This is written on my birthday (April 1, 2015) to thank Soorya for the opportunity to be part of his life.
"Words don't begin to describe how amazing your son was. He taught us to take chances, be creative and forget about the world... Soorya was here to make us smile a little wider, laugh a little louder and try a little harder. Thank you rising an exquisite person to impact all our lives for the better"
These were the words from one of Soorya's friends who we never met. What caught my attention in these words, that obviously poured from this girl's heart, was the word exquisite. We all have heard this word a million times before without thinking about what it really means. I have seen the word "exquisite" used to describe Leonardo's painting, the temple sculptures in India, the beauty and symmetry of Einstein's equations of relativity and more recently Steve Job's Apple products.
The text book definition of the word exquisite means some thing "marked by flawless craftsmanship, beautiful and ingenious ". Anything that is exquisite takes time. An exquisite product is a result of years of work. Some times spread over several life times. That is Soorya - exquisite and a old soul.
A perfect combination of art and science, where the left brain and the right brain dance in perfect unison; where you make a great piece of art based upon the solid foundations of science; where you live and laugh every day as well as energize and challenge your intellect constantly; where you seek adventure but only after carefully looking at it from all angles; where you take a picture of the galaxy but only after deriving your own unique formula for the desired angle; where you take great pictures of your friends, but charge them a fee some times; where you spend the money on the things that you like the most but keep an excel file to keep tab on the spending; where you carefully cultivate friendship from the President of the university and at the same time have the compassion to treat the janitor with the same level of respect; where you have no temptation to spend the money on a new car when you have a great new job but at the same time have the desire to spend the money on photography.
Soorya Avali was born on September 17, 1992 at Houston, Texas. He was born a few weeks premature and was born with club feet. When he was just conceived, our family went through some extremely tough times but recovered a few months later. Soorya went through a major corrective surgery before he turned one and he was able to walk normally after that.
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Soorya at Raghu's ancestral home and
totally at home
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I lost my job a few months after Soorya was born and a few months later I found a job at South Carolina and we all moved to SC in 1994.
Soorya started reading when he was just 3 and continued his passion for reading for the rest of his life. Initially, he had a great passion for the Indian classics (Ramayana and Mahabhratha) and later he moved on to history, and science fiction. When he was just 6, he completed reading a 900 page version of Mahabharata and could recount the great battle scenes with gory details. He was an incredibly quick reader with a photographic memory. Sometimes, I had difficulty believing that someone can read that quick and still comprehend. One day, I decided to test him. When he was 14 or 15 the book Da Vinci Code had just came, and Soorya completed the book in a few hours and most of his reading was completed casually during the time he was riding on the car with me. I needed "proof" that he actually read the book and asked him "which mathematical sequence comes in the book?" . He did't even look at me as if the question was not worth answering. Irritated, I asked him again. He retorted. " Fibonacci sequence , 13 – 3 – 2 – 21 – 1 – 1 – 8 – 5". I asked him how did he know that. In his typical way he answered. "I just know these things".
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| Soorya and his cousin |
H
e had his Upanayanam in India when he was 6 and was fairly regular in performing his daily rituals. He also learned the Vedas from Sri. Ganeshji,the priest at the local Hindu temple. In particular, he learned Purusha Suktham, Vishnu Suktham, Narayana Suktam, Rudram, Chamakam and Aruna Prasnam). While he learned the Vedas, he also started questioning a lot that he learned and I was very happy to see that.
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| Arjun (Soorya's cousin, Soorya, Babu (aunt) and Raghu - 2003 |
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| Soorya - 2003 |
Soorya started learning Western Classical Violin and continued with it until he graduated from high school. He played for the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra for a few years. Although it was clear that music was not coming from his heart. He played soccer for a while and learned martial arts for a long time. He was very active in extra curricular activities both within and outside his school. He spent 3 entire summers helping refugee children assimilate in USA and was widely admired for his compassion and leadership and everyone who worked with him said he was the best volunteer ever.
Soorya was an academic superstar from day one, and he was one of those rare people who never had to study. He scored a perfect score in SAT (2400 out of 2400) and graduated as Salutatorian from his high school. (he constantly reminds me of the great cricket player, G.R. Vishwanath- full of class and confidence, great mixture of art and science, load of charisma and lived for the day. Interestingly enough when "Vishy" was out he would never look at the umpire - he will simply walk away. This is possibly what Soorya did when he left this world suddenly on July 28, 2014. When the time came he would have never waited for the signal from the umpire (god)
.
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| Picture of Vedha by Soorya |
He also own numerous awards in National International science fairs. All
his teachers adored him immensely and always spoke very highly of him. Through out his school years he never asked us a single question on any of his school work and we never had to ask him to do his school work. He took 13 college level courses in high school and aced all of them and his lowest grade in high school was 93. He went to Rice university in Houston and graduated with a degree in Material science and engineering in 2014. He stretched himself to the limit in college both academically and socially and was involved in a wide variety of extra curricular activities and spent 3 summers doing research and co-authored a paper in a prestigious scientific journal. I don't think he was really intellectually challenged even in an institution as reputed as Rice. This was also confirmed by one of his professors. Subjects that will break any one's ego such as Organic Chemistry and Crystallography was not difficult to him at all due to his great visual memory. I think that was why he was able to breeze through Rice.
