April 24, 1967 – July 24, 2024
Ganesh Shroff Nayak, “Ganchu”, “G”, passed away peacefully at his home on July 24, 2024. He was 57 years old. Born in Coimbatore, India, to Keshav and Nalini Nayak, Ganesh was the youngest of four brothers. The elder three – Ramesh, Dinesh, and Raju – were loud and naughty, never to be seen at home while Ganesh was mild-mannered, buried in his books, and his Amma’s favorite, just as Amma was his favorite. A running joke in the family goes: the start of school after summer break sees a flood of tears, one from teachers crying at Raju’s return and another from Ganesh crying at his own return, forced away from his Amma’s side.
Ganesh carefully harnessed his interests in the literary and the intellectual. He spoke in detail and with joy about literature, poetry, art, hindustani classical music, test cricket, history, culture, and politics. His insights deep and at times quirky, his opinions critical but compassionate. He found hilarious the eccentricities of Indian English (one of the many that cracked him up was how Indians convey their age: “I’m running 79”), while also intricately connecting words across the many languages he spoke (Konkani, English, Tamil, Hindi) to serve his punny humour, received mostly with giggles, sometimes with eye rolls, always with affection, an audience charmed by his warmth and enthusiasm. These qualities were best expressed and experienced across a table, over beer and Konkani or Chinese food – his favorites.
Ganesh’s was a life of the mind and also that of experience. He treasured his long hikes and cross-country drives, instinctively, choosing paths less travelled. One such path, in the deep recesses of the Grand Canyon, nearly led to bears crashing his and Sitara’s tent. Ganesh and Sitara were the model couple. They made 25 years of marital life look effortless. They deeply understood each other because, as with the best relationships, they completed each other. Yet, each would periodically unsettle those understandings. On their 23rd anniversary, Ganesh, a dancer he positively was not, took overnight dance lessons from his nieces and nephews, and conjured up a heartfelt if dramatic performance for Sitara and his in-laws.
Long walks were also Ganesh’s excuse to hang out with Ishan, a weekly staple of father-son time around the neighborhood and the forests of Atlanta. Ganesh’s language of love had always been faux-violent, but it was for Ishan that he reserved its greatest intensity. An excitable glance at Ishan, followed by a tight squeeze of his cheeks, and a loud exclamatory question: “how do you nice call dada?” Ishan had perfected his response: “Dada” in the exact pitch and modulation that melted his dada into a loud shriek.
Ganesh’s popularity among his friends was plain to see. Fellow members of his Facebook crossword community quickly became close friends, even as his ties with his school and college friends grew stronger. Ganesh loved to play host, going out of his way to show the places he lived and loved, engineering a fine balance between authenticity and comfort. Conversely, experiencing new places with Ganesh was an education in design and architecture, his chosen profession, about how space and material negotiate environment to make our world what it is, and whom that world chooses to include and exclude.
Ganesh will be sorely missed and is survived by his wife Sitara and son Ishan Nayak; his mother Nalini Nayak and mother-in-law Hema Pai; his brothers Dinesh and Rajesh Nayak, and brother-in-law Vivek Pai; his sisters-in-law Veena and Sagarika Nayak, and Kavitha Pai; his nieces and nephews Neytra, Nayantara, Amrith, and Nakul Nayak, and Mahika and Ketana Pai; and many lifelong friends. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Parent to Parent of Georgia, in loving memory of Ganesh Nayak.
