Srinivasan "Srini" Seshadri

To watch the celebration of life online, click the link below at 11:00 AM Sunday: https://webcast.funeralvue.com/events/viewer/69131
Srinivasan Seshadri passed away on Thursday, February 10th, 2022, in Mt. Dora, Florida, after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 63 years old, and is survived by his wife Hema, his children Anjali and Mohan, his parents Komala and S. Seshadri, and his siblings Chitra, Raghu, and Viji.
Born on September 7th, 1958, in Madurai, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Srinivasan - known to most as Srini and to his extended family as Membi or Mano - grew up in South India and Kuwait, the youngest of four children. His siblings recall him to be a mischievous child with boundless energy, who would rather play sports or get into trouble than read a book or sit quietly. He received his B.E. in Chemical Engineering at BITS Pilani in Rajasthan, India, where he formed deep bonds with his classmates that would last him the rest of his life. At the age of 21 he immigrated to the United States to receive his Master's in Chemical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he met the love of his life, Hema Ramaswamy. He went on to receive his MBA at the University of Rochester in New York, before marrying Hema in 1985 and moving to Brookfield, WI to begin a long and extraordinarily successful career, eventually rising to be General Manager of GE Healthcare and then President of Smiths Medical. His former colleagues recall him to be an exceptionally people-centered leader who cared first and foremost about his team and mentored countless employees, all while demonstrating a towering intellect, an ardent work ethic, and a never-ending commitment to make everyone around him laugh as much and as hard as possible.
In his personal life, Srini displayed somewhere between avid interest and vocal obsession with many things, including: the Liverpool Football Club; cricket; music from all over the world, but especially Carnatic music, ghazals and other shayari, and the works of Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, the Doors, the Kinks, and the Beatles (he referred to George Harrison as "apna George" for the musician's embrace of Indian and Hindu culture); and putting an immense amount of spice in everything he ate (he famously considered pizza "a substrate for crushed red pepper"). He was also an active water polo player as a young man, advancing to Nationals in college.
Later in life - especially closer to and following his retirement in 2014 - he developed a passion for community service and social justice, volunteering as a fundraiser for the ACLU of Wisconsin and the Twin Cities Red Cross, as well as being an active donor and supporter to progressive and Democratic political campaigns, basebuilding organizations in communities of color, civil rights and legal aid nonprofits, bail funds, and animal sanctuaries. His friends (and family, and anyone who ever had the pleasure of his company) might recall his outspokenness on anything he saw as unjust - and frankly anything he had an opinion on, and he had an opinion on everything - but he walked the walk and backed up his words with deeds. Among both his family and his many friends around the world, he will especially be remembered for his humor, his dedication, and the passion he brought to everyone and everything he loved and cared about, whether it was his wife and children, the fight for civil rights and against police brutality, how his team was doing in the English Premier League, his daughter's dog Laila (who he referred to as his granddog), or his and Hema's cockatiels Goofy and Baby.
A service will be held on Sunday, February 13th, at 11AM Eastern, at Hamlin and Hilbish Funeral Home, with a livestream available for those who wish to take part. Per Srini's wishes, his ashes will be scattered at Anfield (Liverpool Football Club's stadium) and in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, where (as Srini was so fond of reminding everyone) humanity first evolved. In lieu of flowers or other tokens of goodwill, Srini's family is requesting well-wishers to donate to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Hema, Anjali, and Mohan would also like to express their deep gratitude to Srini's hospice caregivers and nurses Christel, Patricia, and Emily, who were an immense source of support not just to him but to his family over the last year. Srini was a man of extraordinary nuance, complication, and depth - a singular, larger than life figure - and so it has been a struggle to find any one quote, lyric, or saying that could come anywhere close to encapsulating even an epsilon of who he was as a person. Fortunately, his many Whatsapp messages on the topic have provided a guidepost, and so we end on a song that first brought meaning and joy to Srini's life at the age of 13, and which he carried in his heart ever since.
When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of a storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark
Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone
Donation links:
? Sheldrick Wildlife Trust: https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/donate
? UNRWA: https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page/en_EN
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