The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon: World Voices

MUSEUM: PLACE OF THE MUSES

Museum Manager: Jonathan Knott

Our Museum houses mainly memories of those who have passed into the "place of the muses" where we hope and expect them to live on in words and images. In the last issue, we looked at Leonard Cohen's legacy and reminded ourselves that Rilke praised death even as he loved life.

Lord, give each one of us our own death,
a dying that emerges from each life,
from the way we loved,
from meanings we made.
And from our needs.

For we are nothing but bark and leaf.
That great Death that each of us has within
is the fruit, around which all else turns.

____________Rainer Maria Rilke

Ravi Kumar, former host of World Voices, passed away last year. Ravi had returned to India a couple of years ago for health reasons. In Issue 24 of The Grapevine, published at a time when Ravi was still alive but unable to compose a new piece, we brought back one of his previous articles entitled Renewing our Reverence for Nature. We were in touch with him (with his daughter Ashima's help), until his death last year on April 24, 2021. As a tribute to him and all he meant to us, we are taking this opportunity to place memories and images of him into our Museum where all of you can see and hear more about this remarkable man, one of the eloquent voices of the world.

Ravi's articles will remain accessible through links in this Museum location, his Grapevine homeplace now. We encourage his family and friends to print them out along with our tribute and bind them as a memory journal.

Tribute to Ravi Kumar

Our World Voices column emerged when Ravi Kumar and Barbara Knott became colleagues at Gwinnett Technical College where she was Director of Humanities. Ravi, having retired from the Indian Air Force where he had spent his career as a jet fighter pilot before relocating to the United States with his family and settling in Gwinnett County, Georgia, enrolled in one of Barbara's literature courses out of interest in using his retirement time to expand his education and meet new people with whom he could explore his new culture. Barbara, who already had a strong interest in Indian culture based on her reading, found Ravi's presence in her class a perfect opportunity to develop a cultural studies course. She invited him to teach it with her, and together they not only offered the college course but also created a group called Voices of the World among friends who continued to meet after her retirement. The group meets now in the Covid era mainly on Facebook where we have a V.O.W. group page. Members contribute regularly to The Grapevine Art and Soul Salon publication, now in its 25th issue.

From Ravi's Contributing Artist page:

Ravi Kumar, Host of The Grapevine's World Voices column and Contributing Writer, is retired from the Indian Air Force where he was a jet fighter pilot and Group Captain.

MIG21 flown by Ravi for 20 years

He has since his retirement lived in the United States, first in South Carolina and now in Georgia where his fondness for learning led him to acquire an Associate's Degree in Technical Subjects at Gwinnett Technical College.With Barbara Knott, he designed and taught a course in cultural competence as a virtual world tour. The tour began with a close look at images and values expressed in U. S. culture, then traveled around the world, touching down in India and China to look at these countries and related cultures, as well as in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Cultural considerations included value systems, art, politics, and history.Ravi continues to study cultural diversity both here in the United States and abroad and to cultivate discussions of cultural diversity as well as perennial themes in a seminar group called Voices of the World.

V.O.W. Field Trip with Ravi to Hindu Temple

Birthday Celebration

TRIBUTES

CHARLES KNOTT

I've known Ravi since the formation of the Voices of the World group around 2004, I think. Hearing of his background as a jet fighter pilot, I was surprised to meet the gentle man he turned out to be, and my impression of him as a gentleman never wavered during the l6 or so years that we met regularly in VOW to share cultural experiences and observations and friendship. May he rest in peace as we establish a place for our memories of him to live on in The Grapevine Museum.

BILL KENNEDY

Shortly after I met Ravi in our VOW group, before I knew him to be a man of many splendid talents, he asked me to help him with the technical aspects of making a video on India. Ravi knew a lot about India and nothing about video. I knew about video, but nothing about India. Ravi's India documentary was presented at the Atlanta Public Library where it received a standing ovation. In assisting Ravi this way I began to see that, for him, no subject or task was beyond his reach. Through the years that followed, Ravi would often bring our VOW discussion group to rapt attention with an observation, a perspective or a story of a sort that only he could make. Once he told us of being robbed at gunpoint. It had happened only a few days earlier, and he said he was still shaken by the experience. Someone asked if he were angry. A little, he said, but mostly he was sorry for the man who robbed him. Just think, Ravi said, what a low opinion of himself that man must have had to do what he did. How can he live with himself? That was the last Ravi spoke to us of the incident, yet I hear those words in my head again and again: a reminder of the person Ravi was and the kind of person I would like to be.

