Headway

on Footpaths

T.L.Raghavan
2
 Dedicated to the memory of Late

T.S. Raghavan, Hema Raghavan – Parents

T. Govindarajan, T. Vijayaraghavan – Brothers

S. Raghavachari – Brother-in-law

3
4
 Table of Contents

Foreword 7
Introduction 8
Endowment 11
Chapter 1— Tanjore (1936) 13
Chapter 2—Annamalai University (1936—47) 25
Chapter 3 — Ceylon (1948—50) 45
Chapter 4 — Coimbatore (1951—54) 49
Chapter 5 — Madras (Student) (1955-60) 63
Chapter 6 — Madras (Career) (1961—70) 75
Chapter 7 — Kattur (1971—88) 91
Chapter 8 — Chennai, Mewar, Sameerwadi (1989-04) 115
Chapter 9 — Post Retirement (2005—present) 121
Afterword 129

5
6
BH Kothari
Chairman & Managing Director
Kothari Sugars & Chemicals Ltd,
Chennai.

Foreword

I congratulate Raghavan for writing yet another remarkable book. The previous book,
“Honey Reed and its Bounty” which I had the pleasure to release a few years ago was
greatly appreciated by the sugar fraternity for the interesting information it contained.

Raghavan enjoyed a successful innings at our Kattur sugar factory and much of this
book is devoted to his fond memories and glorious times spent in nurturing the unit to
great heights. The book is a testimony to his hard work, abundant energy and spirit of
collaboration. My father, late Shri H.C. Kothari shared an affectionate rapport with
Raghavan and I am happy to catch a glimpse of this regard in the book. Raghavan has
known me since my birth and I will always appreciate our association. In my mind,
Raghavan embodies the very values – dedication, hard work and sincerity that Kotharis
stand for.

I wish Raghavan all the very best.

May God grant him years of happiness, and good health.

B.H. Kothari
Dated: 12/02/11

7
8
 Introduction

I am not a great personality to leave behind a memoir, much less an autobiography. This
is just an attempted compendium of incidents, individuals and places I was associated
with and which made living interesting and worthwhile. Given half a chance I would like
to relive the experience or at least recall them. So it is nothing but unalloyed nostalgia
laced with grateful remembrances – no ‘warts and all’ accounting should therefore be
expected.

In this process pardon me for dropping names – some heavy and big. The thud and the
illusory screech of my trumpet will doubtless disturb even the Kumbakarna of a reader.
This has however been done only to bring out the events and the times with the poign-
ancy they deserve.

Near four years saw me, not infrequently, sneak to convenient corners with whatever
bits and pieces of paper and writing aids I could muster to recapitulate events and associ-
ates of the past, to be put down in a hurried scribble. Many a time, such occasions were
the slots allotted for house-hold chores, and my wife Vasanthi, thought I was malinger-
ing! I dictated to her and two of my nieces, Rama and Shobana, who had come on holi-
days, which resulted in a readable basic manuscript. This was transcribed into electronic
output by my son’s classmate – Charles Pradeep, to be edited and corrected by my class-
mate and good friend – N. Nandakumar, of News Today. I am thankful to all of them.

I am sure in the current day context of colorful and sensational media, print and elec-
tronic – weary viewers will welcome this sepia set out in simple terms.

T L Raghavan Dated: 12/02/11

‘Maduban’
No. 1, Greenways Rd. Extn.,
Chennai – 600 028

9
10
 Endowment

Prof. T.S. Raghavan Centernary Memorial Scholarship Fund

S.B. College, Chenganacherry

T.S. Raghavan graduated with Masters in Botany from Madras Presidency College in the
year 1926 under the famous Prof. MOP Iyengar. After graduation he served as demon-
strator at the same college.

In 1927 he moved to S.B. College, Chenganacherry, then of Madras University, to start

and head the Botany department. In the 5 years he was there the department was devel-
oped giving added stature to the college which was established in 1922.

In 1931 he joined Annamalai University where he served till 1947. He was deputed for
higher studies at Kings College, London during 1935-37. He came back with a doctorate
duly guided by famous cytogenetists Dr. Ruggles Gates and Dr. Wolfe. His distinguished
career at Annamalai University can be appreciated by the following excerpts from The
Hindu supplement dated Feb 9 1955 on the occasion of Silver Jubilee of the University –
‘Dr. T.S. Raghavan, Professor and Head of the Department of Botany from 1931-47 was
mainly responsible for initiating and organizing teaching and research in botany. A good
deal of research work has been carried out in the cytology and cytogenetics of flowering
plants. The botanical laboratory has been fully equipped for cytological research. The
data and results of the research work were consolidated and published in scientific jour-
nals, both Indian and foreign like Cytologia, The International Journal of Cytology (Japan),
Annals of Botany (England), Planta (Germany), Indian Academy of Science, Indian Botani-
cal Society, etc. The research work besides being in the main fundamental in character,
has also kept in its purview the utilitarian aspect. With this end in view a five year
scheme of cytogenetic research in pulses was carried out successfully under the auspices
of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research resulting in the breeding of improved hy-
brid strains’.

In 1947he went to Ceylon to serve as the Chief Botanist in the internationally famous
Coconut Research Scheme at Lunuwila. In 1950 he came back to India to join the world
11
renowned Sugarcane Breeding Institute where famous scientists like Dr. Barber and
Sir T.S. Venkatraman worked earlier. At this institute Dr. Raghavan developed new
varieties of cane which the farmers and sugar factories alike found extremely useful.
He was nominated as fellow of the Linnaen Society and has also served as council
member in the Indian Academy of Sciences, when Sir C.V. Raman was President.
Other distinguished council members were S.S. Bhatnagar, Bhagavantham, Mahesh-
wari, T.S. Sadasivan to name just a few.

He was also nominated for the prestigious award as standing collaborator, one
among five all over the world, at the International Cytogenetic Conference at Tokyo
in the 1950’s.

He has contributed numerous articles in world crop, cytologia, nature and also has
authored books on botany.

After retirement Prof Raghavan returned to teaching, his first love, as UGC professor
once again at SB College and later on at Vallabh Vidyapeeth, Anand.

Though he has guided good many PhD scholars he had an abiding faith in new en-
trants, intermediate students, having a strong and stable foundation in the subject.
He therefore made it a point to take classes for them.

Respecting the desire of the late professor an endowment has been created to en-
able vidya dhaan – the acme of altruism and it is deemed fit to announce this at the
book release function. Next of kin, friends, associates and philanthropists are re-
quested to contribute to this noble cause. Cheque/DD favoring
Dr. T.S. Raghavan Centenary Memorial Scholarship A/c. No. 67139784900
may be sent to:
State Bank of Travancore, SB College Branch,
Changanassery, Kottayam District, Kerala-686101.
Branch number - 70394.
IFSC Code - SBTR0000394

12
Chapter One

Tanjore

13
I was born on 16th May 1936 at Tanjore (current day Thanjavur) at my maternal
grandfathers house. More than lack of well-equipped maternity hospitals, the tra-
dition of being ‘delivered’ by a midwife, was very much in vogue then. Sahaya-
mary, past sixty, was a proud midwife, perhaps on an equal footing with my par-
ents, grandparents and next of kin for having brought into being another boy. She
would have recalled how she helped my grandmother give birth to my mother and
her siblings.

The house where I was born was called ‘Lakshmi Vilas’ – a sprawling palatial build-
ing on the pattern of Chettinad houses on a vast half an acre plot. It was on an ex-
tension to the town - now called VOC Nagar, just behind the old Cosmopolitan
Club where the white representatives of the raj socialized over cards, tennis and
maybe a drink with select natives. The construction was of lime mortar tempered
with a solution of jaggery and kadukkai. This rendered the walls so strong – you
could hardly put a nail on in. The neighbours were notable citizenry of Tanjore –
Poondi Vandayar, Naadimuthu Pillai to name just two.

My grandfather, A Narasimhachariar, familiarly called AN was a well-heeled gentle-

man having made it big as a lawyer even before he got into his thirties. My grand-
mother never tired of telling us how he got out with a degree in law at 19 and how
this palatial building came up before he was hardly twenty-five. At the Bar, he was
a contemporary of Sir A T Paneerselvam who is remembered for having disap-
peared during a flight, like it happened during World War II to Major Glenn Miller,
a band leader remembered for his signature tune ‘In the Mood’.

AN was typical of the British raj, given to Club activities, socializing, including social
climbing, a relaxant required amid his alacrity in his legal profession and for self
promotion. Though not ‘booted and suited’ in the strict sense of the western sarto-
rial term – he was well dressed, always in starched panchakaccham, an alpaca
coat, John White shoes and a laced turban which is what he was on for the profes-
sional pursuit. On the social circuit, it was a close coat, ‘cut’ shoes and turban. One
thing which was ever present was the bright namam on his expansive pink fore-
head.

