Vartika Vikram Marshall

Vartika Vikram Marshall, 41, of Charleston, South Carolina, died of a cardiac arrest in her home Wednesday night while suffering through a miscarriage. The family will receive friends at a viewing Friday, November 22, at J. Henry Stuhr, Inc., West Ashley Chapel, 3360 Glenn McConnell Parkway, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Her funeral service will be held at 10:00 a.m. the following day, Saturday, November 23, in St. Philip’s Church, 142 Church St. Burial will follow at Magnolia Cemetery, with a reception afterwards at the St. Philip’s Church parish hall. Everyone is welcome to all parts.

Vartika was born December 5, 1982, in Lucknow, India, to Pankaj and Sujata Kumar. She grew up in Delhi and Bombay, the city she loved most in her native country. She earned her B.A. at National Institute of Fashion Technology in Gandhinagar, worked at Lee Jeans in Bangalore and GTN Textiles in Bombay, then moved to the U.S. in 2006 to take a second degree in fashion design at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. After interning at Zac Posen and Kal Rieman in New York City, she moved to Charleston, where she married her husband, Wallace, and worked with several local designers and taught fashion design at the The Art Institute of Charleston until becoming a full-time homemaker as her family grew. 

Vartika was immensely talented. Her designs, whether of clothing, art or home interiors, always expressed beauty and elegance. She was an extraordinary cook who excelled in an endless variety of cuisines. She delighted in hospitality. “I love to feed the saints,” she would often say. She and Wallace loved to open their home to others for food, fellowship, and intellectual conversation. They ran the Charleston chapter of Reasonable Faith and hosted its bi-monthly, Sunday afternoon meetings that often ran well into the night, Vartika providing the cuisine and Wallace leading the conversations. Everyone who attended would be struck by her energy, warmth, vibrancy, and giving spirit. 

She had a deep and rich personality. She exuded joy while never turning away from the sadness and despair of human existence. She was a deeply affectionate wife, mother, and friend. Everyone who spent time with her experienced the balm of her affection and empathy-the gentle touch of her hands, her eyes looking straight into yours as she entered into your pain. The neighborhood children remember how sweetly she dressed their wounds and fed them. She received a deep love of nature from her mother, and like her, delighted in picking flowers or gathering leaves and rocks, and pointing out their intricacies. She exulted in the beauty and grandeur of creation, and when taking in a scene would often let out a happy exhale of “Ohhh … Praise God” or “Bless the LORD, O my soul.” She loved art, music, and literature, and felt their power deeply within her soul. 

Above all, Vartika was an intensely spiritual woman. Raised in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, she had a powerful conversion experience to monotheism at the age of 18, weeping for days, she would later relate, that all her life to that point had been lived without reference to God. She subsequently became a devout Muslim, or “Submitter,” as her particular branch of the Muslim religion called itself. She became a Christian while daily reading, together with Wallace, the Qur’an, Psalms, and Gospels until one day, when it was the Qur’an’s turn to be read, she said to Wallace, “We don’t need to do that anymore.” Reading the Gospels further and attending services at St. Philip’s, she fell in love with Jesus Christ and wrote its then-rector Haden McCormick a long email with the subject line, “I need to be baptized.” “The angels in heaven are rejoicing,” he replied. She started almost every morning with devotion, meditation, and prayer, and often told Wallace and her children that she wanted this verse from the Gospel of John on her grave stone: “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” And so it shall be. 

Vartika was preceded in death by her brother-in-law, Jonathan Marshall, and dear aunt, Kumi Chandra. In addition to her parents, she is survived by her husband, Wallace Williams Marshall III; their four children, Noelle, Ava, Elise, and Christian; uncles Prabhat Kumar (Priti) and Anil Chandra (widow of the late Kumi Chandra); her sister, Kriti Vikram (Abhijit); cousins Prakhar Vikram (Vidhi) and Pragya Sanghavi (Gaurav), and many other uncles, aunts, nephew, nieces, and cousins living in India and other parts of the world. 

Her loss leaves a profound ache in our souls, and a void that will never quite be filled in this life. “My heart is like wax: it is melted in the midst of my bowels”-Psalm 22:14. 

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