the acclaim of the faculty judges and, more importantly, the admiration and acceptance of her peers. False start, true path That Pavi would find a career in writing seems obvious and inevitable for one with Pavi's acrobatic control of language; but as she began her higher education, this was far from the agenda. "In India, for students as good as Pavitra, there were only two acceptable courses of study, engineering and medicine - and now also computer science," her mother explains. Following the example of her father, himself a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering (robotics), Pavi tried the engineering route at not one, but two different colleges. "She was so miserable," recalls her mother. "It took a lot of courage for her to leave engineering and start college again to study English. She lost a full year." Ironically, the support of her father was also instrumental in helping her make the switch. "It is difficult for someone on the outside to understand the grace with which he has accepted my decision without necessarily understanding it," explains Pavi. "My father is an unassuming, gentle, selfless man. He still firmly believes that I would be a saner person today if I'd gone after that B.E. - and maybe he's right. The only thing he has ever wanted for me is to have a rock solid future." Pavi enrolled in Stella Maris College in Madras, one of the most prestigious women's colleges in India, to commence her studies anew. She blossomed there, opening herself to new experiences and exploring the world of literature. She even took a dramatic turn, crossing the gender line to play one of the male leads in a production of Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys" in her final year. (This was only the latest evidence of her willingness to defy theatrical expectation. Having played the normally blue-eyed, fair-complected lead in a fifth grade musical production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pavi was used to crossing barriers in the name of humor.) The college experience was transformative for this introverted, contemplative young woman. "It is now hard for me to imagine Pavi as I first encountered her," says college friend Purnima Mani. "She was one of the quietest girls in the class, one who was happiest disappearing into the sidelines." These days, her friends are more likely to describe her as "side-splittingly funny" and "a willing participant and contributor to any mad scheme - the ultimate partner in crime." They also invariably give a nod to her "alarming intelligence" and "warmth and compassion." Pavi's mother explains her daughter's metamorphosis this way: "When your attitude changes, things also change for you. Pavi used to stay within a small group of friends in school. After she went to Stella she became very open to explore." In the end, Pavi finished first in her graduating class, earning Stella Maris College's highest honors. She went on to earn a post-graduate degree in broadcast journalism, which helped to usher her down her career path. The shift to journalism marked a subtle, yet significant move away from the pure art and intellectual rigor of literature. "That world was comfortable," she says. "I was good at it and I was happy with it. But I couldn't find the connection with the world outside. I was considering a Master's degree in English, but journalism seemed a way to bring the outside world and my world of words together." The long way home In 2001, fresh from college, Pavi was offered prized employment with ND Television in Madras. Instead, she took a more challenging course, accepting twin internships in New York City with a Japanese television company, working with a documentary film crew interviewing New Yorkers in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, and with the United Nations Children's Fund, developing content for a multimedia orientation for new staff. Unlike her move back to Madurai as an 11-year-old, Pavi's return from New York felt like a real homecoming. Always introspective, Pavi had wondered where in the world she should make her life. "I was never sure I was ready to come back to Madurai until the end. I wanted to know whether it was okay for me to be anywhere - that I could be happy no matter where I was. I think I figured out the basic truth that it is not so much the circumstances that determine things; it's who you are, how you are, and how you live within those circumstances." Since Pavi's return, her "day-job" involves creating video and multi-media presentations for the Aravind Eye Hospital, a unique non-profit organization famous throughout the world for pioneering surgical techniques which have revolutionized the institutional capacity of hospitals, for performing a staggering number of cataract operations at no cost to indigents from throughout Tamil Nadu, and as a leading research institution in diseases of the eye. Native talent and borrowed pens Poet, journalist, essayist, novelist, diarist, storyteller - it is hard for us to know just how broadly Pavi's wordsmithing extends, since she keeps much of her writing to herself. CharityFocus is lucky enough to receive a good portion of her attention, though. Pavi is responsible for writing or editing many of the major essays which appears on this website or which are distributed for publication elsewhere. She also coordinates CF's Madurai Chapter. Pavi is as reflective about writing as she is about the things she writes: "Writing is one way I know of reaching out. What I've learned - and this took me some time - is that it's not the words that are important, but the integrity of the spirit behind them. You have to be true to something before your words can make something true for someone else." Pavi with her sister, Deepa These days, Pavi rises at dawn and spends the early morning hours doing yoga with her cousin and then reading with her 84-year-old grand-uncle. After returning home for breakfast, it's off to work at Aravind. Later in the day, she will make time to visit her grandfather, as well as other relatives. When does she find the opportunity for creative writing and her tremendous contributions to CharityFocus? "I keep my own schedule, so I can be flexible," she says. "But I make time to write each day." Her sister, Deepa, observes that Pavi often disappears - sometimes for just 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes for much longer - to get her thoughts down on paper. "She always has her notebook with her," says Deepa, "and somebody else's pen." Service with a smile With a strong family tradition of community service and an instinctive empathy, it is perhaps not surprising that volunteerism is such an important part of Pavi's activities. Her selflessness pervades her daily life. From her work at Aravind and with CharityFocus, to her visitations with her aging relatives, to her incessant desire to make those in her home (both guests and other family members alike) comfortable, one could easily come away with the impression that Pavi thinks more often of the needs of others that of her own. With characteristic modesty, she rejects this notion out of hand. Still, she allows that taking care of others is a core value. "I want to live so that my life reaches out to other lives, no matter where I am or what I'm doing," she explains, "not as repayment for an incalculable debt, but as an expression of what I know to be finest and truest in our hearts." Her friend Maria Thomas puts it this way: "She touches others so much just by the way she is. There's so much give and take in her life. It's not just a two-way street with her - it's a crazy highway." Pavi's philosophy of service, like so many of the thoughts she hatches, is subtle, graceful, and heartfelt. "Sometimes it feels like the world is forever reaching out to touch my life with love, laughter, respect, compassion, and celebration. You know that feeling? I get it all the time. Sometimes you do nothing, and the world will lean down, smiling, to touch your feet. That feeling alone is reason enough to serve." Pavi is quick to remind us that living a contented, compassionate life is a process, not a self-satisfied end. "It's all a work-in-progress, isn't it? There's so much in life to learn and relearn - visions and revisions, yeah?" she asks, breaking into a wide grin. One can tell she is as pleased with the poetic formulation of the question as she is sure of the answer. [ email pavi ]

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