Remembering Dr Usha Nayar

My dear friend Usha died last year in February 2021. I heard about it only today, when I saw a message from her daughter Priya. A very nice website has been created for remembering Usha, her life and her work, where you can find many of her writings. While I process that she is no more, through this post I want to share some of my memories of her.

I had met Usha through an Italian friend, Dr Enrico Pupulin in 1996. At that time, Enrico was the head of the Disability and Rehabilitation (DAR) team at the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva. He was keen to conduct a multi-country research on implementing community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programmes in some urban slum communities. In CBR programmes, disabled persons themselves, family members, and local community persons are trained in providing support to children and adults with disabilities. Enrico wanted to see if this approach would work in the poor communities living in the slums.

Enrico had gathered some really committed persons from seven countries for this research, including Fr Alex Zanotelli from Nairobi, Kenya and Dr Eduardo Scannavino from Santarem, Brazil. Usha was also one of them. In those days days she was the professor of child and adolescent health at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai, and together with her husband Chandran, she was also the founder of a voluntary organisation called Smarth, which was active in some slum areas such as Bhiwandi and Dharavi areas in Mumbai. I was asked to coordinate that research project.

Over the next 10-12 years we met many times. In 1999, we were together in Brazil. In 2001, we all converged in Mumbai, when we visited the Bhiwandi and Dharavi areas. Not long after that visit to Mumbai, Usha told me that Chandran had been diagnosed with a cancer. In spite of all their efforts, he died some time later. That was a difficult period for their family.

In the following years, we kept on meeting on and off. Usha came to Italy for a couple of workshops. Then we were both involved in the organisation of an international workshop in Helsinki, Finland. Usha also did the compiling of responses for an international survey on disability and rehabilitation for the WHO. Her warmth, humility and humane approach made her an ideal colleague, who was appreciated and loved by everyone.

Some more years later, another difficult period for Usha came when some persons from their voluntary organisation accused her of improper use of the donors' funds. Though all the financial controls showed that the funds had been used properly and no evidence of any wrong-doing was found, it took a toll on her. Even more unfortunately, it led to a decline and then closure of that organisation which she had started with Chandran.

In August 2012, as she reached 65 years, she retired from TISS as a senior professor. Few days later, in September, she left India and came to the USA, where she started a new phase of life as a professor in the New York State University. It also meant that she could be closer to her daughter.

Once we were sitting together and talking, I don't remember in which country it was, when I had told her about some personal set-back which was worrying me at that time. Usha had told me, "Have faith in God, sometimes what you see as a set-back, can become an opportunity for a new direction in life." Then she had told me about an episode from her own life. She had completed her gradutation, post-graduation and PhD from Allahabad university and she was very keen to have a job in that university. "The job that I had wanted so much, it was not given to me, it was given to someone who had family ties to some big-wigs", she had said, "I was so disappointed, I felt that my life was over and I will not achieve anything in life. Some time later, there was an opportunity in TISS, I applied and was successful. If I had not had that set-back in Allahabad, I would not have had the good fortune to work in TISS. Only afterwards I understood that God works in different ways." I still remember those words.

Over the last couple of years, Usha had also become more active with Yoga and the teachings of Upanishads, which had long been my area of interest as well. We had sometimes exchanged messages through Facebook and I had told her that I looked forward to an opportunity for talking about spirituality with her.

Instead, destiny had other plans. In February 2021, she died a couple of days after receiving a Covid vaccine, but I never heard about it. A few months later, after the second dose of a Covid vaccine, even I developed a cardiac arrhythmia, which took a few months to improve. My doctor in Italy said that it was probably a coincidence and not due to the vaccine. Ever since the pandemic started, health sertvices have worsened and there is no way to know for sure. However, no one can deny that so many of our lives have been changed by that pandemic.

Dear Usha, perhaps one day we shall meet and have our discussion about spirituality on the other side and laugh about it. Goodbye my friend, I am glad that our paths crossed.