While he was on his morning tennis and at weekend cards at the Cosmopolitan
Club, he frequented the Anne Beasant Club, popularly called ABC and also nick-
named ‘All Brahmins Club’ considering the large membership of brahmin lawyers

14
and mittadars it had. He went there for snooker. He had his own cue ini-
tialed A.N. and many said he was quite good. Though by bent of mind, my
grandfather was British oriented, methodicity, punctuality and devotion to
duty, he was very much an Indian. He was a conservative and an orthodox Sri
Vaishnavite in dress and religion. Many a cultural and religious organization
was he a patron of and helped numerous temples in and around Tanjore.

In Lakshmi Vilas, to cater to the joint family of my uncles - six of them with
their families, and other relatives, two cooks were in service and for the
maintenance of the huge flower and fruit gardens, a crew a four gardeners
and assistants. Watering of the plants was done from artistically decorated
masonry tubs located at strategic places from where the collected water was
baled out. Some of the tubs had statues in alabaster in the middle with spe-
cial lighting to serve as sit-outs or for garden parties. Deep open wells, some
100 ft or more dotted the place. Bore-wells, much less municipal water sup-
plies were not known then.

AN, it seems, was also an entrepreneur of sorts – having distributed electric-

ity to the neighborhood using storage batteries specially imported from Ger-
many. This information I stumbled on in the course of a ‘hide and seek’ game
with my cousins whenever I came to Tanjore on holidays. The commodious
store room annexed to the kitchen had numerous rectangular glass contain-
ers, each measuring almost 1ft X 1ft X 2ft neatly stacked on a wooden rack.
My grandmother told me these were the remnants of storage batteries that
AN had imported to distribute power. With the advent of the Pykara and
Mettur hydro-electric projects coupled with souring of relationship between
England and Germany, that project had to be given-up. The containers were
put to good use to store groceries and condiments!

It is the ambition of almost every Tanjorean to be a mirasdar (landed gentry)

or become one. My grandfather’s desire got fulfilled when he successfully
bid at an auction of a parcel of 100 odd acres of wet land near Thirukkattu-
pally. Taking possession of the same, however, proved a bit bothersome as
the erstwhile owner, a Naicker was a toughie who used all tricks to thwart it.
But my grandfather was equal to it and succeeded with the help of one Soz-
hiar, owner of Mala Theater, a Kallar from Thiuruvaiyaru and Sonti Rama-
niah, ICS then Collector of Tanjore and a classmate of his. Initially the land

15
was looked after by a Kariyasthan – manager but soon an uncle of mine was
sent to understudy him after a sandwich course in agriculture in Coimbatore.

My mother was the only daughter among six sons. Though AN did not have
much time for the family, steeped in his work and self development, there
was nothing wanting otherwise in respect to the education of the children,
provisions for a comfortable life etc. For some time my mother was sent to
Kumbakonam to Saraswathi Padasala under the care of a close relative. Back
again at Tanjore for higher schooling AN had arranged for tuition by Ethel, an
English woman for that language. But my mother given to healthy mischief it
seems taught Ethel a lesson or two in ‘hide and seek’, even Houdini’s vanish-
ing trick.

That she was married at 13 or 14 (1926) in keeping with the trends of the
time, put a halt to her scholastic pursuits. But endowed with a keen sense of
observation and an artistic bent of mind, she was well equipped in all that
one looks for in an Indian woman. There was finesse and artistry in whatever
she did. Even a letter, slokha or a recipe noted down would have floral mo-
tifs around her signature, dateline or heading.

It seems she underwent tortuous tutoring under my paternal grandmother.

Soon she was good enough to cook for the entire brood of some 30 mem-
bers – that too after a bath in the early morning, drawing water from the
well. Remember, there was a strict regimen of acharam, so tap water was
taboo.

I believe that was the time when electricity was in a nascent stage and the
whole house (Tupil house at Madras), had hundreds of lanterns and gas
lamps to look after which one Gopalu was in charge of. It was my mother’s
job to supervise him. For the only daughter of an aristocratic lawyer, she ad-
justed and adapted herself well to the new surroundings.

My father must have been 19 or 20 at the time of marriage. He was a tutor

serving in Madras Presidency College having passed botany honors in the
same college under the famous Sri M.O.P. Iyengar. Later at the age of 22 he
joined St. Berchmans College, Chenganacherry in 1927 where he set up and
developed the Botany Department. He used to tell us later how he and my

16
mother had to go by boat in the backwaters from Ernakulam as there was no
rail service to that place and also how they managed without electricity in
the house where they stayed. They also had to brave the dreaded malaria
which the area was known for. Sherthallai, a place near by is famous in the
filarial map like our own Kumbakonam. He had a great respect and love for
this Catholic institution and served it again after retirement from Govern-
ment service as UGC professor in the 1950’s. At the time of my birth, he was
a lecturer at Annamalai University having joined in 1931. After his PhD in
1937 from King’s College, London, where he was deputed to by the Univer-
sity, he was made Professor and HOD.

There was a lure about Tanjore which made me look forward to visiting it
and more so my grandparents’ home during vacations. There was an inviting
fragrance to the soil – perhaps the effect of the rich cultural traditions the
town is known for, nurtured by the sacred river Cauvery. I am sure, other
fellow Tanjoreans will agree to that.

Though there were not many entertainment outlets like parks, playfields or
zoological gardens which normally keep children engaged during holidays,
the vast area at Lakshmi Vilas, where all cousins congregated for holidays
afforded lots of interesting activities for us – be it playing hide and seek, raid-
ing the fruit gardens or enacting excerpts from popular Tamil cinemas. I dis-
tinctly remember enacting almost the entire Chandralekha movie at the
bandstand to the great hilarity of my grandmother, amusement of my aunts
and a sense of subdued pleasure mixed with pride to my mother as I was the
mainstay. My grandmother used to narrate how the bandstand was used for
partying with English ladies and gentlemen in the 20’s and 30’s when her
husband was steadfast in social climbing. At that tender age, however, I
could not imagine the hilarity and back-slapping bonhomie of women in
swirling long skirts and men in two-piece suits, the local police band in atten-
dance setting their feet tapping, duly fuelled by Scotch and Champagne.

We had other outings as well like the famous Brahadeeshwara and Mariam-
man temples and to temples farther away at Vaduvur and Kumbakonam.
There were also visits to the Serfoji palace and the Saraswathi Mahal mu-
seum and library.

17
When my father was around he would take us to the railway junction to sit
there on the platform for a while. The coming in and going out of trains was,
as ever, a fascinating thing. I had a great admiration for the Boat-Mail or
Indo-Ceylon express as it was also called, which passed through on its way
from Madras to Dhanushkodi or return. I conjured how such a serpentine
train could connect two countries, India and Ceylon.

The trip to the station had always in the itinerary, ‘eats’ at IRR (Indian Rail-
way Restaurant – do not know if the adjective Indian referred to railway or
restaurant) for tasty vada or its occidental counterpart, run by Spencer’s, for
cakes and aerated water like ginger beer etc while my father was sipping the
tall and legendary Spencer soda. Another must at the junction was to offer
worship at the platform vinayagar temple which was out and out adminis-
tered by the railway porters. The deity was reputedly a ‘powerful’ one grant-
ing the wishes of devotees – especially the school boys and girls awaiting
results. Anytime we went, there were hordes of them smashing votive coco-
nuts. Having appeared for an exam I too sent a silent prayer for success, but
without strings attached – yes, the coconuts.

A few of my uncles helped in outings. The oldest, Santhanam mama, a law-

yer assisting my grandfather was a classmate of former President, the late R.
Venkatraman, a native of Pattukottai. Next was Kichu mama, also a lawyer
who later on was APP at Devakottai. Third was Rangachari who had given up
a job in Bombay as Secretary to Mr. Larsen of L&T to join the ‘Quit India’
movement (my grandfather was greatly embarrassed and upset – not that he
was not patriotic, but possibly because it was one reason why the raj did not
consider him for ‘Knighthood’, which he was very sure of and had to be con-
tent with Diwan Bahadur sannad). Seenu mama, who looked after the es-
tate, was a gentleman farmer graduate from Agriculture College, Coimbatore
in the late 20’s. This course was open to children of farmers without any
stipulation of having done collegiate studies. It was an ingenious device on
the part of British raj to ensure that the sons of mirasdars stayed in farming
and not meander to other fields of activity if they go to college. We were all
proud when he received the Krishi Pandit award for highest paddy yield on
an All India basis in 1968. Though turbulence of the British and the Raj influ-
enced many a young man sartorially and habits wise my uncle stuck to tuft,
thiruman and srichurnam till the end. Raju, who had also given up a cove-

18
nented job with Central Bank, moored as he was to Tanjore, with what it had
to offer for laidback gentry like him, was the next. The last of the Mohicans
was Govi – who was an automobile engineer earlier with Union Company,
for which and its Chairman, Gopalakrishnan he had great admiration. (Later
when I was in college I had seen Gopalakrishnan driving his imported Tri-
umph. Another one was driven by TT Krishnamachari who was living at Tam-
baram then). Union Motors was busy with its factory at Perungulathur to
produce Super 10, Vangaurd, Herald – all fine cars. I was to know in years to
come Rtn. Gov. KV Srinivasan (son-in-law of Gopalakrishnan) and his son
Muthukrishnan who was the mainstay for motor racing to come up in Ma-
dras, first at Sholavaram and then at Sriperumbudur.

