If i can stop one heart from
Breaking
I shall not live in vain
If i can ease one life the
Aching
Or cool one pain
Or help one Fainting Robin
Unto his nest again
I shall not live in vain
-Emily Dickinson

A doting family man, successful professional, Mentor, Art collector, epicure and philanthropist. Vishrut was the life of any party thanks to his untiring dancing, keen intellect and wide ranging opinions from something as mundane as the knot count on our bedspread to the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence. A SciFi buff, his favorite scenario and most hotly debated topic was for all humanity to exist in the Cloud in the not so distant future.

A typical weekend evening at home would start with him lighting exquisitely fragranced incense sourced from a Greek monastery, Aerating and decanting a bottle of red wine, putting on his Qawwali or Jazz playlist, re-arranging the Ikebana for the n'th time and adding finishing touches to his culinary creations.

He was a liberal and a feminist and never hesitated to speak uncomfortable truths to defend his values. He believed passionately in an egalitarian society that did not hold back its women and other minorities. This led to the establishment, of Kanya, a boarding school for girls in Nepal, together with his wife Priya.

Vishrut arrived in Singapore in 1993 on a SIA-NOL scholarship, graduated with first class honours in Intelligent Systems from the 'National University of Singapore' and embarked on a career in consulting-financial services and digital transformation. His Carrier graph soard up

His first job after his Masters degree was with Stern Stewart. His foundation as a deeply analytical financial and strategy analyst was laid during those early years, guided by very able managers and mentors. In 2003, Vishrut opened the firm’s Bangkok office, hired a very capable local team and soon developed a loyal client base. Their after he joined ‘Marakon Associates’ and was made a partner. He continued his consulting career with ‘Boston Consulting Group’ where he really matured as a partner, honing his expertise in financial strategy and digital transformation. Following a short stint with Ernst & Young, Vishrut decided to join his client, Siam Commercial Bank in the largest bank in Bangkok. He went on to implement and scale up several important digital initiatives that enhanced customer experience and catapulted SCB into a digital powerhouse in Asia. He was working with 'Accenture' as partner when he breath his last.

Parenthood came at age 40 and Tashi became the love of his life. No matter how tired he was at the end of a long day at work, he would never refuse Tashi if she wanted to admire the moon in our neighborhood park. Vishrut was passionate about fine interiors and he lovingly remodeled four of their homes in Singapore over the span of 12 years. His Two homes were featured in top interior design publications in Singapore and India. He took great joy in the acquisition process - travelling to a remote village in Ubud (Bali) to source the perfect tamarind wood block for our dining table to a nursery in Malaysia for the most sculptural frangipani trees for the garden, and collecting antiques and paintings from all over the world including online. Almost every other day a courier would arrive at our door step.

His life in Singapore was enriched by friends from all corners of the world, his interest in music, collecting Art and antiques, exploring the many nature parks in the island, and delighting in the wonderful vegetarian cuisine to be found in the most unassuming hawker stall. His yearly sojourns to Nepal starting in 2007. Little did he know that his first hike on the Annapurna trail would lead to a lifelong love of the Himalayas and the establishment of the charity Kanya, where he shall become a Santa Clause in flesh and blood for eighteen under privileged girls, and provide them nutrition, healthcare, education and motivation

All through his professional life many has witness his affailablity enriched by his philanthropy. He has empowered many hundred women house helpers from several countries working in Singapore to live the life of dignity. He has through counseling and training in stilled in them sense of self worth by way of help of open a bank account managing funds and families back home. Even if 'Kanya' Happened by accident, this awaking movement is the result of years of impassioned efforts of continually helping others.

Vishrut had a very loving childhood in Lucknow surrounded by role models at home and school. His father is a doctor and his mother a teacher and home maker & assist his father in managing hospital. Vishrut had a sister 7 years younger and they were the pride and joy of their parents.

His is a story of intelligence, confidence , energy and positive action, the traits so required breeze through life. But when this youthful pursuit for good life is driven with altruistic concern, the empathy to serve humanity, then the work done in sprit of service is true worship His key influences growing up were his parents, grandfather, uncle and Mr. Jagdish Gandhi, the founder of City Montessori School (CMS, Lucknow). He was provided with information and allow to take his own course, and then the process was catalyzed rather than controled Vishrut’s grandfather donated all his savings to charity and the family’s early days were humble but happy, starting with no inheritance, in a 400 square feet tiny ranted flat followed by their own 20000 square feet Satya Hospital Campus, and residence.

He was adventurous, Confident and fearless from a young age, walking to school on his own when he was five, and shopping for groceries when he was six. Vishrut’s hobbies were music, reading and painting and some of his works were exhibited the 'National Exhibition of Arts', are few are in Lalit Kala Academy’s permanent collection.

His academic and extra-curricular talents blossomed at CMS – he excelled in debates, gramatiecs singing competitions, and was appointed Head Boy in both Junior and Senior sections respectively. He qualified for the highly competitive 'National Residential School scholarship' and stood nineth in the country, a ticket to Delhi Public School RK Puram. However he elected to stay on at CMS due to its emphasis on a holistic education imbibed with moral values and respect for diversity. He later also qualified for the 'National Talent Search scholarship'

He loved singing and could imitate the voices of top Indian singers like Hament Kumar, Rafi, Kishore Kumar and S.D Burman. Evenings at home would see him belting out Hindi songs wth his equally gifted sister and mother, all the while teasing each other about their pace or tone.

