Colonial Funerals Obituaries

Swaminathan Sundaram

7 April 1928 ---- 30 August 2016

Swaminathan Sundaram, formerly of Herndon, VA, breathed his last in Danbury, CT on 30 August, 2016, after a long battle with dementia. He was born 7 April 1928 in Jamshedpur, Bihar (now Jharkand), India; the third son and fifth child of P. Swaminathan and Bhagyalakshmi. He leaves his devoted family: wife Nirmala of 59 years, daughter Sheila and son-in-law Erik Altman, son Krishna Nathan and daughter-in-law Michèle Briançon, and five beloved and adoring grandchildren, Benjamin and Priyanka Altman, and Neel, India and Maya Nathan. He had a long and peripatetic career with the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), and later worked at Comsat (now part of Lockheed Martin). After his last diplomatic assignment with the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1980 he retired and settled in Falls Church and later moved to Herndon, VA, where he lived for almost 25 years. Mr. Sundaram was predeceased by three brothers and three sisters. He leaves two younger sisters, and many nieces, nephews and cousins who remember his generosity and affection over the years with gratitude. He spent much of his life supporting his relatives in India, putting dozens of nieces and nephews through school and college. Unconditional love for family and loyalty to friends were his defining traits. He forgave easily and was never one to hold a grudge. It was not uncommon for him to spend days tracking down a long-lost childhood friend in some remote corner of India. Mr. Sundaram was a self-taught man who worked his way up from abject poverty to become a high-ranking diplomat in the Ministry of External Affairs, including the post of Deputy Chief of Protocol and others, in which he routinely shook hands and chatted with heads of state such as Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Pope Paul VI and King Hassan II of Morocco. His flair for writing was evident in the regular correspondence he kept with friends and relatives; he quoted easily from P.G. Wodehouse, Somerset Maugham, G.K. Chesterton, Byron and Shelley. He had a deep appreciation of Hindi and Urdu poetry as well. After his retirement from the IFS, his hobbies included continually improving his dream house in Herndon, and becoming an avid long-distance runner well into his seventies. Mr. Sundaram loved to travel, and would reminisce fondly about his postings in Pakistan, America, China, Italy, Malaysia and Morocco. Even with failing eyesight he could place his finger with unerring accuracy on Vladivostok, a speck on a world map. In his last months, his dementia not withstanding, he could still speak three languages, reproduce the drawing in Euclid's proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, and exhibit his trademark sense of humour. He will be missed.