Dear Visitor,
If you have logged onto this website of mine, you are perhaps curious to know who I am? Why I write these blogs? And whether my interests match yours… Alright, so let me then introduce myself to you.
I was born in Tamil Nadu, India. I live now in the city of Chennai.
I am an alumnus of Loyola College, Madras University where I graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Finance and Commerce back in 1977. Then I qualified as a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in 1982, joined the corporate rat-race and slowly worked my way up 11 years on the Indian corporate ladder in such blue-chip companies like Wipro, Sundram Fasteners and ITC Ltd.
Then, after having earned my spurs, I went away from India in 1993 to pursue my career as a specialist in corporate and project finance.
In the following 24+ years, I managed to survive the fiercely competitive professional world of corporate finance, holding many senior positions and handling many challenging assignments. I held positions as Group Financial Controller, Finance Director and Chief Financial Officer in well-known conglomerates in the Middle East – Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
My professional assignments in the last two decades made my lifetime working experience a totally “international” one in range and quality. It took me to some 20+ different countries across the world in the Middle East, Far-East, Europe, UK and USA. That kind of travel I believe has given me “a wide-angle and full-spectrum outlook in life”.
IN 2020, at the peak of the Covid pandemic, I decided to finally return home, once and for all, to Chennai after a fairly fulfilling professional career abroad. The corporate world I then left behind me, and for which I had worked so hard, so long all those years, had indeed given me much in life by way of sufficient financial reward and freedom that I thought it was the right time to move on in life and do something with it that might be equally if not more worthwhile.
My two beloved children, a son and daughter, are themselves professionally well-qualified, married and happily engaged in their own careers.
I now live with my wife, Divya, in the sylvan neighborhood of Abiramapuram, Chennai, pursuing my other lifelong interests in life: Indian philosophy, history, English literature, Carnatic music, travelling for fun and pilgrimage, reading, writing, reflecting and blogging.
Despite my professional preoccupations, my first passion had for many years always been writing.
In my university days, I was editor of the Loyola College campus-magazine “LookOut”. Between 1974-76, I used to be the Madras stringer for the Times of India publication “Youth Times” and contributed several features and columns regularly to the youth magazine. I also used to contribute articles for a small wonderful, city-based coffee-table magazine called “ASIDE“. Thereafter, after I became a finance professional, a few of my feature articles I also published in the “Business Standard” (1995) and “The New Horizon”, (an Islamic Banking institute magazine based in London). At the same time, several of my writings on religion and religious history got also published in The Hindu, Chennai, in the late 1990s.
The urge to keep writing persisted…
IN 2017, I published my first book “Unusual Essays of an Unknown Sri Vaishnava”, a 700-page commemorative volume as personal tribute to the memory of the great 11th century CE philosopher, religious and social reformer, Sri Ramanujacharya in the year of his millennial anniversary. To my surprise, the book was received warmly by 2000+ readers in India and abroad!
Take a look on a YouTube video-link below on the book launch event that was held for my book held in April 2017: https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=Awr9Du9OjJdg1sEAZe9XNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=The+Hindu+book+review+Unusual+Essays+of+an+Unknown+Sri+Vaishnava&fr=mcafee#id=1&vid=47466a8f3722a1a0a9bc5a8f6a46e067&action=view
Soon enough, my book also got some some critical attention internationally and earned modest, critical praise by the well known global book-review literary agency KIRKUS INDIE …
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mk-sudarshan/unusual-essays-unknown-sri-vaishnava/
And in the very same year, the book was exhibited at a few International Book Fairs in Frankfurt, London, Denver, Beijing, Singapore and Sharjah.
The book also earned critical acclaim in the South Indian press as well.
https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/rituals-associated-with-vaishnavism/article19464016.ece
But what made me feel proud, was that the book, which was essentially inspired by the ancient school of Indian school of philosophy called Vedanta earned notice, acceptance and kind appreciation from the presiding Pontiffs of the 3 principal Vedantic mathams in India viz. His Holiness Srimad Azhagiyasingar of Ahobila Mutt and His Holiness Sri Sankaracharya of Sringeri Mutt as well as blessings from the Pejawar Mutt Swami-ji in Udupi. Very soon, thanks to them, my book received handsome reviews in the house-magazines of both the Ahobila Mutt and the Sringeri Mutt,
The second edition of my book, slightly revised and condensed, was republished under the same title in 2 separate and attractively priced volumes by another publisher in India — StoryMirror, New Delhi. It was launched in 2018 to commemorate the 750th birth anniversary of the great Sri Vaishnavite philosopher-poet and preceptor, Swami Vedanta Desika.
