Here's a woman for all seasons and for all reasons

Recently, when Indian cricket fans reacted rather indignantly to Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova’s query, “Sachin Tendulkar! Who is he?”. I remembered how Carnatic musician MS Subbulakshmi asked pretty much the same question when she was introduced to a man called Sunil Gavaskar.

True, we may not recognise world celebrities in areas beyond our orbit. But I find that we can sometimes be blithely unaware of crucial chapters in the lives of even close friends.

When I think of my San Diego-based friend Revathi Subramanian, I visualise a smile bigger than her face, hearty chuckles punctuating happy chatter, her constant “rest-is-rust” bustle. Husband Suresh watches with fond amusement as she potters around her herb and vegetable garden, strings beads into a necklace, and whips up gourmet dishes with lightning speed. 

A practising Carnatic vocalist, Revathi holds weekend music classes at her spacious, sunlit, palm-fringed home. She also raises funds for many cultural events as a key member of the city’s Indian Fine Arts Academy. During the impressive annual festival of music and dance conducted by this organisation, Revathi’s home is transformed into a dormitory for visiting Indian artistes, famous and not-yet-so. As you muddle through the teeming house guests and stumble over their suitcases, you wonder how our Californian master chef dressed in designer saris, produces such mouthwatering fare, which includes a la carte offerings for finicky palates.

Revathi’s most endearing trait is her ability to listen avidly, making the raconteur feel valued. She can be patient. When her 9 year-old son pours water on the drawing room furniture as part of his “scientific experiment”, she suggests, “Why don’t you save it all for when you have a house of your own?” 

You tend to see Revathi as a singer, not statistician, though every single morning, she drives to her workplace in formal western wear, brightened by some piece of terracotta jewellery (her obsession!). All she discloses about this career is:“A matter of luck, being in the right place at the right time.” You don’t know that, as Senior Vice President, Data Science, at CA Technologies, San Diego, Revathi is the founding member of a high-calibre team “uncovering business value and operational intelligence from the chaos of Big Data in areas like e-commerce, application performance management, infrastructure management, service virtualization, and project management.” Actually, you have no idea what that even means! And yet, when Revathi calls from Zurich or London, it is to commiserate about my fundraising woes or revel in my experiences in the performing arts, not to discuss her aspirations or achievements in data science. 

Finally, my eyes were opened to the other side of Revathi, when her book Bank Fraud: Using Technology to Combat Losses was published this year, as part of Wiley’s SAS Business Series. The book covers the history of fraud detection, notes challenges faced by banks in locating perpetrators, offers practical tools for understanding risk exposure, and explains how data driven systems can offer radical strategies for fraud prevention and solution.(Wow!)

Revathi wears her success, and that of the book’s, lightly. She has self-assurance without arrogance, ease without complacency. You can see she is honestly delighted to lecture on a subject she loves at prestigious business institutions in Europe, at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Harvard, in the United States. At a talk she gave recently at Pramati Technologies, Chennai, at a friend's behest, fitting it somehow in the middle of a whirlwind visit, I saw in Revathi the new woman as described by poet Subramanya Bharati. A woman, he says, whose hands, heart and head are equally productive. 

The author is a playwright, theatre director, musician and journalist, writing on the performing arts, cinema and literature