Kavan

From OSWIKI

Height:	6'0"
Weight:	170 lbs.
Position:	Sculptor

Description

Kavan is the essence of an Indian man. He has black hair that he wears straight and to his shoulders. He has brown eyes and an intense stare. When he speaks his voice is melodic and carries an Indian accent. He wears a coiled cobra necklace around his neck and is 6'0 at 170 pounds. (Presence 2)

Background

Kavan Chavan had an easier life than most. His parents could afford a modest house and he was able to go to school. But the town he grew up in was not affluent. In fact it was very poor. Most people worked for the rock quarry and ironically that is where Kavan learned the most important things of his life.

As a child the rock quarry was a way of life. He played in the deep hole and explored the tiers of granite and feldspar. He was a quiet kid but always curious about anything anyone would teach him. He went to school in the afternoons and learned what was required but he picked up an early love for sculpting that was addictive. He also spent a lot of time in a local graveyard. The stone amazed him, and it was there he learned that he could hear spirits speak to him.

Around age 10, Kavan made his first sculpture when he saved enough money to buy a block of granite from the quarry. It was a small vase, hollowed out but little else. It was enough to make him want to try harder and over the next 5 years, Kavan taught himself how to chisel stone into art. He sold his works locally for just enough to buy new stone. In his “off” time he would meditate for hours in the stillness of the graveyard and carried on private communications with spirits.

One year around his 15th birthday, the ground shook when a giant sinkhole formed. It had been raining for days and days and the ground was saturated. Mud poured into the quarry in some places and opened up new stone in other places. But the village suffered. Houses were washed away, land was flooded, crops destroyed and even the school was ruined. The quarry was closed but Kavan continued to collect blocks of stone from it.

While the town was rebuilding Kavan was offered a job working with the gravestone engravers. He created ornate lettering chiseled into the rock and quickly became very popular. He also met a man who just seemed to appear one day and take up residence the next. Rakshak moved into the home of a family that was killed. People were suspicious of him but he worked some kind of magic on the whole town. People would suspect him one minute of something horrible and when he was around, suddenly they were friendly, nice, and honestly seemed to like him. But when he started to sculpt, Kavan was enthralled to him. His work was perfect and he made it seem effortless. He showed Kavan how to sculpt from his heart.

For five years, Kavan studied with him learning everything he could..Kavan didn’t think about it at the time, but Rakshak never seemed to age a single day and his skill with stone for a 25 year old man was exceptional to say the least. He spent more and more time with Rakshak charmed by his skill and his simple ways. The more time Kavan spent with him the more he learned about a different kind of spiritual essence. Vishnu seemed to reveal the very fabric of creation to him through Rakshak’s teachings and it formed inspiration for Kavan’s sculptures. He carved gods, iconic symbols and representations of the cosmos. Each year he got better and better. The spirits still talked to him when he called on them but they asked him for things that were hard to accomplish although he did try. When he told Rakshak about it, Rakshak seemed to take in stride offering bits of advice on how to placate the spirits without compromising himself. Rakshak taught him to meditate into deeper trances than he had ever known before. Rakshak moved on but before he left, he gave Kavan a contact in Deli; it was a man who sold sculpture to rich clients.

Kavan arranged for some of his works to be transported to Deli and moved there a year later. He moved to the city. It was miserable and although his work was good, it was hard to sell. The contact was gone by the time he got there and with no name, it was hard to get work. He did every job he could think of to earn just enough to eat. He came close to starving on more than one occasion. That all changed when he met Baijanti.

Baijanti was a woman who saw one of his sculptures and fell in love with it. She bought it and introduced him to her uncle. Her uncle was a wealthy banker who had visions of creating his own special tomb. He contracted Kavan to build it out of marble and other stones. The project changed his life again. The man paid him a small fortune to sculpt a façade, an ornate entry way and a statues and reliefs on the inside of the crypt. For three years he worked and worked and worked on it and also spent days with Baijanti. By the end of the first year he was hopelessly in love with her. By the end of the second year, he asked her to marry her, but he wasn’t considered good enough for her. It killed him inside, but he remained until the project was done. He collected the last of his payments and moved out of the country to Malayasia determined to make enough to make her family take him seriously.

In Malayasia he poured his energy, hurt and frustration into his work. It took on a fierce look with bold angles. He was discovered by an English importer and by contract he sculpted works by special order and shipped them to England.. But he was miserable and thought daily about Baijanti. When he thought he had enough money to make her family change their minds, he traveled back to India and arrived on the doorstep of the family. In horror he listened to them tell the story of her death at the hands of her new husband. She made him angry and he burned her death.

Kavan fell into a melancholy. He called on the spirits and asked them to help find her, but Baijanti was not with them. He spent night drinking in India to drown the pain and on one of these nights he met up with Rakshak again. He poured out his story questioning the gods and vowed to dedicate his life to finding her again. (He was sure she would be re-incarnated).

Rakshak suggested something else entirely. He brought Kavan to a special place. He asked Kavan to accompany him on a spiritual journey. Kavan accepted. It seemed that he didn’t have anything else to do now and welcomed the company of his old teacher, (removed) Kavan was fascinated and the ache for Baijanti faded just a little. (removed)

Rakshak kept Kavan with him for years after that. He continued to teach him and by the time he was done, a full 9 years had passed. They now made the long trip back to India. Kavan’s investments (with the money he had made selling his art) had done very well. He returned to sculpting and then made his way through Europe.

(removed) Still, he lived simple and didn’t call attention to himself. He visited the great stone carvings of Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Egypt. He went to Greece and studied the temples and statues in museums and along the way thought about what he wanted to do next.

In the end he went back to India and paid for a new birth certificate from an organization that specialized in such things. It took some time for him to get all his documents, but eventually he made the switch changing his last name to Shama. He kept the middle name Kavan. With his legal documents fixed, he began to have thoughts of his Baijanti and where she might be He set his sights on the US remembering conversations they had about going there and how she sure that would some day. It may have been wishful thinking but he bought a ticket to New York City.

He arrived in New York but lived in New Jersey until he could find an apartment and (removed) He was allowed to stay when he took a job as a specialty stone cutter for a construction company. His visa was renewed the following year, and a year after that he applied for US citizenship.

He now lives in Brooklyn in a small one room apartment on a lower level with access to a large garage turned into a studio.