Looking back on my experience of publishing a book, I am left feeling that living my life as I have done… as a child of the 20th-21st century CE … it’s been very humbling to have had a remarkable coincidence happening in my lifetime: that I was able to offer tribute on these two grand occasions, one millennial and the other nearly so, to two towering Sri Vaishnava Acharyas in history and that too in my own personal and rather special way.
Well… I am not shy of saying this: I am today a writer.
In 2022 I published my second book, “THE NONDESCRIPT GOD: Abstraction or Paragon” on the salient difference between Advaita and Visishtaadvaita metaphysics based on my understanding of the work, “SATADUSHANI” of Sri Vedanta Desika and the SRI VISHNU SAHASRANAMAM. The book received acclaim from scholars of the Sri Ahobila Mattam as well as the press. At a book-launch event presided over by the 46th Azhagiyasingar Sri Ranganatha Yatindra Mahadesikan , the book was blessed by His Holiness himself.
More details of the second published book can be accessed here
Meanwhile, to keep my writing skills well-honed and to keep maintaining some sort of contact and continual engagement with my readership both in India and worldwide, I have chosen to write blogs and articles on a variety of subjects of interest to me and share “thoughts and reflections, ideas and ideals” with them on this my own WordPress website.
During the Covid Pandemic years 2021-22, I was tasked by the Editors of two well-known religious English-language magazines published monthly — Sri Ahobila Mutt’s official journal “Nrisimha Priya” and “Vainavan Kural” — to translate from the Tamil the epistles and public discourses (“arul mozhi”) that were themselves penned, published or delivered back during the 1970s and 1980s by HH Srimadh Azhagiyasingar, the 44th Jeeyar of Sri Ahobila Mutt. My translations were published as a regular series in both the magazines through 2021-23.
Those serialised English translations of mine have now in June 2023 been all compiled and published as a handsome book titled “Epistles of a Prolific Pontiff”.
The book was released on June 23 , 2023 in the presence of the present pontiff (Azhagiyasingar) of Sri Ahobila Muttam , Srimad Ranganatha Yathindra Mahadesikan.
Throughout the pandemic years , I had also been working on another book whose subject had for a very long time been close to my heart : the history of the Sri Vaishnava community in the 2nd millennium since Sri Ramanujacharya’s times. That book took more than 9 months to research and write. It was completed and published on July 1, 2023 in the USA and for which the well-known Hindutva scholar and author Sri. Aravindan Neelakandan (who Co-authored the best selling book “BREAKING INDIA” with Rajiv Malhotra) has written a Foreword.
I have a few more personal literary-frontiers to conquer in my journey of life: I am working diligently on a ‘religious novel’ which might take me, who knows, some years to unwrap! But then, one day I do hope to see the novel through too before I bid goodbye to this world…
Oh, and by the way, I must also tell you that in pursuit of my deep interest in classical Carnatic Music of India , I also take my job seriously as the Managing Trustee of the Dr. Mrs Mani Krishnaswami Foundation, a charitable Trust founded in memory of my departed mother, Sangitha Kalanidhi Smt. Mani Krishnaswami and father M.Krishnaswami. Through the activities of the Foundation, I actively engage in causes, big and small, promoting and nurturing talent and vidwath in classical music and fine arts in Chennai, Bangalore and Mangalore.
The activities of the Smt. Mani Krishnaswami Foundation can be viewed on my YouTube channel
https://youtube.com/@shanmadabushi2462
And of course, I am fairly active too on social media. On Facebook I have a page which you can easily search if you type in “Unknown Sri Vaishnava” or “Sudarshan Madabushi”. I like to believe I have a loyal and enthusiastic Facebook public following of nearly 200 members.
FInally, let me say this: I like to think of myself as “a very, very Indian citizen of the world” for these pretty good reasons:
- having been born into an orthodox Sri Vaishnava family in Tirupati, India, I can trace my ancestry to the maternal uncle of Sri Ramanujacharya, Sri Tirumalai Nambi;
- all the education I have received in life was given me by Christian institutions;
- much of my professional career was advanced thanks mainly, in fact, to the many multinational corporates in the Islamic world that I served;
- many of my closest friends in life are scattered worldwide and they are of diverse race and background;
- and if today I have true and genuine respect for inter-faith kinship it is because of the several happy inter-faith happy marriages that have taken place within both my close and extended families.
Let me thus finally sign off with this little message to you: ALL THE WORLD TO ME IS TRULY JUST ONE BIG FAMILY!
Sudarshan Madabushi