Words cannot do justice to this magnificent personality. She lived, she loved and she gave her all in what she believed.
Kavitha was born to Radha and Subramani Anandan in Bokaro, Bihar on Feb 16, 1977. Her parents shifted to Bombay where she was raised until the age of 5. She then moved to the middle-east where she did her schooling until the age of 15. In 1992 shortly after the birth of her younger brother, Vikram, Kavitha and her family relocated to Chennai. She completed her secondary and high school education in Chennai and then enrolled into the hospitality management program offered by MERIT Swiss Asian School at Ooty.
The following paragraph is an excerpt from an MBA applications essay that Kavitha saved in our laptop on Nov 30, 2007 at 7:01am-
"Raised by parents from diverse backgrounds, I spent a major portion of my childhood in Qatar, and in the United Arab Emirates. As children we were shielded from the Arab community in school and in society but I was raised in a girl’s school by the norms of the Islamic government. During this period, we lived in a village in Kerala every year for about two months. My mother’s hometown is a village where to this day not everybody wears shoes; every house enjoys a power cut for a couple of hours everyday and people have to walk twenty miles to see a road. However, I found these same people talk eloquently about the differences between Islamic Iran and Islam in India and about the ruling communist party of Kerala in democratic India. They also read intensely from translations of Tolstoy’s work to philosophical works. This international experience of a few weeks every year has impacted my perspective immensely. I now see that prosperity does not always go hand in hand with intellectual thinking. Good conversation is a tradition handed out dominantly by the society that one surrounds oneself with."
After completion of her undergraduation in 1998, Kavitha started working for Windsor Sheraton hotel in Bangalore as a Banquet Sales Assistant. This was the first time for Kavitha away from home and she faced many challenges being all alone in a big city. She had to work long hours and occasionally had to skip dinner when she missed the dinner time at the ladies hostel where she was staying. The tough life in Bangalore made Kavitha a stronger person and very street smart. In 2000, she took up an assignment as Banquet Sales Coordinator at the Oberoi hotel in Bangalore. In 2001, she decided to return back to Chennai to be with her family and started working for the Raheja hospitality group. Kavitha was very ambitious and constantly looked to better herself. In 2002, she was offered a position of Sales Manager for the Holiday Inn hotel responsible for sales and marketing in Chennai. This was her last job in India.
I met her for the first time on July 7th, 2002 a few days after she started working for Holiday Inn. The meeting was arranged following an ad placed by her family in the matrimonial columns of the Hindu newspaper. A month later, we decided to get married. Now a month may sound like a very short period of time to make such an important decision. But Kavitha later told me that she had made her decision as soon as she heard my voice for the first time as I was alighting from the auto-rickshaw in front of her house. She would quote to me time and again- "in life you need to think with your heart when it matters the most". She was gifted with a fantastic intuition that would guide me many times when I could not make a firm decision.
We were married on April 7th, 2003 and we arrived in USA on April 21st for the first time as a married couple. We started our married life in Huntsville, Alabama where I worked. Due to visa restrictions, she was not able to work in the U.S. right away. So she decided to pursue an MBA and then apply for a job following completion of her higher education. Unfortunately, due to different education standards, she did not meet the entrance requirements for a graduate business degree in most programs in the U.S. Initially, she was very disappointed. But, she made up her mind to get additional undergraduate credits at the University of Alabama and then apply for an MBA program. Not only did she have to conquer the age barrier but she also had to repeat several of the courses that she had already completed at MERIT. Inspite of this, she remained determined and focused towards achieving her final goal. While she was very ambitious and wanted to have a successful career, she also had an equally strong desire to raise children. The two happiest days of her life, were when we discovered that we were pregnant with Adarsh and later with Sarika.
The following paragraph is an excerpt from an MBA applications essay that Kavitha saved in our laptop on Nov 28, 2007 at 2:40pm-
"When I moved to the U.S, I was unable to work due to visa regulations. For someone, who intended to continue with a career and study in the evenings, this was a shock. Once I came to terms with this situation, I decided to study as much as I could and I did. As a 26 year old Indian woman in Alabama, sitting amongst 16 year olds was hard in the beginning, but I learnt to not let that count. In India, only persons who have repeatedly failed in academics would have to sit in a class far younger to them. Being different, I battled with my psyche and used the difference to distinguish me rather than diminish me. I began sharing whatever I knew about my background, Indian, Middle-Eastern and finally as a legal alien in the U.S. I dispelled myths about my country and culture in both the Political Science classes and tried to advocate the strengths of certain forms of government with specific cultures. I also attended inter-class forums on world politics and global cultures and was thrilled to realize that there was also an audience interested in different perspectives. I think I made the best of the situation and used my creative skills together with the available resources to come up with viable solutions. As a mother, I've been amazingly lucky to have spent valuable, never before moments with my son. For someone like me who has never passively addressed her professional progress, reigning in my skills and perseverance for a few years was a tough choice; but I made it and stuck to it."
In Dec 2003, my one-year short-term assignment in Albama was converted into a three-year long-term assignment. This worked out perfect since Kavitha could complete her undergraduate degree without a break. Moreover, the cost of living was such that it was cheaper to buy a home than rent one. So we decided to buy into the American dream and on valentine's day 2004, we were the proud owners of 104 Greenclover Lane at Madison (outskirts of Huntsville). It was a beautiful 4 bedroom ranch style home with a 0.33 acre yard in the back. The neighbourhood, Ashley Green, was very warm and friendly. I have a wealth of wonderful memories taking long walks with Kavitha there. She was always interested in looking at other people's homes and how they had decorated their front yard. Sometimes, if the blindes were open, she would peek into their living rooms and admire the interior decoration. She would pick up home sale flyers to check on the market rate per square footage in our community and then make a quick mental calculation of what our home was worth. I would tell her that she must have been a Gujju in her previous birth.