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| Photo by Soorya |
Often we wonder, how he was able to achieve so much and still keep his sanity and have very little ego? Part of the reason for his success was that he had no insecurities and he never tried to be someone he was not. Those qualities drove him to a state of fearlessness and with no fear he could completely focus in the moment and love everyone unconditionally. He was a true Karma Yogi and although we didn't realize at that time, he never worked towards any particular grades. He knew that if he is just himself the grades will happen. On countless occasions he will wake up in the morning and simply say "appa polama" (dad shall we go?). Then I would realize that he has an important test on that day. His total calmness before any test was a major contributor to his success, but again calmness is a natural outcome of fearlessness.
During his memorial service one of his friends talked about how Soorya drove the car safely in an Iceland highway with a 3000 foot cliff on one side and complete fog on all the four sides. In a situation like that most of us would have lost our nerve. Not Soorya.
Often we would hear of his achievements from his friends but seldom from himself. On one occasion one of our friends told us that they saw Soorya on TV for winning an award on a science competition. The thing to note was he had won that award 6 months ago and never bothered to tell us !
Razor sharp intellect, great thirst for learning, no insecurity, fearlessness, laser like focus and unconditional love all combined with an uncommon wisdom and practicality. Truly an exquisite soul. That is Soorya. Some of us are lucky to have one such quality in one live and he had all of them in one life.
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Soorya - Brown College,
Rice University, 2013 |
No account of Soorya is complete without a mention of his awesome skills in Photography. In fact, any account of Soorya could very well start and end with photography as his Photography skills alone would have earned him a position in the international hall of fame.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/arandomindian/sets/
T
his is a long exposure picture that Soorya took when he was just 19 in a remote part of Utah during a hiking trip that I went with him - something I will cherish forever. He is seen with his white shirt in the center.
This was another picture he took and this is a long exposure shot as well. We spent a night at Shenandoah valley National park. As expected Soorya spent the whole night outside the hotel looking at the sky and took this memorable picture of the galactic cloud and Andromeda Galaxy. He is at peace looking at the wondrous night sky and totally in tune with the creator. This picture was taken in 2013 and this is truly indicative of what he considered to be important in life as well as how he matured as a person. The picture below was taken the day before his graduation from college in 2014.
Sky diving Video. This video was actually taken by Soorya's friend Waseem. Soorya comes briefly before the plane takes off (guy with the camera - of course).
Any time we go to Rice the adjectives that we hear about Soorya are - altruistic, unconditional love, true to himself, extraordinary intellect etc. What about his spirituality? While Soorya was quite well versed in the ritualistic aspects of Hinduism, he truly believed that those were external markings that are really not needed in the overall context.
It is interesting that during his last few months in this world his soul pushed the “be true to yourself and don’t care about external markings” concept to the limit. He had his head completely shaved and it is hard to imagine a handsome 21 year old just out of college to do that. When I asked him his response was “low maintenance and it works for me”.
He only thought of himself as a human being and truly lived up to the Upanishads - selfless, fearless and full of life and love. Just 2 days ago something prompted me to watch the movie "Philadelphia" and both me and Viji cried several times watching the movie. Mostly because of how Tom Hank’s family stick together when he was dying of AIDS and fighting a civil rights battle in the court. Then, I remembered watching the same movie several times with Soorya and then I went back in the memory lane and remembered watching the TV serial "Roots" with him several times. Watching these movies with me at a young age may have made him realize from early on that all people are created equal, and therefore should be loved equally. If that made him treat the janitor with the level of respect and love that he had shown to the President of university then I think I have done my job as the father.
Everything that we do – prayer, yoga, meditation, has ultimately only one purpose -unconditional love and acceptance of all living creatures. There is no Moksa unless you have reached the state of unconditional love. May be that is why we see gods in all different forms in Hinduism. The different forms are merely a reminder for us to treat everyone the same and love all living beings.
I have already watched Roots with Vedha. I can’t wait to watch Philadelphia with her.
If you have read all the way to the bottom and if you still have patience, you can watch a Soorya Avali Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPzyv7qoXH0
Thank you for patiently reading and watching. Writing this has helped me quite a bit. If you like what you read or even don't like some of the stuff, drop me an email and I will do better next time.
We have established a Scholarship in Soorya's name and the first award was presented at Brown College (Soorya's residential college at Rice University) just last month. If you are interested, you can also contribute to the Soorya Avali memorial fund. I recognize that this is a very personal decision and your decision to contribute or not will not at all change my perception of you and I will love you the same. So, I don't want to know if you contributed to this. But I am listing the address just in case you want to contribute.
By Check:
Soorya Avali Award Fund
Brown College
9 Sunset Blvd.
Houston TX 77005
Or do it online at
www.giving.rice.edu, under designation, choose "other" and type in the name of the award (Soorya Avali award) in the special instructions box. You will receive a tax receipt from Rice.
If you have any questions you can contact:
Sandy Wilkerson
Gift Operations Manager, Rice University
Best regards,
Raghu Avali
avalirk@gmail.com
