I first met Narendran in late 1982 or early 1983. We had both joined AF Ferguson & Co, at that time a reputed management consultancy and probably the biggest. I had never lived in Chennai before and he was a Chennai guy. Initially our interaction was limited to brief hi’s and hellos and our first “deep” conversation was when he had submitted an assignment report to his manager which promptly came back with the comment “This is too brief!” A zapped Naren asked me what it meant and we had a zany discussion on how quantity was often more important than quality and consulting fees were related to the “weight” of the report, which nobody anyway read. Sometime in the middle of 1983, both of us started to work together on a major assignment for the Madras Port Trust (MPT). We were given a room in the guest house of MPT and Naren quickly swung into action with the guest house staff so that we were comfortably settled in; it was going to be our office for the next year or more. For Naren every problem was an opportunity and when the guest house staff told us that we were not “officially” guests and we could not use the dining room, he ensured that we were served in our room and we ended up having breakfast and lunch at MPT. And the last agenda every afternoon would be a spirited discussion on the breakfast and lunch menu for the next day. Naren was very fond of his Yezdi mobike and we used to zip around the port. Sometimes he would bring his dad’s white ambassador car and on one occasion I told him that though I had a driving license I had never driven a car and promptly he asked me to take the steering wheel when we were returning to our office from the port. Sure enough I banged the car into the entrance gates of the building. I was quite nervous but he dismissed the dent with a “these things do happen”. The MPT assignment was all about designing and implementing a modern financial accounting system. After we had completed the assignment and the D- day for the changeover to the new system was nearing, the finance department ” discovered” that since MPT and its organization and accounting systems were established by an Act of Parliament, any changes would have to be approved by Parliament. Naren’s comment was “GVR, not just this assignment; management consultancy is a bloody waste of time!” Since we were on the same page I quit in mid-1985 and Naren probably quit around the same time. Naren got married to Shanthi (nee Sunitha) and I vaguely remember that he made it to his wedding reception on his Yezdi bike. I lost contact with Naren and in 1990 when I got into investment banking I came into contact with his father, Mr Padmanabhan, who was then Company Secretary of South India Shipping Corporation Ltd. He filled me in on Naren, his shifting to Reckitt in Bangalore and then on to palm oil trading in KL, Malaysia which came as a big surprise. It was from 1994 that Naren and I got to keeping in touch regularly. He had shifted to Singapore and set up his own commodity trading outfit. I made a visit to Singapore, around 1996 I think, when Naren took me to all his business contacts for potential India side deals. I still remember the evening when we went to NUS (National University of Singapore) to pick up Shanthi, who was teaching there while pursuing her PhD and then visiting their home. Anish was the serious guy while Rudy was using the sofa as a trampoline. Ever the gracious hostess, Shanthi served up murukku and filter coffee! By 1997 the East Asian crisis was on and Naren packed his bags and shifted to London. Naren was one guy who could shift continents and comfortably settle down. By 2000, Naren was looking at the new kid on the block, Information Technology. He became a consultant to Irevna and with that insight Escribe was in the works. Naren and I did quite a few roadshows on Escribe to potential investors, and in the summer of 2006, over a cup of tea in my office, I asked Naren whether it would be a good idea, if I exchanged my investment banker hat for that of an investor. Though I had to quit Escribe in 2012 due to poor health, Naren and I met for lunch every time he visited Chennai. Naren’s sense of humour was fantastic and he looked for wit in others as well. “It is very difficult to deal with people without a sense of humour GVR”, he would say. Once in AF Ferguson, we were in a meeting with the top boss who was laying out his vision for an assignment; Naren turned to me and whispered “He is raving and he is not even drunk. “And then he said “Maybe a drink would do him and the assignment some good!” Naren was a born optimist and a never say die salesman. Some years back, Naren broke his ankle, a day before his birthday, after a fall from a ladder. The next day I got a call from him, “Good news GVR, I am fine and should be in Chennai in six weeks’ time!” and he was in Chennai with a walker in 6 weeks; a walking stick after 15 weeks and completely fit thereafter. And his orthopaedician became a great friend, so much so he wanted Naren as a partner in his business venture. Last December, he had a stroke just before Christmas. A few days later he calls me from hospital ”GVR, I am fine da” and I tell him that his speech is slurred but he brushes it off with “in a few weeks that too should be normal. “And voila! He was back to normal. I met him over lunch on Wednesday, February 15. He had undergone a battery of tests at Apollo Hospitals here and everything was normal. He was fine and planning to visit Chennai again in April. Naren was a handsome guy. Many a time I had asked him to take a photograph with his beard shaved off and hair dyed. He would always laugh it off. And he did say that in London he was often mistaken for a Greek or a Spaniard! Naren lived like a king and has passed away like a King. Not for him the vagaries of old age or the debilitation of sickness. He often said his father would have lived longer than 69 if only he had taken his shoulder pain seriously. What can we say when Naren says Goodbye at 59! Possibly God was in serious need of good cheer and optimism in the heavens. May God give Shanthi, Anish, Jacqeuline, Rudy and all of us the strength to bear this loss. May we remember him for his great qualities of head and heart. May Naren’s soul rest in peace. G.Vijayaraghavan(GVR)