During Michaelmas and Christmas holidays, apart from relishing the cakes
from Abraham Pandidhar’s house (a highly respected Nadar Christian who
was a connoisseur of arts, especially carnatic music and popular for his na-
tive medicines) there was a visit to the farm of my grandfather situated on
the banks of Kodamurutti – a tributary of the Cauvery which, along with four
other rivers contributed the name Thiruvaiyaru. This village, Konerirajapu-
ram was a little past Thiruppanthuruthi famous for the samadhi of com-
poser-philosopher Narayana Theertha, who gave Krishna Tarangini. It also
has the dubious distinction of touching off a brand of hospitality uncharitably
- Thirupanthuruthi ubacharam.

We would stay for a few days with my uncle who looked after the 100 acre
farm. His Man Friday, Arockiam would be with us right through. We would
have a dip in the spring, deep enough for a wallow, shallow enough for our
safety, in Kodamurutti. Then raid the thoppu for guava, mangoes, sapotta
etc. Arockiam would bring down coconuts and offer them with matching ten-
derness. The cows, buffaloes and the draught animals used for the plough
and para vandi fascinated us. The oxen were shorn of horns and called mot-
tai or mozha maadu, a typical trademark of Tanjore like the thalai aatti bom-
mai. Initially I thought they were born that way but got enlightened that
even as calves, the horns were scorched as they sprouted.

Another interesting object was the wireless receiving set (called crystal set)
with earphones which will pipe-in in hiccups the transmission from the near-
est radio station – Trichy. A far cry from the then contemporary commodious

19
valve set radios which came in tasteful wooden cabinets and formed part of
the drawing room furniture. Valve sets had a tuner as big as your palm with a
small finger-hole for fine-tuning and a magic-eye as an additional embellish-
ment, but with no function.

At times we were taken to the Grand Anaicut, perhaps the oldest irrigation
system. It was a barrage across the confluence of the Cauvery and the
Coleroon. En route we worshipped at the Varagur temple known for Uri adi
during Gokulashtami and passed by Thirukkattuppalli – the place where
Judge Sivaswamy was born. Indigence and improvidence did not push him to
the street or the lamp there for his studies, as it did with fellow Judge – Mut-
huswamy. But chills of penury did make dents on him and by sheer dint of
hard work and study he rose to the highest level in Judiciary. Not wanting
children in future to suffer lack of facilities connected with education, he
founded the famous school at Thirukkaatuppalli and another in Madras bear-
ing his wife’s name both doing yeoman service in this direction.

During summer recess my grandfather would arrange for our visits – all
grandchildren and their parents by turn to Ooty where he had a bungalow.
He would go by his Dodge (he had a fixation for this make and George Oakes
of Madras had standing instructions to deliver a new car every January 1st)
accompanied by his trusted driver Appadurai and cook Seshan not to forget
the pack of cocker spaniels which were legendary in his household. We went
by train, with my grandmother, which definitely took the sting of being let
down in the preferential treatment.

At Lakshmi Vilas before we all went back home my grandmother would or-
ganize an ootanchoru session on the terrace. It was one of those ‘hand-to-
mouth’ feasts which we loved – yes the hand of my grandmother with food
onto the expectant mouths of my cousins and me. The delicious inputs to the
accompaniment of tales from Panchatantra, Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc.
made assimilation of our sturdy culture easy and long lasting thanks to the
delectable morsels of food these were capsuled in. The tall gaunt figure of
my grandmother, called Jayamma, did not quite match with the kind person
that she was. The powerful pair of eyes piercing through lenses mounted on
solid gold frame however made us all behave nice and propah.

20
AN partying at Lakshmi Vilas

AN and my grandmother

21
Steady hand of my mother at 87

22
St.Berchmans College

23
24
 Chapter Two

Annamalai University

25
My father T S Raghavan was Professor and HOD Botany at Annamalai University on
his return from England with a PhD. That was 1937, when he was 32 years old. Raja
Sir Annamalai Chettiar – the founder of this University sponsored him for higher
studies at King’s College, London. His guide was Prof. Ruggles Gates, cytogenetist
and former husband of Marie Stopes whose endeavors on birth control catapulted
her to world fame, despite controversy ridden in a world, yet conservative on mat-
ters like birth control. At that time the Vice Chancellor was the Rt. Hon Srinivasa
Sastry, the silver tongued orator. Incidentally he was a student of my paternal
grandfather.

My father was a popular professor and presented quite a lot of technical papers at
fora connected with Cytogenetics and contributed papers to prestigious journals
like Cytologia, Nature etc. He had also authored two text books on botany commis-
sioned by the University – one in Tamil and another in English. Students looked
forward to his lecture which was laced with amusing anecdotes – even from my-
thology – Hindu, Greek, Biblical etc. I have heard many say how a complicated ge-
netical concept of Parthenogenesis was explained by Mary’s Immaculate Concep-
tion or for that matter Kunthi, bringing forth Karna. Communist leader Baladanda-
yutham, who though a History student, was so captivated by my father’s elo-
quence – used to sneak and sit in his classes. He told this when I met him with my
father at the Coimbatore central jail where he was serving life sentence for the
Nellai conspiracy case. It was sad he perished in an air crash along with Mohan Ku-
maramangalam and a colleague of mine, A K Devarajan of Aruna Sugars. Baladan-
dayutham was a contemporary of the Rt. Hon. Srinivasa Sastry and a bugbear to
him. He dared to say it seems “he is neither right nor honorable”.

Not that my father was a raj phile (a variant of anglophile!), but he never tired of
telling us how the British Government virtually sent him on a diplomatic passport
from London to Keil in Germany for a guidance from Dr. Wolfe for completing his
PhD thesis. War clouds between England and Germany were gathering at that
time. My father was all praise for the British dominion credo that students and
scholars should not suffer. This experience stood him in good stead much later.

Late in the 50’s when he was nominated for getting an award at the International
Conference of Genetics’ in Tokyo, my father had quite some difficulty in getting
permission (and the foreign exchange) for my mother who he was keen should ac-
company him. He came to know that RBI Governor, LK Jha, ICS, was on a visit to

26
Madras and virtually gate-crashed and narrated his travail and also ex-
pressed his sentiment. He also recalled to him how the civil servants were
helpful for his trip to Germany. Mr. Jha understood the reference and the
possible links and lineage my father had established with the good old civil
service of the raj days. Then and there he ordered the release of the ex-
change, ignoring the arguments of the mandarins in the foreign exchange
department.

My father set much store by sense of humor as an essential factor in one’s

life. He had picked up many funny incidents and situations in his work day
life around him to share with my elder siblings when we all sat for a meal, of
course with some of his own trimmings and embellishments.

One such thing was about one LS Vaidhyanathan – familiarly known as LSV.
An elderly gentleman who had a habit of visiting the dispensary on the cam-
pus for the tasty compounded carminative mixture. The visits were also used
to engage the doctor – Dr. Rajaram, over harangue on flimsy and frivolous
subjects unmindful of waiting patients. Of course his entry was ostensibly
connected with some stray ill-health. Soon enough Dr. Rajaram worked on a
device to save himself from this onslaught at least for a while. The moment
he saw LSV entering the dispensary he would shout to his compounder
“Adhimoolam, take sir’s temperature”. The compounder was also privy to
the game and would ensure that the thermometer would be in LSV’s mouth
for near 15 minutes. Despite gesticulations and grimaces by LSV - Adhi-
moolam would stay put, not unlike Casa Bianca. In course of time LSV, to
save himself this torture, it seems refrained from the visit to the dispensary. I
remember the traumatic way in which Adhimoolam would dress our
wounds, it was more painful than the cuts and abrasions.
There was another funny incident related by him. It seems on Rt. Hon. Sas-
try’s birthday, a delegation of professors called on him to greet him. One of
them was carrying a small gift which he handed over to the Rt. Hon. in all
humility muttering “a small momento on this occasion”. The Rt. Hon., it
seems took the gift in his hands and after mentioning his thanks, said “at this
moment this memento is highly valued” with a subtle and articulate empha-
sis on the correct pronunciation.

Sri Rangaswamy Iyengar, my paternal grandfather was teaching at Kumbako-

27
nam College which was called the Cambridge of Madras Presidency for excel-
lence in education as well as for its boating facilities. As a student (at the
same college) he bagged five gold medals also called Presidency ‘first’ includ-
ing ‘Miller’ Gold Medal for English (normally given to a student of Christian
College, Madras), for Maths, Physics and Chemistry. He also bagged the Arni
Kuppuswamy Mudaliar Medal for Tamil. After a stint at Kumbakkonam Col-
lege he was drafted to the Madras Provincial Civil Service and retired in early
1920’s as Deputy Collector which I believe was the highest in the rung any
Indian could hope for those days. He was in service at Ariyalur, Bhavani, Bel-
lary (Part of Madras Province then), Coimbatore, Salem and Madras.

