R.Viswanathan

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"Passionate about Latin America"

 

 

Professional Information

-Ambassador of India to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay since 10 october 2007.

-Head of the Latin America and Caribbean Division in the Ministry of External Affairs in India from 2004 to 2007.

- Head of Investment and Trade Promotion Division in the Ministry 2003-2004

-Ambassador to Venezuela in 2000-2003.

-Consul General of India in Sao Paulo from 1996 to 2000

-Previous postings include New York ( mission to the United Nations), Mauritius, Libya, Pakistan and Portugal.

-Specialising in Latin America since 1996

-Written a number of articles on Latin America which have been published in newspapers,magazines and business journals of India, Latin America and USA

-given lectures on Latin America in Chambers of Commerce, Thinktanks and Universities in the various cities of India and in Latin America.

-Speak spanish, portuguese and portuñol, the language of Mercosur.

-published the following:

 

- Guide for business with Brazil January 1997

-A market study of Mercosur - June 1997

-Business with Venezuela - January 2001

- Business with Andean Community - April 2001

- Business with Latin America - February 2003

- Second edition of Business with Latin America- Feb 2005

-Business with Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay - January 2009

-Business with Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay third edition- January 2010

 

Why am I so passionate ...?

  • enjoy samba and salsa, football and carnaval, tequila and caipirinha, copacabana and ipanema, cafezinho and cafecito, bossanova and boleros.. tango and malbec.

  • read Latin American fiction, poems, biographies, autobiographies and books on history,politics, economics, business and culture of Latin America. My favourite authors are: Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, Alvaro Mutis, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Amado, Octavio Paz and Laura Restrepo.

  • read some books of Argentine authors Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar and Luisa Valenzuela and found their works as complex and as puzzling as the Argentine society. I have started liking contemporary authors such as Tomas Eloy Martinez, Jorge Fernandez Diaz and Gloria Lise

  • love latino music. favourite singers and bands are: Reik, Cristian Castro, Luis Fonsi, Selena, Gal Costa,Celia Cruz, Roberta Miranda, Alexandro Pires, Marco Antonio Solis, Gloria Estefan, Alex Ubago, Chayanne, Juan Luis Guerra, Juanes, Jesse y Joy, and Celia Cruz.

  • favourite Argentine singers: Diego Torres ( color esperanza - favourite song ), Axel Fernando ( celebra la vida), Leo Garcia (reirme mas ), Marcela Morelo ( luz del cielo ) and Los Autenticos Decadentes group (Un osito de peluche de Taiwan)
  • fan of Messi and Boca Juniors and also Brazilian national team
  • favourite Latin American films: Frida, Su Excellencia, ( both mexican) Embajador de la India, La libertadora del Libertador, Yo soy Bolivar ( all three colombian)Capitan Pantoja y las visitadoras( peruvian) , Los voces inocentes ( El Salvador) , Bossa Nova ( Brazil)
  • favourite Argentine films : El mismo amor La mismalluvia, Diario de un motorciclista, Hunabku, el secreto de sus ojos, historia oficial,
  • Latin American heroes : Simon Bolivar and Che Guevara
  • I have visited all the Latin American countries except Haiti.
  • enjoy travel, reading, music, golf, skiing, tennis, ping pong and bridge
 

Blogs

Website

Youtube

Picassa foto album

Twitter

Facebook

  • Rengaraj Viswanathan
Contact

 

 

 

Golf

golf enthusiast. played in many courses in Latin America. Played in almost all the golf courses in Brazil and Venezuela.

In Argentina played in the following courses:

Buenos Aires

1. Jockey Club Argentino 8. Hindu Club 15. Mayling Club de Campo 22. Golf Club de José Jurado 29. Los Largartos 36. Lobos Golf Club
2. Martindale 9. CUBA (Club Universitario de Buenos Aires) 16. Club Argentino 23. San Diego 30. La Colina  
3. Las praderas de Luján 10. Pilar Golf Club 17. San Isidro 24. San Andrés 31. Newman  
4. Club Atlético Lomas 11. Club Hebraica 18. Nordelta 25. Pacheco Golf Club 32. Estudiantes de La Plata Golf Club  
5. Buenos Aires Golf Club 12. Estancia Pilar 19. Campo Municipal 26. San Diego 33. Abril Country Club  
6. Hurlingham Club 13. Club Náutico 20. Los Pinguinos 27. San Eliseo Golf & Country Club 34. El Nacional Club de Campo  
7. Ranelagh Golf Club 14. Highland Park 21. Tortugas Country Club 28. Olivos Golf Club 35. General San Martin Golf Club  
           

