Malaipatty R. Rangaswami

Beloved father, grandfather, great grandfather and uncle, Malaipatty Ramaswami Rangaswami (M.R.) passed away on April 5, 2025, with family and love by his side. M.R. was the first of his family to emigrate to the U.S., and will be remembered both for his courage in taking that first step and for his tenacity in overcoming the challenges he faced.

M.R. was born in colonial India on June 8, 1934, the youngest of 8 children. Among his favorite childhood memories was running alongside older freedom fighters marching for Indian independence while yelling “Down with Union Jack.”

M.R.’s father (Ramaswamy) was a farmer who fell upon hard times when M.R. was very young. In his later years, M.R. would recount how his adored mother, Lakshmi (his daughter’s namesake), sacrificed to ensure he could continue his schooling. None of his siblings attended college, but they collectively decided that they would find a way for their baby brother to be the first to do so.

M.R. attended P.S.G. College of Technology, graduating in 1957 with a degree in civil engineering. After a few years working in India, his drive to make his family proud led him abroad.

So, notwithstanding the protests of his youth, he capitalized on being a subject of the British Empire, which allowed him to emigrate to London to study and work. His siblings pooled resources to surprise him with proper suits, and in 1961, he set off on a brand-new Boeing 707, which led to his lifelong love of the 707 (and later the 747).

His initial months in London were hard, as he failed a qualifying exam which would have helped support him while studying at Hammersmith College. He often recounted how he felt he let his family down during that period. But, as he often did throughout his life, he persevered, finding a series of architectural draftsman gigs. Those roles supported him until he secured his first job as an architect, which enabled him to send money back home, save, and also enjoy rocking 1960s London a bit. (He was a fan of the Beatles, and his kids fondly remember spending endless Sunday mornings watching reruns of Hard Days Night and Help! with him while their parents made their Sunday breakfast of dosa and chicken curry.)

In 1965, he was planning to resettle in India, but while still in London, applied on a whim to a job posting for an architectural firm in Burlington, Vermont, which, much to his surprise, he got. He had to go back to India and stay for 3 months to obtain a U.S. visa. It seemed like an annoyance at the time but turned out to be fate. While waiting for his visa, mutual friends introduced him to Dr. Ranganayaki Subbiah, a tiny, beautiful, intense doctor who was neither interested in marrying nor ever leaving her family and medical practice in India. In a testament to his charisma and charm, they were married on March 24, 1966, and were a few weeks away from celebrating their 50th anniversary when she died in 2016.

The couple soon flew to Vermont (M.R.’s third trip on a 707!) in the fall of 1966, just as a telegram was arriving in India from the firm in Vermont indicating they had to rescind the offer. But America in the 1960s was a welcoming place for this immigrant couple, and when the hiring manager saw him show up for what should have been his first day, he said “Well, you are here, so let’s get to work anyway.” M.R. recounted his time in Vermont fondly – strangers befriended the handsome architect and quiet woman in a sari, showing them how to set up an account at Sears and rent an apartment, even with little money to their name. The couple later moved to Albany, New York before finally settling and raising their family in Louisville, Kentucky.

While M.R. loved architecture and was a prolific doodler, it never led to the financial success he wanted, so he dabbled in numerous other explicable and inexplicable ventures, including opening the first Chinese restaurant in Southern Indiana in the mid-1970s, real estate development, and investing; through a combination of hard work and the patient support of his wife, he knitted together a successful life from these disparate threads. He imbued in his children the drive to succeed, and also, as his siblings had done for him, created the conditions for them to succeed through the gift of education. In his later years, he was active in establishing and volunteering at the Hindu Temple of Kentucky, and in the local Sai prayer group, where he was universally known to all as “Thatha” or grandfather. In 2009, M.R. and his wife embarked on their next great adventure to Washington, D.C., to spend time with their ever-growing collection of grandchildren.

M.R. will be missed by his son Bala Chandar (Regina) and daughter Vijaya Lakshmi (Atul Pathiyal), six grandchildren (Vijaya (Matt Lang), Adya (Bobby Soto), and Deven Rangaswami, and Arjun, Ashwin, and Aditya Pathiyal), great grandchild (George Kavi), his sister-in-law (Mangayama), beloved nieces, nephews and their children, including Shanthi Alagirisamy, Alargirisamy Ayyalusamy and their son, Vijay Alagirisamy, and the angels Sonia Legore and Alejandra Ruiz, both of whom made it possible for Thatha and Avva to live their final years at home with family. He will also be missed by the family cats, especially Caramel.

Services will be held on Saturday, April 12, at 11:00 a.m. at Joseph Gawler’s Sons in Washington, D.C. 5130 Wisconsin Avenue NW and can be livestreamed under M.R.’s page on Joseph Gawler’s Sons website. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, in memory of M.R. Rangaswami.