It was at his court at Salem, that C. Rajagopalachari as a young advocate

started practice. I vaguely remember my father telling me that the notorious
bandit Malaiyur Mambattiyan declared that he would surrender only at my
grandfather’s court. While at Bhavani, at the confluence of the Cauvery and
the Bhavani many a bather was drowned in the swirling waters at Kudut-
hurai. He organized protective hand railings with public donations. He was a
great scholar in Sanskrit and German and had contributed articles in ‘The
Hindu’ in its formative stages as he was a close friend of Subramaniya Iyer –
the founder and also Kasturiranga Iyengar who bought the paper from him.

When he passed away in 1942, I missed the morning walks around the Uni-
versity campus with him. Being young, I would ask his whereabouts and was
told he had gone on a walk without me and must have strayed somewhere.
For a long time I hoped he would find his way home. I missed the enveloping
comfort of his hug at night, for that was when I learnt the morals through
panchatantra and mythological parables. All of us called him chittya. He was
a scholarly and withdrawn man. Though seniormost, he did not fit the bill to
be called a patriarch, whereas my grandmother, Ranganayaki, ironically
called periamma, was a matriarch. A short rotund woman, red all over, her
bright ruby sorai and red streak of srichurnam on her narrow forehead
heightening it. She instilled fear in everyone and was imperious in her own
way. Not inappropriately my periappa – Ananthachari, one of my father’s
cousins living with us, called her Queen Victoria. Whenever she beckoned
me, uvve (Upe through her toothless mouth), it was me she was calling to
stomp her aching legs, for which I’d get quarter anna – equivalent to three
paise.

28
We on the Annamalai University campus were like one big family, not a care
or concern for class, caste or the different regions. We were in what was
called the professor’s quarters and all the same we had friends in every sec-
tor – lecturers quarters, staff quarters and the like. I had three older brothers
and an older sister and it was curious how in each family, almost, all the chil-
dren were of same age group or thereabouts.

Our neighbor was a professor of history – Srinivasachary, fondly known as

Chikka. His oldest son was Ramanujam – a good and intimate friend of my
late brother Vijayaraghavan. He was popularly called Rudy – after Hollywood
star Rudolph Valentino then known for his tango and plastered thick, black
hairdo. I remember my sibilings going in a single bullock cart to
Chidambaram to attend Pachaiappa’s High School and knew, that despite
friendship with the neighbor’s children, there was a tinge of jealousy and
heartburn as they saw them get into a horse drawn cart (jatka). Of course I
was saved all this as I was a toddler going to a nearby elementary school.
However I had a great pleasure in one thing connected with the horse of my
neighbor which was given a daily dose of massage by keeper Thillai Govin-
dan. After the massage, the animal would get a nose-bag of boiled horse
gram (kollu) to savor. He used to pass on a handful of the cereal to me across
the compound at the curve. I was told it was very healthy, though the eques-
trian connection it had, brought about an element of infra dig.

The neighbor on the other side was Vishwanatha Iyer, the Registrar. His son
Vaithyanathan was my classmate and he rose to become Vice-Chancellor of
the University.

In front of our house there was a huge playground with a band stand at the
center – it was so expansive that nearly three or four age groups of children
could play at the same time. There were quite a few park benches for the old
to relax and oversee their young wards.

There were many great men during my father’s time. Pandithamani Kadhire-
san Chettiar – Tamil, Chikka – History, Dr. BV Naidu – Economics (later on he
became Chairman of the Tariff Commission), Dr. Seshayya, Zoology, RP Seth-
upillai, Dr. TP Meenakshi Sundaram, Yogi Suddananda Bharathiar – all great
names in Tamil (even the great tamil scholar U. Ve. Swaminatha Iyer was in

29
Annamalai University since the time it was called Meenakshi College) and
last but not the least Tiger Varadhachary – music.

As for Vice-Chancellors Sir Samuel E Runganathan, Rt. Hon. VS Srinivasa sas-

try, Sir KV Reddy, Prof. Ruthnaswamy and later on Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer,
Sir RK Shanmugam Chetty. All of them embellished this great educational
institution, so thoughtfully founded and nurtured by that visionary philan-
thropist Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar. He was able to scout talent and more
importantly, retain it. Raja Sir was a powerful personality then of the Madras
Presidency. It seems at Kaanaadukathan railway station, where he boarded
the train to Madras Egmore, there was a special waiting hall for him and
reputation has it that the arrival and departure of the trains he boarded, had
to skip raghukalam! He was one of the few, like the governor of Madras, and
others, whose arrival / departure at Madras featured in the special columns
of the leading English dailies.

Quite a few incidents are etched indelibly in my mind. There was a music
concert at Sastry Hall. Front row saw seated, the family members of the VC –
Prof. Ruthnaswamy, my father (he was then Dean of faculty of Sciences), my
mother, with me on her lap. In the interlude between songs I shot from my
mothers grip to climb to the dais and tap the mrudangam which was hori-
zontally placed for tuning. At that stage in my life that was one great ambi-
tion. The lady artiste was sipping milk from the silver kooja duly transferred
to a silver tumbler. That’s when my father, in hot pursuit, caught me in a vice
like grip and I would have got a good slap, but for the kindly look and gesture
from the artiste, “he’s a child, let him go”. We were back in our seats. My
mother whispered into my ear, “that is the great MS” which of course did
not convey much except two letters in the alphabet with which I was coming
to grips then. This must have been in the year 1942.

I had a similar brush with another celebrity – of course with the blessings of
my father. The great scientist and Nobel Laureate Sir CV Raman was giving a
guest lecture at Annamalai University. My father had invited him home to
dinner. He did come and as he settled for pleasantries with my parents, sud-
denly got up exclaiming “professor, I forgot something – Yes! To bring my
wife”. It transpired that he had gone for a walk from the guesthouse assuring
his wife he would pick her up on the return but forgot completely. My father

30
directed me to the guesthouse to bring Lady Raman. As she came in she
jocularly asked my mother “what about the professor!? Is he too forgetful?
The scientist husband of mine has no time for the lokha – not to talk of this
poor Logam” (Logasundari was her name).

The third one was also another great celebrity. Mahatma Gandhi was on his
Bharat Darshan on train covering almost all stations in the country. The third
class in which he travelled touched off the legendary cliché – Gandhi class.
The travel was also to collect funds and gifts for his movement. The train
halted at Chidambaram station as scheduled. I was on the shoulders of my
father’s servant Samidurai who had a knack of surging ahead in a crowd.
From a vantage point I could see the grand old man standing at the entrance
of the carriage in all the glory of his traditional knee level kaccha, long staff
in hand, pocket watch hanging from his waist, and of course his patent
toothless grin. Our neighbor’s daughter, who was my age was on the shoul-
ders of her servant. She removed some trinkets and passed them to the re-
ceptive hands of the Mahatma. I did not have any and felt let down which
must have shown on my face. I still remember the great man’s gesture – not
to worry. This too must have been in the 40’s.

My akshrabyasam was memorable for the novelty involved in being decked

in velvet trousers, silk shirt with a black cap to top it, and being led in a pro-
cession, to the nearest elementary school, to the accompaniment of Nadas-
waram and a huge crowd around me like a baby elephant surrounded by a
herd. Considering it was summer, perspiration from my forehead competed
with tears which rolled down my face on this excruciating experience. The
profusion was more with comforting consolations coming forth now and
then from the next of kin and the well wishers. At the end of the day, as they
say, when all this rigmarole was over, perhaps after a very short stint at the
class, my mother consolingly or compensatingly told me that a great man
like Rt. Hon. Sastry was the chief guest. I got little pepped up – not necessar-
ily born out of knowledge that he was called a ‘silver tongued’ orator or for
that matter he was the chief aide of Mahatma Gandhi at the Round Table
Conference.

Annamalai University was well known for sports and games, especially
cricket. As a boy I remember many matches – Intra-mural, Inter-collegiate as

31
well as teams from outside for matches on the grounds set in sylvan sur-
roundings. The ground had a very elegant and Victorian pavilion, wicker
chairs etc. Everything was spic and span thanks to the martinet of a man by
name LK Govindarajulu, known popularly as LKG, who was the physical direc-
tor. He was a thin man, with clipped moustache and his ordering the markers
and other subordinates was in a Tamil tinged with Telugu both anglicized. He
was ably assisted by Aiyaru, who was a little more pleasant and thanks to
him we urchins were able to get convenient perches at the pavilion to wit-
ness matches.

