Shirish Patel, Renaissance Man

There is and will be plenty written about Shirish Patel's achievements, his awards, his writing, his talks, the mark he left on this city he knew and understood so well.

I know much of that, certainly. All of it speaks of the man he was, and what he meant to so many.

Dilip D'Souza pays tribute to Shirish Patel, the legendary urban planner who passed into the ages last week.

In my 13 years writing software for and with Shirish Patel, one moment stands out. Well, many stand out, but this one, I particularly remember.

For weeks and months, we had been working hard on a software package for civil engineers. It would analyse the cost prices of raw materials and labour for a proposed project. Then it would help draw up a tender document with which a firm could bid for the work. This may sound dull, but believe me, it was a challenging, satisfying task.

But I messed up twice, and in the same way. I was busy with my part of the software one day, when for some reason my computer crashed -- meaning, it stopped working. We all knew of best practices in writing software, prime among which was the need to save your work regularly, and keep backups. Being lazy, I hadn't done either systematically. So I lost several weeks of work.

When I moaned to Shirish, he said, simply, "Just write it again."

Which I did. But some months later, my computer crashed again. To my chagrin, and despite the earlier fiasco, I had again not been saving my files regularly, not been backing up my code. Once again, I lost several weeks of work.

I moaned to Shirish again. This time, I added my doubts: How could I be of any use to his effort if I had twice set us back like this? Shouldn't I just quit? This time, he was visibly annoyed -- but not because I had goofed badly this second time. "Stop complaining, first of all!" he said sharply. "How does that help anyone? Just go back and write it again!"

Which I did, again. But I learned some important things about Shirish. We were less boss and employee by now, more just good friends. But that didn't mean he couldn't be sharp with me when I needed it. He made it clear: He had no use for my self-indulgent moaning. But he also made it clear: He valued my work. His scolding startled me, yes. But after a while, I understood that it was actually a sign of his respect for me. That mattered.

A man like that, I could go to almost any lengths for, in how I worked. Which is also why I so often was at the office till late at night, tapping away at those keys. It was worth my time, my effort.

Though honestly, Shirish wasn't paying me very much to work for him. Before joining him, for example, a larger software firm offered me a position at twice the salary. But here's the thing: It wasn't the money, with Shirish. It was him. It was the chance to work with him. It was what I knew it would do for me. And oddly, that was the fully-formed shape of the impression of him I had first formed in my teenage years.

That was when I first got to know Shirish, as a colleague and friend of my father's. He lived nearby, and so we often visited. Even then, I was struck by the range of books in that home -- from the Tintin series to economics, from philosophy to painting, from classic novels to astronomy. There was art on the walls, some even hanging from the ceiling.

My daughter, a fine arts student today, has always been fascinated by the large fish that hangs near Shirish's front door to this day. "Are we going to the fish-house?" she'd ask in her younger days.

My point is that over many years, I grew to admire and marvel at this man's wide interests, his passions, his innovative thinking, his dogged approach to solving problems. Late in life, for example, he built himself a tank, there at home. He filled it with water and for an hour or so every day, he'd stand in it and walk on a treadmill, reading a book all the while. The walking, because he needed that extra resistance that water offers. The reading, because why waste that hour?

And if I admired these things about him, I was intrigued and delighted when he asked me to come work for him. The hell with larger salaries at larger software companies! Nothing could compare, I knew even before starting, to working with Shirish.

So it proved, for the next 13 years -- the longest I ever held a job. We'd discuss software, of course. But we also chatted about civil engineering, his profession. We talked mathematics, politics, law, writing, astronomy, fiction, language, music, our families ... at times, there was no sense in which I thought of my time there as work. Because, well, it wasn't work. It was a steady broadening of my mind and spirit, with this remarkable man as my mentor.

There is and will be plenty written about Shirish's achievements, his awards, his writing, his talks, the mark he left on this city he knew and understood so well. I know much of that, certainly. All of it speaks of the man he was, and what he meant to so many.

For me, though? Well, there's a part of me that I owe forever to those 13 years 'working' with Shirish. It's a part I cherish. This is a man, a bond, a friend, I cherish.

So go well, Shirish. And as you do, know that you're really not gone.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com