 

Other cities

1. Llao Llao Golf Club Bariloche 7. Los acantilados, Mar del Plata 13. Amancay Golf Club, San Juan 19. Salta Polo Club
2. Arelauquen Golf & Country Club 8. Potrerillos, Córdoba 14. Jockey Club, Tucumán 20. Tandil Golf Club
3. Chapelco 9. La Cumbre Golf Club, Córdoba 15. Thermas Golf Club, Rosario de la Frontera 21. Valle de Tandil Golf Club
4. Rosario Golf Club 10. Villa Allende, Córdoba 16. Rio Cuarto Golf Club  
5. Mar del Plata, Playa Grande 11. Cariló Golf Club 17. Club de Campos - Mendoza  
6. San Luis Golf Club 12. Pinamar Golf Links 18. Salta Jockey Club  

 

 

The Second edition of Business with Latin America was launched at the night club " Just my kind of place" at Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi on 7 Feb 2005. The event was cosponsored by EximBank and CII. The chief guests were Minister of State for External Affairs Rao Inderjit Singh and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran. There was a Salsa party with a Venezuelan DJ and latino drinks like Mojito and Tequila and Chilean wine. foto of launching ceremony below

  • My website www.businesswithlatinamerica.com was launched at the night club " F Bar" in New Delhi , cosponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry( CII ) and the Export Import bank of India ( Eximbank) on 26 August 2005. The chief guest was Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs. The Salsa party which followed the launch was attended by 280 people. A cuban Salsa band " Waikiki" played live salsa music.

 

personal...

  • I belong to nowhere.. a floating weed... at home in any new place, golf course, airport, bar, taxi and cafeteria. The most exciting place for me is the departure lounge of airports.... Since 1972, I have never lived in any place for more than three years. Exception Sao Paulo where I stayed for four years and four months and still longed for longer...

  • I was born in Alangudi Mahajanam, a village 30 km from Trichy in Tamilnadu. But since the age of four, I was brought up by my uncle in Raramuthiraikottai, another village 12 km from Thanjavur. I did my elementary school in Raramuthiraikottai and higher elementary school in Mariammankovil. It was my good luck that the school got upgraded to High School and I was in the first batch from ninth to eleventh standard. After the Tamil medium schooling, I got lost in the English medium , when I joined Poondi Pushpam college, where I did a degree in Chemistry. From sixth standard till I finished B.Sc, I walked to the school and the college which were three kilometres from my village. That was what all my classmates also did. Then I was liberated from the rural stranglehold when I got lucky to do postgraduation in Pachaiyappa´s college in the big city of Chennai. I worked as chemistry lecturer ( the designation was Demonstrator..) for one year at Bishop Heber College, Trichy and two years at Pachiyappa´s college, Chennai. I loved teaching. The satisfaction was instant... visible in the glint of the eyes of the students. But the salary of 500- 600 Rupees a month lasted only for a fortnnight. I was looking for a better job, when a friend advised me to take the civil service exam ... oops I got lucky. I was selected in the written test and was called for interview in Delhi. The first thing I did was sightseeing of the city and Tajmahal. I was not sure if I would come again on the 2500 km train journey. I was overwhelmed by the Capital city and the people from the north, who could not make out whether I was saying yes or no when I shook my head all the time.... I was thrilled when I passed the interview. After this I met an IAS officer for the first time in my life. She had one look at me and said that a country bumpkin ( kabaadi was the only game I had played till I got my first job) like me would not fit in the high-flying world of diplomacy. I took my time to adapt myself. Now I feel at home in the conference hall of the United Nations as well as in the dirt streets of my village.

Here is an article I wrote for my Poondi college magazine in 2006, which gives a glimpse of my journey

 

From Poondi to Punta Arenas and Malgudi to Maconde

 

            Punta Arenas in Chile is the southern-most city in the world close to Antarctica.  I was there in April 2005 with a delegation. When I was cruising in the Magellan straits, reflecting on its maritime history, a thought struck me about my own. How did I reach Punta Arenas and from where ? How did a poor country kid reach the farthest part of the world!. The answer was Poondi Pushpam College. It  proved to be my magic carpet. Not having travelled beyond Trichy and Thanjavur until the age of twenty, I had dreamt of non-stop journey to the farthest corners of the world.  That  dream for distant destinations materialised because the Pushpam college was so near. If there was no college in Poondi, I would not have become a globe-trotting diplomat, visiting exotic places like Punta Arenas. 