My oldest brother T Govindarajan played for the University Cricket team – he

was a left arm spinner and a prolific hitter. He was one of the first to have
been coached by Arthur Wensley, the great Sussex and English spinner as-
sisted by our own AG Ram Singh. I have seen the likes of BC Alva of Guindy
Engineering College and later day test cricketer at play. Also there was regu-
larly a fixture between a team from South Arcot which included the two
Longsdale brothers – Englishmen (the elder one was the Superintendent of
Police). This team included DL Chakravarthy who was working with EID Parry,
Nellikuppam and played for Madras in the Ranji Trophy. Often a team from
Pudukottai, led by the Raja would be at play. Beside him were his two
younger brothers – Chinna Durai (who played for Madras and was MP for
long) and Nadu Durai. This team included Murughaiah, whom I had the privi-
lege of knowing well much later, when he was the DSP Trichy. Here again a
funny incident which my father was witness to would be elaborated by him
to highlight the hilarious part of it. One Mr. Nagaraj Iyer – a leading advocate
from Pudukottai and a member of the University Senate would invariably be
the umpire. Once it seems the Raja snicked a ball and was caught at the slips
and instinctively Nagaraja Iyer’s hand went up, but he made it as if he
wanted to scratch his head, realizing it was the royalty at the crease. In ex-
piation my father mentioned “not that the Raja would have arrogantly stood
his ground like WG Grace, but the loyalty to royalty of Nagaraja Iyer was un-
impeachable”.
At the nets on many occasions, I have seen a dark, lean and kinky haired lad
bowling tirelessly. He was assistant to the university marker and was called
Kavarapattan with reference to the coastal village – Kavarapat near Pichava-
ram where he came from. My brother used to say that he was a greater spin-
ner than himself. It seems for one friendly fixture the university team was

32
short of a bowler at the last hour. Hurriedly they dressed up Kavarapattan in
borrowed whites. However respecting his discomfort for any footwear –
more so the spiked ankle high cricket boot which was in vogue then, one of
his big toes was heavily bandaged to simulate injury and explain why he was
bootless. He was instructed, by way of abundant caution that he should say
that he was studying BOL – Bachelor of Oriental Language, should anyone
from the opposite team ask him. It seems he took five wickets without this
perfidy being noticed. I am always reminded of him when I see the Williams
sisters at current day tennis circuits for the striking resemblance he bore to
them.

There was lot of cricket for us especially during summer holidays. We used
what was called cover ball and for bat it was anything from coconut or pal-
myrah frond to designer bats out of dismantled deal wood boxes. Only much
later did we get to grips with the cricket bat per se. Those days the bats had
to undergo lots of seasoning with linseed oil and suspended cricket ball in
socks being hit about. There was no dearth of players, and we could muster
more than 11 with many standbys. Matches were usually between different
teams representing different streets.

After the cover ball came the compo ball, made of cork and what was used in
hockey. It was years before we got to use the cricket ball (the leather), that
too old and out of shape ones. The cherry – Rangroot make was a distant
desire which in a vicarious way was satisfied when we saw it in use by the
University team. We got much pleasure picking and throwing it whenever it
reached the ropes.

All the same, we were conversant with contemporary greats – Merchant,

Mushtaq Ali, Hazare, Hammond, Hutton, Larwood, Bradman, Hasset and the
like. The game and the romance it conjured up in our young minds made us
feel like gentlemen with a sense of fair play which cricket stood for. No won-
der in English terminology, cricket is synonymous with sense of fair play
which prompted one wag to say “there must be cricket in politics and not
the other way about”.

We were notorious for ganging up and raiding the mango thoppu for the lus-
cious fruit which normally heralded the onset of south Indian summer along

33
with margosa flowers. The trees were huge, sometimes you had in-between,
iluppai (mahua), which had a close resemblance to mango trees, but we
were conversant enough not to bark up the wrong tree. With the huge trunk
obviating climbing, the modus operandi was we formed a human pyramid
with the least heavy chap at the plucking end. Invariably it was yours truly,
and once I was left in this operation seated on a branch ‘high and dry’ as it
were with the chaps down below melting away at the sight of the lessee Pap-
paiah – who had a reputation of being tough. However he helped me come
down and let me go after a gentle chide not to come again. I have known
him to adopt more punitive measures than mere vocal ones as once one of
my elder brothers who got caught on a similar situation was tethered to the
trunk to be released by my father after being missed for a few hours.

We revelled in going as a group to nearby Chidambaram station to intercept

wagons that carried sugarcane to EID Parry factory at Nellikuppam. Once,
either we did not hear the pointsman shouting or did not heed, as he oper-
ated the lever one of the gang , Vaidhyanathan got his foot caught in the
rails and got a nasty slash. Some of the other members of the gang whom I
remember are Panaiappan (son of LPK Ramanathan Chettiar), Ramu (son of
Panjabakesa Iyer) and Manikam, son of the great Tamil scholar, Panditha-
mani Kathiresan Chettiar.

We played also kiittipul, peipandhu, all robust games. Then, climbing trees
(sometimes jumping from the branches), it was called driandru. Often we
ended up with nasty bruises or cuts. We would also hoop along in bunches
pushing cycle rims or tyres creating a racket. On the way we would stop at
any house to quench our thirst. On one such stop I got enlightened on a new
word in Tamil – Irusu – to mean wheels, besides the quenching – the main
objective. This was from no less a person than the great scholar TP Meenak-
shi Sundaram, whose house was one of our watersheds.

There were so many festivities, mostly religious, in and around the University
accounting for a good deal of healthy get together among the different com-
munities. The annual arudra darisanam at Chidambaram Natraja temple was
a big affair. I do not know how all parents guided their wards. There was no
mix up whatsoever. No lost child crying. The sellers would be mobbed by the
youngsters jostling for priority. Little arms reached out for the carts made of

34
palmyrah leaves, for the bamboo bows and arrows. The girls would go after
the red cedar or the white mud dolls which were quite heavy. Now I know
how well we did without the ugly, crude plastic toys. My mother would be
busy acquiring delicacies from nearby villages – vettiver from Kollidam, pidi-
karanai from Vallampadugai and the like.

Nearer home you had aravan pandigai connected with the mourning for Ab-
himanyu and the chokka panai, bonfire of a huge tower made of palmyrah
leaves at the local Pasupatheswarar temple in the cool months of Decem-
ber / January. This was to commemorate Manmatha being reduced to ashes
by Lord Siva for being disturbed when he was meditating. Each of us would
be rotating a small pandam containing powder of palmyrah flower, and char-
coal powder lit by kerosene. The exhausted powder amalgam will be brought
home and strewn on the avarai pandal for a bountiful yield.

Kolu during navarathri was particularly a big draw for the young. The house-
holds would vie with one another in putting up dolls dressed and decorated
and placed with a sense of propriety on rungs. We were however lured by
the tasty sundal.

Of course Deepavali as ever anywhere was the very much looked for festival
– not so much for the new dresses as for the assortment of crackers. These
were all from China (Sivakasi, then was perhaps not even on the explosives
map) and for just rupees five or so, one would have enough crackers to see
one through Deepavali and a good bit left for Karthigai. Not to be content
with branded crackers we used to make explosive powders out of the match
stick and put it in a key hole with a nail for stopper and bang it. The sudden
crack was enough to give us the pleasure and startle the elders.

I remember a portly gentleman whose endearment to me whenever he saw

me with my father was in a different tongue. He was a Telugu and his name
was Indrasen. He was in-charge of parks, gardens and the entire landscape at
the University. My father told me once he had a call from Chettinad and the
PA of Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar told him of a forthcoming visit of the Gov-
ernor of Madras – Sir Arthur Hope – to the University (the Governor was al-
ways the Chancellor). Raja Sir, as he always referred to, was keen that the
Governor should be impressed by the landscape. I believe Indrasen put

35
nearly 100 – 200 persons on the job of cutting branches of trees to be
planted as trees and also laid numerous flower beds. Within a day or two the
whole campus was green. Luckily the Governors visit was little earlier than
scheduled and he was impressed by the greenery as much as he was with
the giants in the academic field. A day or two after the Governor’s departure,
all this handwork went waste, and the greenery wilted.

No wonder Mr. Indrasen’s family had talented members. His brother Krishna
Murthy perhaps was the first to enable people to ‘say it with flowers’ with
his outfit called Coronet and his niece, Yamini Krishna Murthy – prima donna
among dancers those days.

I distinctly remember two or three young bachelor tutors going on a stroll on

the stretch where the professor’s quarters were located. Some of them used
to halt for a while to exchange pleasantries with my father – one of them
was PC Alexander, later day Governor of Madras and Maharashtra.

I also recall amusing incidents connected with war-time precautionary exer-

cises. There were frequent blackouts and emergency drills. One was the ARP
(Air Raid Precaution) which entailed all of us to wear a helmet and get into
conveniently located trenches at the blast of a siren. On one such stay in the
trench for a while, I heard my mother and her neighbor exchange notes on
some recipe in a hush-hush tone. They felt the iron helmets could be used as
a hot plate for making dosa, after the war. My father chided them to keep
quiet and realize the gravity of the situation. How such soft discussions could
betray us to the Japanese pilots above was a mysterious moot point for me
then. We also had to paste brown paper on the windows to keep out the
light and obviate splinters in the event of bombardment.

I must mention the cook in the household. His name was a mouthful
‘Aravamuthan’. But I could only call him Aramboo. He came to our house-
hold as a boy and continued till he was 40 plus. He was a good cook and
more than that, was a great company for us. He would play hide and seek
with me and fairly good level of cricket with my older brothers and was al-
ways available for odds and ends. Like a one man army, he was a one man
team. He was little mercurial in his temperament and sensitive to admonish-
ing, especially from my mother when he would sulk and not talk to anyone

36
for days. Once he left for distant Rajputana, and worked for Sir T Vijaya
Raghava Chari, a friend of my grandfather, when he was the Dewan of
Udaipur. I still remember his homecoming after a year or so, dressed in
Khadi Kurta and Pyjama with a bunch of peacock feathers.

