Friday, 22 May 2026
Priti & Shivanand·com
A keeping place
In remembrance of Shivanand · 1949 — 2026
A short biography

His life, in brief.

Shivanand was born in April 1949 in the spring of 1949, in a house that no longer stands. He was a teacher of mathematics for forty-one years, a husband for fifty-two, and a writer of small, careful pieces for as long as anyone can remember.

He read every morning. He walked every evening. He believed that the second cup of tea was the most important one, and that an unwritten sentence was a kind of debt.

A teacher, a reader, a maker of careful sentences. He kept notebooks the way some men keep gardens — patiently, and for no one in particular. This is a place to sit with what he wrote, and what he meant to us.

A timeline

1949
Born in Dharwad, the second of four brothers, in a house with a tin roof and an unreliable lemon tree.
1967
Took the train to Bombay with two suitcases, one of them mostly books.
1971
Completed his master's at the University of Bombay. Began teaching mathematics at Fergusson College, Pune.
1973
Married Preeti in Hubli, on a morning he later described as 'unreasonably blue'.
1976
Anil is born. The notebooks become more frequent, and more cheerful.
1987
The family moves to Bengaluru. He joins the Indian Institute of Science as a visiting lecturer, and stays for twenty-three years.
2002
Maya, his first grandchild, is born. He starts a notebook for her on the second day.
2010
Retires, technically. Continues to teach Saturday classes for free at the local library, until 2024.
2026
Dies peacefully at home, with the gulmohar in bloom.