In April 2005, Adarsh was born. Eight months later, Kavitha received her undergraduate degree at the University of Alabama with a magna-cum-laude and GPA of 3.86. When she started her first semester at UAH, I had predicted that it would take her minimum three years to finish her courses and that too without taking her pregnancy into account. She had performed way beyond my expectations and I was very thrilled.
For the next couple of years, I got busy at office working 12 hour days and sometimes even on weekends. Kavitha kept herself occupied taking care of Adarsh and preparing for her business school applications. She also volunteered at the Huntsville hospital. We would eat out once or twice a week. Our favorite eating place in Huntsville was a restaurant called "Nothing But Noodles". The food there had a very Indian flavor to it! Kavitha loved going for movies; especially Indian movies that would play once a month in Huntsville. We tried hard to sit through a few with Adarsh; but we learned the hard way that movie theaters are not the best hangouts for babies!
In May 2007, we moved to Frederick, Maryland and I started working on a new project in the home office. We lived in a one bedroom apartment located in a community called "The Manor at Willowdale". This was a major change for us coming from a four bedroom ranch home in Alabama. After countless give-aways to the thrift store we were finally able to fit our furniture in the apartment and also create a little bit of space for Adarsh to play. During weekends, Kavitha would love taking tours of new model homes in the area. She kept track of the asking rate in the area and I joked with her that she could soon enter into the real estate business. She dreamed about buying our next house once her MBA plans were finalized. During the next few months, Kavitha took the GMAT exam multiple times until finally she was satisfied with a score of 690. She applied to several leading B-schools including the University of Maryland, University of Virginia, Cornell University, University of North Carolina and Carnegie Melon University.
As luck would have had it, in Dec 2007 our work permits arrived and we also got pregnant with Sarika. As the saying goes, when it rains it pours! Kavitha was ecstatic and immediately started applying for jobs. I was more cautious and tried to reign her a bit. But after waiting for 5 years and being so close to achieving all her dreams she did not want to loose out on anything. In February 2008, she started working as a Sales Manager at Holiday Inn located in Alexandria, Virginia. The distance from our home to her work place was 60miles and it would take her an hour and a half each way in the rush hour traffic on interstate 270. To make matters worse, she was having morning sickness at the time. Yet she kept pushing herself and somehow kept going day after day. By April 2008, it was evident that the long commute was not practical. So she quit and initially agreed to be at home for the rest of the pregnancy. However a week after she quit, she got restless and started applying for jobs again.
In June 2008 she was at the end of her second trimester, when she found another position as a Sales Manager in Homewood Suites at Columbia, Maryland. This time, we decided to move within a mile from where she worked so that she would not have to commute. Columbia was a very beautiful township and we loved the townhome that we had rented. We found a wonderful family child-care for Adarsh. Kavitha was also very happy with her job. The staff at Homewood Suites were very friendly and respected her.
As for the MBA applications, she received an admit from the University of Maryland which she was able to convert to a part time program deferred to Fall 2009. Everything had fallen in place for Kavitha and only the sky was the limit.
It was in this atmosphere of joy and sense of achievement that we arrived at the hospital on the night of September 15th, 2008 ready to deliver our precious Sarika. Actually, that evening we were only going for her weekly doctor's checkup. We were caught by surprise when the doctor announced that she was already in labor. We were immediately asked to check into the hospital which was right next door. The hospital staff informed us that Adarsh would not be able to stay beyond 8:30pm. Kavitha hugged Adarsh with tears rolling down her cheeks. I could not understand why and assured her that he would be fine at the child-care. I left the hospital with Adarsh, dropped him at the child-care, packed some change of clothes and the cameras and returned to the hospital. By then, Kavitha was already assigned to a delivery room and was comfortably settled. She was still not feeling any of her contractions and it was only through the monitor that we knew she was in labor. I cannot remember exactly when she made this remark, but she suddenly said that she felt she was going to die. I quickly dismissed what she had said and told her that we couldn't have gotten it easier than this as she was not having any pain. While we waited in that hospital room, she started getting concerned about my dinner. I wasn't very keen to go out and eat. Being in labor she was was not allowed to eat and I felt guilty for not having similar restrictions. But she would not listen to my protests and forced me to get my dinner. I got into my car and drove around for about fifteen minutes and couldn't find any fast-food place that was open. In the end, I snacked on some candy, returned to the hospital room and lied to her that I had my meal. She felt satisfied while I was not very pleased for having left her side at such a time. Looking back, I can see how much she cared about me! She gave a yawn and said that she wanted to take a nap and told me to get some rest as well. I joked to her that she should wake me up when Sarika was delivered. I was still remembering how quickly and easily Adarsh was born and felt confident that this delivery would be similar. I fiddled around with the television set that was in the room and started watching a Friend's episode. Pretty soon, I was fast asleep as well. A few hours later just past midnight, I was awakened by Kavitha as she was feeling a sudden intense pain. The doctors came in and were trying to assess her situation when she suddenly collapsed. She never regained conciousness after that and passed away at approximately 9:00am on the morning of September 16, 2008.
Now, as I reflect about how she had held Adarsh that very last time and her remark in the hospital room, I realize there are forces at work that we all do not understand. Perhaps, she had a calling from the almighty and it was her time to go. She was undoubtedly gifted with an amazing sense of intuition. She was brave and committed to her family till the very end. I feel blessed to be her husband and I pray for the same in my next life if there such a thing. May her soul rest in peace!