In his own way he was a nationalist. Once I found him spinning yarn on a
Charka and when he had enough, took it to the Khadi Bhandar at
Chidambaram. He was given to a lot of reading – especially magazines like
Kalki and Ananda Vikatan and once his joy knew no bounds when one of his
letters got published in Kalki’s vatta mejai. His hero was MK Thyagaraja Bha-
gavathar and he would always be humming one of his songs with a heavy
nasal tone.

In childhood the greatest obsession is for wheels. Perhaps it starts with the
thallu vandi – walker, a three wheeled affair, which a toddler has to contend
with for learning the ropes connected with walking and also recovering from
a fall. Then, came the tricycle which coordinated the progress with speed
and manouverability. The next stage was to have a go at the big one,
through a variant called monkey pedalling. This was virtually apprenticeship
for the ride royal, seated on a saddle. When I felt I was ready I pestered my
parents for a cycle. One day Aramboo brought home a contraption which
was soon shaped back into the bike it once was.

I got to balance myself after many a fall into the thorny bushes. More than
the scratches and bruises it was the stench from some of the hedge crops
which was traumatic.

My elder brother Govi created some anxious moments in the usually serene
household. He had fallen sick in Madras where he had gone for a cricket
match between Annamalai University and Presidency College. He was admit-
ted in the Madanapalle sanatorium. Those days there was no effective medi-
cation except for ‘rest’ in a salubrious climate. Cook Aramboo was sent to be
with him and for some six months, he did a great job of keeping my brother
company and sending dispatches home regularly. He sent us photographs of
the other inmates and wrote about interesting things happening at the Sana-
torium. Once he wrote that a python had strayed in and in another, went
into raptures while describing the services of Dr. Jesudian whom he called ‘a

37
God’. Along with my brother was one of the daughters of Anantha Sayanam
Iyengar – parliament speaker during Nehru’s time and also one Avatoon – an
Armenian and Rajagopal, from Kumbakonam who was later on General Man-
ager at Madras Motors. By God’s grace my brother recovered to get back to
his normal activities, but he had to give up the Chemical Engineering course
at Annamalai University (he was in the first batch when the Engineering Col-
lege was started there).

During the holidays, my father sometimes used to take us to Cuddalore to his

elder sister’s house. Rao Bahadur TR Chakrapani Iyengar, my uncle, was a
leading lawyer and at that time, the Public Prosecutor. As was the tradition
during the raj days, he was also connected with SPCA, Red Cross, St. John’s
Ambulance; Cheshire Home etc. in which the ex-officio chief was always the
District Collector. His house was in Cuddalore NT (after a long time I leant
the distinction between OT and NT – Old and New) on the way to the Cud-
dalore beach. It had a very long verandah, fully grilled like one long stretch of
window. I used to play cricket with his servants, Tulasi and Ice. And I was
soon friends with the petty shopkeeper who had his shop at the end of the
verandah. I remember getting lots of empty cigarette packs and match box
stickers, of which every child was a collector. It was like collecting stamps. I
was fascinated by the packet of Passing Show – a dark pink and white packet
with a picture of a jovial gentleman in top hat. In the match sticker section
there were various products of Wimco with Cheetah Fight, their fighting cock
brand being plentiful. Other less known brands were Anil and Stag. No one
talked about the harmful effects of smoking or passive smoking those days.

My uncle had a daughter who died very young. Her name was Ruby and my
father used to mention that she was a beautiful child. He had a son by name
Srinivasan who was perhaps the earliest Indian covenanted officer at Parry
and Co. looking after their Cuddalore branch which did flouring business in
imports and exports. Later he was at London helping VK Krishna Menon in
his India League Office and after that Charge d’affairs for India at Jakarta. He
had the dubious distinction of being mentioned in despatches in Kushwant
Singh’s (he was his colleague in London) biography for his amatorial adven-
tures.

On one of the visits to Cuddalore, I had the privilege of meeting a top per-

38
sonality of Tamil tinsel world then – MK Tyagaraja Bagavathar at my uncle’s
house. While I served him the coffee given by my aunt, I was introduced to
him. I said he was no stranger and the great man was pleased. “How!?” he
asked. I replied “through Haridas”. He then asked me to sing a song from
that movie, which ran for nearly three years. Out poured the song,
‘manmatha leelai’. MKT was all praise for my childish prattle with a succinct
warning to my uncle, that he better be careful and keep an eye on me – pos-
sibly referring to the yearning of a kiss in the song. This must have been in
the year 1944.

My uncle’s house was right across the Collector’s bungalow, with a huge
playground in between. He would often take me along for walks, and I would
be proud of the admiring looks I would get from passerby. The then District
Collector (considered a demi god during the raj), was one Koduva from Man-
galore.

Around that time Neyveli lignite mining had started, so the sub-soil water
had to be drained. This was done by opening up lot of geysers / artesian
wells in surrounding areas like Jayamkondam and T Palur. It was a great sight
to see gushing water which was warm and the sulphur content in it endowed
it with medicinal value. Many men and women I have seen drenching them-
selves more as a water sport than as something good for the health.

39
King’s college (top), Dr. Ruggles Gates (bottom left), Dr. Wolf (bottom right)

40
My father at London

41
Letter from Rt.Hon.V.S.Srinivasa Sastri

42
Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar and his wife

43
44
Chapter Three

Ceylon

45
In 1947, my father took up an assignment in Ceylon. It was great reaching Dha-
nushkodi by the Indo-Ceylon Express and then crossing the sea to Ceylon –
from Mandapam to Thalaimannar in small motor vessels named Goschen or
Irwin. We were located at Lunuwila near Negombo. The huge colonial villa with
a large verandah, green thattis and well laid out garden made us believe that it
was to be a different and pleasant living here. There were only three such bun-
galows in a coconut estate of near 150 acres – part of a research scheme in
coconut where my father was the chief botonist. I was put in a school named
St. Mary’s College (schools were called that) at Negombo. A famous catholic
institution which was known for scholars and cricketers it turned out. The fa-
mous wicket keeper Ben Navarathne was from this college.

The Principal was Mr. Selvarathnam, a typical headmaster material with a

short hairdo, library framed spectacles and suit and tie to boot. I had been to
his room, that too with my father, perhaps at the time of admission. The tro-
phies and shields proclaimed excellence in academics and extra-curricular ac-
tivities. Books filled the revolving shelves but what caught my eye was the long
cane resting on two nails on the window sill. It did look menacing. We would
sight the HM at times saunter down the corridor, a pith hat (typical of British
gentry) on his large head. He would doff it every time he stopped to talk to the
children.

One morning the poetry class had just begun. The teacher, an elderly Sinhalese
gentleman had started his lecture when an intruder got into the class through
one of the open windows, rushed to the teacher and accosted him. He put his
hand into the coat pocket and ran away. The teacher looked shocked. The
whole class was dumbfounded. Two of us, Mohammed Tahir and I, chased the
man, caught him and returned with the wallet. The teacher was at full swing,
teaching as if nothing had happened. Hardly had we resumed our seat than,
came a chit from the principal to the teacher, calling Tahir and me to the of-
fice.

The trophies were there, the books were there so too the cane. We were full
of glee and awaited a hero’s welcome. That was what we thought.
Mr. Selvarathnam raised his eyes slowly from whatever he was reading. He
took a slow long look at us to only ask “Tahir and Raghavan?” “Yes sir” we
mumbled, but still with a sense of pride. He continued “do you know what the

46
new poem Casa Bianca is all about?” “Sorry sir” we said, and we felt small.
“No wonder when the teacher was reading the poem, I know you were busy
elsewhere” he continued. I saw the cane acquiring a vicious self. He contin-
ued to tell us “Casa Bianca is the story of a disciplined boy unlike you. Disci-
pline – that is the credo for all of us here. Your duty is to study. Supposing
the miscreant had hurt you, what answer do I give your parents?” Next day
we were caned at the huge quadrangle. The entire school, some 1000 – 1500
students heard our behavior and took it as a lesson.

Years later, I saw the film ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’ on the famous headmaster of
a public school, so brilliantly portrayed by Peter O’Toole. Mr. Chips knows
every student by name. It is the last day before retirement and, under-
standably, he wants to make the most of the last few hours for pleasantries.
A few minutes before the bell, he gets a message which he reads quickly,
puts it into his pocket, and continues the pleasantries. The bell rings and
when the last of the students is out of the doorway, Mr.Chips slumps on to
the table to weep loudly – on the news that his wife is no more. Perhaps that
is the kind of discipline such schools and principals like Selvarathnam were
made of.