Vishrut also trained in martial arts and had a Taekwondo black belt by the time he finished his school.
A senior associate of Vishrut who had experienced him in lot of role remembered his as "the Renaissance Man", and paid his tribute on his prayers service in following words

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines a Renaissance man as an ideal that “a man can do all things if he will”, that he is limitless in this capacities for development, and that he should try to embrace all knowledge and develop his own capacities as fully as possible . The six characteristics mostly associated with this ideal are intelligent, Knowledgeable, Artistic, Physical, Social, Cool. Vishrut was a highly intelligent person. Although he always used to point out that Priya, his wife, is actually the really smart one in the family. There was no problem, too hard no analysis too complicated that he couldn't crack it. Of course, had he cracked a problem his intellectual curiosity subsided, and his brain moved on to more stimulating and still unsolved questions. This left the rest of us behind, struggling to make sense out of these brilliant answers. Like Leonardo da Vinci's not all of his ideas worked - I am sure due to insufficient implementation skills from us many, or maybe because the world was just not ready for it yet.

His knowledge was amazing, not just the depth, but much more his interests in understanding of a wide variety of fields. He loved a good conversation, which ideally would touch a broad range of topics. He always fondly recalled the discussions over dinner at his parent's house, which could move seamlessly from politics to astrophysics and philosophy within the blink of an eye. Given the amount of time we spent together in Bangkok I had the privilege to be exposed to this amazing knowledge, from living in remote Nepalese mountain villages to the Moorish architecture of the Alhambra and the fallacy of men attempting to conquer Russia.

Surely, in certain areas his knowledge was much broader than what I needed. On the topic of alcohol, I could have stayed with wine and whiskey and spared the perfumes, but then what do I know. And while the topics we discussed were broad, and the starting and end point of any debate were always seemingly unrelated, there was one constant in all these discussions: whatever argument we debated, whatever significant contribution to mankind we explored, whatever discovery we marveled at, contrary to conventional wisdom Vishrut claimed that someone in India had made that same argument, contribution or discovery thousands of years beforehand - and Google usually confirmed his point. On the artistic side, he always has been passionate about arts. Only space and Priya could constrain his enthusiasm for paintings, Buddha statues, Chinese porcelain, carpets and so on. Art was so much part of his personality that he couldn't live without it. This led ultimately to conflicts with Siam Commercial Bank's building management, which claimed that the decoration of the newly developed open space office concept with his antique carpets constituted a fire hazard.

A big lover of music, again, the breadth of his interests was endless. Opera, Symphonies. Concertos, Indian Bollywood music, Classical Indian compositions for the Sitar, Rock, Pop - only very few styles he wasn't interested in. At his home his iPhone was the key to a limitless world of music. However, some of his musical cross-references across time and geographies were a little bit challenging, for the untrained listener. Until this day I still don't know if this mix of styles intentional to show us the all-consecutiveness of the universal artistic mind through time and space - or just the "shuffle" function.

"Athletic" and "Physical" might probably be the one word which is somewhat less pronounced when talking about Vishrut. However, pictures of his younger days are clearly showing a person completely in line with the ideals of a Renaissance man. And even as other passions took over, he still loved the outdoors, be it walking in the morning through Bangkok's parks, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve or going trekking in Nepal. He was also adamant that the heavy kettle bell in front of his house in Bangkok was not a vintage object for decoration purposes.

"Social- skills on the other side Vishrut had in abundance when he breath their his last in Nepal at age 44 he was surrounded in all by 44 closest people. his 'Kanya' girls and family, his four year old daughter Tashi and wife Priya. First and foremost he was loving to Priya and Tashi , the center of his universe, and his family. He was generous and welcoming - not only did all of us experienced Priva and Vishrut’s hospitality, but the 18 girls in `Kanya- would not have the opportunities they have right now would it not have been for him and his relentless efforts to involve others in helping and donating for a good cause. He was caring-he helped a lot of people in their careers, but even more importantly he helped them with their lives when they hit a bad patch. And last but not least he was entertaining - his 40th birthday party with the Russian belly dancers is still legendary.

This brings us to the final piece: Cool, meaning that one can exhibit the top five characteristics with ease, that one is comfortable with himself Vishrut stood out, and he had no problems with that. Not only did he have his opinions and perspectives, but he also had his manners and looks. Forget the beard. which has seen any variation known to mankind. As the best dressed consultant in corporate boardrooms, or when exploring the medieval cities of Tuscany with sunglasses and straw-hat straight from the Sicilian part of "The Godfather" movie he was doing things "his way”.

Was he overconfident? Yes, sometimes.
Was he opinionated? Again Yes, for sure.
But was he ever ill-intentioned or not at ease with himself? No, never.
The problem with Renaissance Men is that there are so few - maybe one in a million. This makes their passing so much harder - we feel the irreversible loss. But then their life made also all our lives so much richer. So let me end with a poem which probably says it all:
Not how did he die, but how did he live?
Not what did he gain, but what did he give?
These are the units to measure the worth
Of a man as a man, regardless of birth.
Not, what was his church. nor what was his creed'?
But had he befriended those really in need?
Here he was ever ready. with word of good cheer.
To bring back a smile, or banish a tear.
Not what did the sketch in the newspaper say,
But how many were sorry when he passed away.
People like Vishrut come in this world in a mission mode. They- play on the front foot without out maneuvering opponents, they are steadfast in being human. Vishrut lived life to the fullest pursuing passions and enriching the life of everyone known to him. Happiness to him meant giving back to society, spending time with family and friends, enjoying time at home, developing quality relationships at work and outside of work and would have loved to see all his 18 `Kanya' girls and daughter Tashi graduate from college making a mark in life.
Every one die but not everyone lives and then lives for ever