            Another trip which made me to look back at my root was the trip upstream in the river Orinoco to Colombia in the Amazon region in 2003. It was like a journey from ‘Malgudi’ to ‘Maconde’.  R.K Narayan’s imaginary Indian town of Malgudi embodies  the value system of  simple folk pursuing traditional life.  My place of birth, Alangudi Mahajanam, is close to Lalgudi, which is almost like Malgudi. On the other hand, Maconde is the mythical town in the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by the  Colombian Nobel-laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  The spirit of Maconde is ‘Magical realism’, the literary genre, popular in Latin America.  Malgudi and Maconde are contrasting in cultures.  Salsa and Samba, Carnival and Football, Beaches and Bikinis, fun and enjoyment are Latin American cultural manifestations. In contrast, Malgudi culture is simple living and self-denial of comfort, enjoyment and wealth.  While the old Indian renounces life and looks at Kasi or the Himalayas as his next and final destination, the Latin American does not give up. He sings

            “We don’t stop having fun when we grow old
             We grow old only when we stop having fun.”

             Latin America has become my passion.  I feel at home in the beaches of Copacabana and bars of Ipanema. I am fascinated by the Latin American literature and culture. I follow avidly the political and economic developments of the region. I express my emotions and feelings spontaneously in Spanish and Portuguese. Brazil beckons me, (in Portuguese)

        Amor da minha vida, luz de meu querer
         Vem..vem fica comigo
         Sou quem sou ... so por voce
Means
       Love of my life, light of love
       Come.. come to be  with me
       I am what I am … just for you

The loud  Latin America murmurs softly in the ears of this quiet and introspective Indian,

       Quisera oir tu silencio
       Quisera callar mis palabras

This poem (Spanish) means
         I want to listen to your silence
         I wish to silence my words

Every time I visit Raramuthiraikottai, the village three kiolmeters west of Poondi, I heave a sigh of relief.  In this village, where I spent my life from the age of four to twenty, most of  my schoolmates are still mired in poverty struggling with subsistent agriculture. I was lucky to escape and join the diplomatic glitterati and move seamlessly between the  worlds of “Cheers!” and “Your Excellency”

My uncle who brought me up did not believe that education would lead to a viable livelihood. He would, therefore, ask me to stop the studies at the beginning of every summer holidays of school. I managed to finish the schooling in the Government Higher Secondary School in Mariammankovil. After this, my uncle put his foot down and said with a finality in his voice, “ Enough of your studies. We cannot afford to send you to college. Get ready to look after the land and cattle”  That is when, Poondi College came to my rescue. I told him that the college was just three kms from the village. I promised to him that I would do the  farm work in the morning and during weekend. I convinced him that the amount of  scholarship I would get with my high marks would be more than the college fees. Reluctantly, he agreed. And my escape thereafter, was unstoppable.

If  there was no college in Poondi, I would have still  been  cutting grass for the cattle on the side of the railroad, waving to to the passengers of Thanjavur and Nagore train.I was reminded of my grass cutting work in a rather jealous way, when I found in Brazil that each cow has eight hectares of land to graze in this large and lucky country.  Reference to cows leads me to another incident. A Brazilian friend pulled my leg in a Steak restaurant saying that I was not to touch beef as a Hindu. I told him he was perfectly right since the Indian cows are sacred, but the Brasilian cows are not.   

 I am delighted to see that the  college has grown bigger and added more courses and has started  giving opportunities even for girls. My greatest thrill now is to see my niece Anita from the same village going to the same college. If not for this college, her mother would not have  allowed her to go to distant places. The only difference between me and my niece is that I had to walk to the college while she has the luxury of going by cycle. But walking proved to be a blessing for me. I could review my lessons twice a day during the walk to the college and back.

The second advantage of the college was that since many students were from similar rural background  and from Tamil medium schools, I was in the comfort zone. Later when I went to Chennai for higher studies and Delhi for joining the Foreign Service I was intimidated by the high-flying rich kids with Don Bosco and Doon School accents.  It took a while for me to overcome this challenge, regain confidence and eventually beat many of them in show as well as substance. I was more hungry to catch up and prove myself.

I take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to the founders of the college and the visionary Thiru Tulasi Ayya Vandayar, with whom I had the opportunity to interact and get inspired a few times. I am also grateful to the faculty of the college and especially Chemistry professor Srinivasan and Tamil professor Kannaiyan, who inspired me to aspire.

My best wishes for the success of the college and its noble role as the hope and promise for the rural youth around Poondi.