Negombo was a fine place – numerous lagoons amidst the blue sea. I re-
member relishing tea and fresh bread from a shop called Taufeeks. Many
times my parents would pick my brother and me up on the way to Colombo
for purchases and to see a movie. ‘Date with Judy’ a musical in which Eliza-
beth Taylor features as a young girl along with Jane Powell – the singing star
and mainstay is still green in my memory. Perhaps this must have been Liz
Taylor’s second movie after ‘National Velvet’. The Colombo seafront was also
enchanting, especially the Galle Face Hotel. Apples from Australia were avail-
able in pleanty and cheap. The huge department stores – Miller’s and Car-
gill’s were all new to us. The people were friendly. They dressed well and
lived well. Almost every family had a car – all imported. The Island was ap-
propriately called ‘Little England’ then.

I was fond of dogs, but had never owned one. At my pestering, my father got
me an Alsatian pup for a glorious sum of Rs. 75. I still remember the name of
the owner – Dr. De Silva and the place Bambalapetia (outskirts of Colombo).
She was a great companion, and endeared herself to one and all in the family

47
especially when once she kept at bay a black cobra with a raised hood at a
striking distance from my mother who was busy plucking flowers for puja.
She was also very helpful in picking balls when we played cricket. Curiously
she was named Dane. A name which I picked from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe
which was one of the prescribed books in the school.

My routine during holidays was to go along with the servant, Pakkiri, the Al-
satian in tow, footloose in the thick undergrowth of the estate. Pakkiri like so
many millions on the island, was of Indian origin and his forefathers must
have come centuries back as indentured labor from the dry districts of Ram-
nad for work in the tea estates or clearing the forest for roads and rail track.
In the course of the legging, many times have I come across monitor lizards
and a bigger version – closer to Komodo Dragons, called ‘kabrakoya’. The tail
had a vicious and swift movement which once hurt the dog in its eye.

In due course, my Alsatian had a litter and before their eyes opened there
was troublesome news at home that we were to leave the island as my fa-
ther had taken up an assignment at Coimbatore. My father told me that we
could not take the dog and the litter as customs would object. Hell broke
loose and I must have cried for more than a day. Thanks to the intercession
of VV Giri, then High Commissioner for India, who had a soft corner for chil-
dren (he should, as he had more than a dozen), a diplomatic letter saw the
canine baggage accompanying us. The dog was on leash and muzzled and
the pups were neatly put in a basket with convenient rope handles.

When at Rameswaram to board the the train, to go to Coimbatore, with the

dog and pups, the locals thought I was something like Mowgli with his wolf
and pups. The compartment allotted to us was already occupied by a middle
aged gentleman who just raised his eyebrows. My father introduced himself
– he in turn said his name was P Neelakandan (Pa Neelakandan – film direc-
tor). I asked him if Vichitra Vanitha was not one of the films he directed.
“Yes” he said and was obviously surprised. When I asked him, “is it not an
adaptation of ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ (a great drama of Oliver Goldsmith)?”,
he was amazed. He was all praise for the standard of education in Ceylon.

48
Chapter Four

Coimbatore

49
The research station connected with sugarcane where my father took up an
assignment was called in the pre-independence era, ‘Imperial Station for Sugar-
cane Research’ and now known as Sugarcane Breeding Institute. Many a great
scientists like Dr. Barber and Sir. TS Venkatraman had served in this Institute.
My father was very happy to come back to India, more so perhaps to be located
in Coimbatore where he was born when his father was working in the collector-
ate. Whenever we passed Sullivan Street (named after Sullivan who was Collec-
tor and also who discovered Ootacamund), he would point out the house
where he was born. My father’s designation at the institute was Second Cane
Breeding Officer – SCBO, next to the Director. Though it was three years since
independence some of the menials respectfully addressed him as ‘chinna durai’
– having been used to addressing white incumbents that. As a matter of fact
the District Collector of Coimbatore then was still a Britisher by name F W Mor-
ris.

My father put me in a vernacular school, instead of Stanes – which should have

been the automatic choice for someone with his standing and especially having
dabbled in studies in England. He was keen that I should get used to tamil, more
especially studies, as the scholastic exposure in Ceylon was out and out english.
Initially I did have some difficulties, but thanks to understanding and consider-
ate efforts of the teachers, I got into the stride in reasonable time. The school
were I was put was the Municipal High School at RS Puram.

While at school I got to hone my cricketing skills on the grounds near the
school, horrifyingly called the burial ground. It was mostly on half matting wick-
ets and the place was so huge, seniors would be playing in a different place al-
lowing juniors like us to have our own go. One such senior was Raghavan, who
later on played for the State Bank of India and knocked at Test selection. He
was of great help to me in teaching some of the nuances of medium fast bowl-
ing. Another cricketer, who was a neighbor in our colony, was GS Dutt, a Pun-
jabi who too had played for the state. He fine tuned off-spinners. Later, at the
PSG Arts College where I did my Intermediate, guidance came forth from
Balakrishnan who was teaching in the engineering college of the same manage-
ment. He too played for the state.

I also dabbled in ball badminton at the courts in the sugarcane breeding insti-
tute and gradually ventured into tournaments at nearby Coimbatore town

50
along with my partner, one Sekharan Nambiar. I remember cycling five or six
miles, that too doubles, in the early morning to participate in tournaments
so very well conducted by Dr. Subba Rao, an ayurvedic doctor and his broth-
ers. I was thrilled to see the display of skill in this game by giants like twist
Rajagopal, thideer adi Dhakshina, Kareem, Wahab and Ganapathy.

A good number of celebrities would visit the breeding station. My father in-
vited a few home. I remember Dr. Brandes of USA, entomologist of world
renown, who had done monumental work in this field in South America. He
gave me few American dollars and cents. Pity it did not drag me into numis-
matics. Another was the King of Cocos Islands, of British extraction. Perhaps
it is one of those speck of an island in the Pacific Ocean. I was amazed when
he told he would get daks (tapal) only once in two months that is whenever a
ship sailing between Colombo and Australia stopped by. Another thing which
I found fascinating was when he told my father that he was a descendant of
one of the sailors in the ship captained by the great explorer Captain Cook.

I remember Mr. PA Gopalakrishan ICS, who was Secretary Agriculture with

the Government of India, coming home for dinner. The conversation was
very friendly till he made a casual remark on the tardiness of one of the re-
search projects at this institute. This project was done by a colleague of my
father but all the same, it touched him to the quick and made my father
elaborate on the difference in mugging and becoming a civil servant and the
work of a researcher which yields results sometimes in a jiffy, sometimes
longer and many times not at all. The nice gentleman Mr. Gopalakrishnan
was, he took this in his stride. It only showed how loyal scientists were to
science and fellow scientists.

NCC was introduced for the first time then – 1949. It was compulsory and we
were impressed by the uniform, beret, broad cloth belt, woollen stockings
and kabul shoes given. We got an allowance of eight annas for every parade.
All this took away the pain of having to cycle the two or three miles from my
Sugarcane Research Institute colony to RS Puram. We did route marches
within Coimbatore town – once I remember it was to the Goshen Park
(currently called Bharathi poonga) which was on the outskirts towards Tada-
gam. This park at our times was well known as the place where evacuees
from Malta were housed during the World War.

51
Once we went on a trek to Marudamalai. We were taken care of by two
teachers, one MR Subramaniam (known by his initials, MRS and nicknamed
mondi thanks to a drag he had on one of his legs) and Ramachandran. MRS
was to cook uppuma for us during the trip. We had to carry all the way, the
requisite items for the uppuma like rava, oil, fuel, vessels etc. We were all
hungry after an arduous trek. Naturally we awaited the delicious uppuma
which though was in a liquid form, served the purpose.

Those days there were not many choices especially for small cars and the
middle class had to be content with imported cars one or two years old like
Morris 8 or Standard 10 (which had the union Jack emblem on the bonnet
and a ring tone when started), Hillman and Ford Prefect. We also had me-
dium sized cars like Velox and Wyvern, both from Vauxhall and Hillman Minx.
In the luxury car category the rage those days was Pontiac and mostly the
mill-owners, especially their children, had a great desire to flaunt it. The
more in their stable, the higher was their status.

Austin 10 of 1947 make was bought second hand by my father in 1949. For a
very long time it was bearing Registration. No. CS (Cochin State) to be re-
registered MDC in due course. It was a solid little car, shining black with
lovely leather upholstery and the dashboard even had an electric clock. Part
of the roof could be pulled back. This was a model just prior to A35, A40 and
A70.

This fascination for cars had a forward integration in admiration of some of

the mention-worthy drivers then. One was Krishnaswamy, called Kittu, who
hailed from a leading agriculturist – Vokkaliga family at Mettupalayam. He
was reputed to cover the distance between Mettupalayam and Coimbatore
inside of half an hour, on his motorcycle or by car. If I remember correct he
also had a tiger moth plane. I also used to look in amazement, the casual and
stylish way a brand new Austin A40 was driven by another with bulging eyes
behind thick glasses, a combination of Orson Wells of Hollywood and Ruskin
Bond of Mussoori. He always had a cigarette dangling from the lower lip. I
never knew I was to be handled by him soon.