JONATHAN KNOTT

It has been a pleasure to have known Ravi Kumar for so many years of regular meetings in our Voices of the World group and on cultural trips, some at his invitation: to visit a Hindu temple once and another time to participate in a Diwali celebration at his family home. In his company, I learned a lot about Indian culture and spices and friendship. I also spent time with him in writing retreats we made to the North Georgia mountains. Now I will try to continue the spirit he established in the World Voices chamber of The Grapevine, first with a piece about Lord Krishna, who saw the whole world in his mouth. The whole world still includes Ravi in our memories and in the presence of his spirit among us.

NANCY LAW

In 2006 I met Ravi and got to know and love him as a friend and as a member of VOW, Voices of the World, as described by my nephew, "A magical place where people in varying degrees of middle age gather to discuss psychology, art, politics, the state of the world in general, and...have snacks." We met often, sometimes weekly and sometimes monthly, usually at Bill Kennedy's house, but sometimes Ravi would take us to his favorite Indian restaurant. We celebrated birthdays and Christmas with food and presents. Ravi always brought samosas that his daughter made for us, and he loved my coconut cake. We discussed world religions and books and personal stories that impacted our lives. Ravi shared about his life growing up in India. We met his Atlanta family: wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter Sherry. One year we were invited to celebrate Diwali at his home. On another occasion my family (son, daughter, three granddaughters, sister, brother-in-law, nephew) and Ravi and his granddaughter Sherry, attended a performance of A Christmas Carol at the Alliance Theater. Ravi was an artist, and I have two of his paintings, a bird done in water color and a rooster in vibrant red, blue, black, orange, yellow and brown colors. I love looking at them. I miss my dear friend Ravi, but I am so fortunate that he was in my life for a few years, and I treasure my wonderful memories of him.

At a VOW meeting: Nancy holding Ravi painting of rooster and commenting about it to him

Ravi listening to Nancy and about to respond

BARBARA KNOTT

Ravi Kumar has gone but definitely is not forgotten. A man of strong character, he developed considerable skills as a jet fighter pilot in his homeland of India. Eventually, he moved with his family to the United States, specifically to Georgia, where he entered a new community that encouraged his development as a teacher and an artist, an active community where his presence was highly valued. I feel personally honored and deeply grateful to have known him and to have worked with him as a colleague and socialized with him as a friend. The photos posted here capture some moments from our group activities. They also display some of the art works he created when he retired from the Air Force with considerable life left to be devoted to the arts. In his remaining years, he helped me develop a framework for The Grapevine Art and Soul Salon online journal that I began publishing with Charles and Jonathan in 2004. His painting of the Vine Lady lives behind the list of columns on the left side of each page. Throughout the nearly twenty years of our acquaintance, Ravi offered to his friends many personally created gifts, as well as some pieces of Indian culture, like the two puppets he gave my family, along with an old altarpiece that was being replaced in his house, a perfect stage for the puppets.

Gift from Ravi to Knott family home

In 2007, when a beloved friend of mine died, Ravi sent me four quotations from the Bhagavad Gita for consolation. I would like to return those to him now as a blessing and make them available for others, including his family, to read and perhaps to find the kind of solace he believed to be in these scriptures. Here is what Ravi said: At this time of grief I can only ask you to have courage and accept God's Will. Some quotes from Gita may help you overcome your sadness. May we all remember Ravi as a carrier of the serenity advocated here and be blessed in our lives as he was in his.

As the indweller in the body experiences childhood, youth and old age in the body, he also passes on to another body. The serene one is not affected thereby.

As a person sheds worn-out garments and wears new ones, likewise, at the time of death, the soul casts off its worn-out body and enters a new one.

Death is certain of that which is born; birth is certain of that which is dead. You should not therefore lament over the inevitable.

Beings are all unmanifested in their origin, manifested in their mid-state, and unmanifested again in their end. What is the point then of anguish?