Dear Professional colleagues,

I am shocked to learn about the demise of Riki Krishnan. He was such a fine young man!

I agree with Ratnakar, he was a true librarian/archivist/information manager.

 

It is with a deep sense of sorrow and loss, I write this requiem piece.

 

Riki was a true professional with zeal, perseverance, dedication, and enthusiasm – he would go to any lengths to get the information and materials required for the Indian Institute of Science archives. He was an exemplar par excellence for professionalism.

 

Let me share the brief professional interactions that I had with Riki.

 

He got in touch with me about 2 years or so back in search of some information and biographical materials of M.O. Forster, Director of the IISc, during 1922-1933, who after retirement settled in Mysore till his death in 1944. With the help of my students, I was able to collect some very important details including his death certificate from the Archives of the Mysore State, and also the house that was donated to him by the then Maharaja of Mysore where he lived till his death and such other interesting details, including the obituary note that appeared in the Hindu newspaper (thanks to Mr. Mohan, Chief Systems Manager of Hindu).

 

His dedication and determination was really infectious and drove me to make trips to the archives and also the old house of Forster, to take some photographs.

His last mail to me was sometime in September 2009 (I did not even know that he was suffering from Cancer) asking for “any information on the postal services during

the Wadiyar dynasty,  from the State Archives and the Maharaja’s personal collections.”

 

Such dedication is indeed very rare.  I guess he is our own Randy Pausch.

I wish us - professional librarians/archivists/information managers had the same dedication.

Lastly, it makes me wonder – why did God have to snatch such a rare and fine professional and friendly person from amongst us so early?

Wish we had some answers.

In memory of a fine soul!  

 

Shalini

 

 

 

 

 
 
Kindly post the following message on Lis Forum
 
Ratnakar
New Delhi
 
 
A great number of people work endlessly behind the scene helping those involved in publishing (both research papers and journals). These persons without any labelled qualifications from Library or Information fields still deserve to be called "Informtion Managers, Providers ec". One such person was Riki Krishnan working on the editorial staff of the journal "Current Science".
 
After bravely fighting Cancer for more than fifteen months (during which time his work or enthusiam to collect archival material never diminished) Riki passed away on 19th March 2010. His contributions and qualities are best revealed by Prof. Balkaram in the editorial of Current Science (Vol.28, No.6, 25th March 2010, P731). http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/25mar2010/731.pdf
 
Reading this should be an inspirtion for all those working in the informtion field. 
 
Ratnakar
New Delhi

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