One deepavali with constant nagging, the arsenal of crackers that I was al-
lowed, had what was called an atom bomb. Despite warning by the shop-

52
keeper I handled it in a debonair fashion and one of them was quicker than
my reflexes in blowing out. I ended up with a ringing noise in one of my ears
non-stop. When this was a continuous affair for days together, I hesitantly
approached my father, who promptly took me to an ENT specialist, GN Ra-
jagopalan. One look at me, more than my ear, he knew what the problem
was and asked me in Tamil, “enna da deepavali pattasa?” with the trade-
mark cigarette dangling. Sheepishly I nodded my head and he put some in-
strument through my nose and blew up, to position my ear-drum. He was a
famous ENT specialist and the son of a famous principal of agricultural col-
lege also called GNR, GN Rangaswamy Iyengar. Years later, one of his sisters
was married to a cousin of mine Abbu (Rangarajan), whose daughter
Nandini, was for some time India no. 1 in tennis.

In the early 50’s we used to go to Madras for summer holidays. We would

stop at Kilpauk with my uncle, T Ananthachari. Poonamalle High Road, full of
avenue trees, was a long stretch with not much of traffic. Only a few bunga-
lows with huge frontage and compounds lined the road. They were the resi-
dences of zamindars like the raja of Parlakamidi, Pithapuram. Sir A Laksmana
Swamy Mudaliar’s ‘Locksley’ was a famous landmark there. My two cousins
and I would cycle along this road and stop at the compound of the Ayurvedic
College, now called Kilpauk Medical College, scale the compound wall and
from thereon to the vila maram to pluck vilankai’s (wood apple) to use as
cricket balls back home. Once we spotted the watchman and ran like mad.
As we jumped on the bike, my heel got caught in the chain. We entered the
house as if nothing had happened but my uncle saw the blood stains and
took me in his car to the nearest hospital. To my surprise, it was to the same
hospital where we had gone on a raid of vilankais. The doctor recognized me
as one of the three who had raided the villankais. Dr. Sankunni Menon, the
legendary Ayurvedic doctor in a typical Malayalam accent asked me “why all
this trouble? I would have given you a sack full if had you asked me or the
watchman”. I could not possibly reply that there is a romance in stealing.

The other place where I went mostly alone was my sister’s at her father-in-
laws place. He was one Rao Bahadur Srinvasa Chari a Special Engineer at the
Corporation of Madras. He was held in high esteem. Madley, the then Com-
missioner of Corporation, a Britisher would come to his chambers for discus-
sion. Incidentally it was he who designed the Napier Bridge near the Univer-

53
sity building – series of semi-circular design structure. The house called
Ranga Vilas was huge, extending from Chamiers Road to St. Mary’s Road.
There were very few houses then, mostly used by the Britishers at EID Parry
on Chamiers road. On St. Mary’s road, there was only one bungalow, Sir N.
Gopalaswamy Iyengar’s. By evening, the whole area would be desolate. One
evening I heard a noise and learnt later that a car had knocked down, fatally
a pedestrian. Lawyer TM Kasthuri got his celebrity client, an actress who was
popular in Hindi and Tamil, off the hook in this case.

Another time on a short holiday in Bangalore, we stayed at my cousin’s

house at Basavangudi. It was the outhouse of Sir Puttanna Chetty’s bunga-
low. The next door neighbor was KS Gopalswamy Iyengar, agent for ‘The
Hindu’ who also owned a nursery. His son Kasthuri Rangan, fast bowler,
played for India. My cousin, who was at Binnys, was also a well known crick-
eter by name Aram (short form of Aravamudhan). Along with his son, who
was younger to me by a couple of years I went to witness the Ranji Trophy
final between Madras and Mysore. It was an interesting match with stal-
warts on either side. I remember names like PE Palia, Shyam Sundar, LT
Adisesh and a schoolboy by name Nazareth, playing for Mysore. The Madras
team was led by Suri (Suryanarayana of the Buchi Babu family – his younger
brother MM Kumar was my college mate who also played for the state later),
Gopi (CD Gopinath), Kanni (Kannairam) both played also for the country.
What a pleasure it was to witness the match simultaneous with munching
bisi kalleka.

On weekends we would drive down in the Austin 10, with my father at the
wheel, to Bhavani Sagar. The project was just then coming up. The road to
Mettupalayam was concrete surfaced, perhaps the first one in India. With
not much of a traffic, we used to reach the project site which was some-
where near Sathyamangalam, comfortably and in reasonable time. The pro-
ject chief was A Srinivasan, a meticulous engineer who came in for great ap-
preciation from no less a person than Jawaharlal Nehru for completing the
project well on time and within the budget. This stood him in good stead to
become the chief of Neyveli Lignite Corporation later. My father knew him
and I was amazed at his simplicity, playing down encomiums given to him.

The early 50’s saw a great entertainment explosion at Coimbatore in the

54
shape of wrestling matches. It was something like the current WWF we now
see on the TV. My father was one of the invitees and I remember four or five
matches which were held at the floodlit Coronation Park. There were other
VIP’s and dignitaries: Rao Bahadur CS Ratnasabapathy Mudaliar, mill-owner
and public figure after whom RS Puram has been named, Parthasarathy Iyen-
gar, DIG Western Range, who later became Commissioner of Police when
reputation has it that he stopped an enthusiastic Kamaraj Nadar breaking
the cordon to receive Jawaharlal Nehru at Madras airport. The Travancore
sisters Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini who had some film shooting at Pakshi Raja
studios, were regular visitors, But the bulk was teeming crowds from adjoin-
ing villages, some in their mundas and carrying their dinner in huge tiffin car-
riers.

On the wrestlers side there were Dara Singh, his brother Randhawa, Jabisco
from Poland, Tiger Holden from Australia, King Kong – a huge mountain of a
man from Hungary and an Egyptian wrestler, his whole body tattooed. The
referee was nearly always the midget Chinese wrestler Wong Buck Lee
known for his ‘flying kicks’. At first the crowd would be shocked into silence
seeing Dara Singh lift King Kong (weighing more than 400 lb.) and doing what
was called popularly, aeroplane rotation and put him on the mat. A few min-
utes later the oohs and aahs would be deafening. To heighten the enthusi-
asm the local vernacular press, Nava India gave a detailed description of
each match and catchy headlines as if these wrestling matches were the ulti-
mate in life. One caption asked “will the mask of Red American Scorpion be
torn today?”

These bouts went on for more than a month. But they were suddenly
banned on the score that many from the rural areas had gone bankrupt,
some of them even pawning their wives thaali to buy a ticket. Some said it
was rigged, all the same, I could not but appreciate the marketing efforts of
the organizers, Chinna Annamalai and S Viswanathan – ‘Savi’, considering it
was early 50’s with no marketing aids like the electronic media which has
helped currently IPL and World Cup football. Also the halo of credibility the
duo built around the whole thing by inviting leading citizens of Coimbatore is
certainly mention worthy.

I once ran into King Kong at the nursing home run by Dr’s. Pai & Rao where

55
my sister was undergoing treatment. He must have been nearly 7 feet tall
and with all the bulk, he had to be literally squeezed out of a big sedan and
escorted to the radiology room for an x-ray on his leg for a suspected crack.

After my SSLC, I was keen on having a cycle to go to college, instead of by the

institute’s big bullock drawn cart, which was derisively called ‘Marco Polo’
wagon. My father agreed provided I do well in the exams. I was hoping for a
Raleigh, Humber or Rudge with an aeroplane or Brooke’s saddle, full chain
guard and a Miller’s dynamo. But the one I got was a BSA – of course that
too was imported then and was got from Madras Cycle Company, Broadway
– who were the latter day manufacturers of Enfield motor cycles in India.

I joined the Intermediate at a college in Peelamedu, which was quite far from
Vedapatti where we stayed. But cycling was not that strenuous because of
the newly found energy, and also because I’d pickup a classmate en route at
the Agricultural College campus – George Muthu, who shared the pedaling.
Doubles was not allowed then (it had to wait for MGR’s rule which was con-
siderably down in the future) and we had to be careful of the police on this
pilgrim’s progress. That’s when on our return, sometimes, we stopped at
Lucky Café for the delectable tea and also to hear snatches of dialogue from
the nearby Royal theatre playing ‘Parasakthi’ then. Parental control pre-
cluded us from seeing such reformation oriented movies then.

I managed an eleven for the college cricket team like how ‘The Dirty Dozen’
was formed. Most of the boys barely knew the game. But I must acknowl-
edge some of them did more than reasonably well later, even beyond club
level cricket. Quite a few contemporary cricketers from other colleges I re-
member are Raghupathy who played for Govt. College of Engg (bro-in-law of
Seetharam Rao of Dasaprakash Hotel), Haridas – PSG college of Engg. – who
played for the districts, Rama Rao who played for Govt. Arts College – a gay
blade and a good looking cricketer distantly related to the notorious Sulur
Subba Rao who was connected with more murders than he could care to
remember.

While mentioning my cricketing days at this college I should gratefully ac-

knowledge the encouragement I received from Mr. Karupannan who was
lecturer in Physics and more than even the Physical Director whose responsi-

56
bility it was, he used to watch all our matches. He likened me to Keith Miller
– perhaps more for the mop of hair which I also brushed upwards after each
delivery, from obstructing my vision.

My father and one of my older brothers, Paddu, studying in PSG Engineering

College were good at tennis distributing their playing time among the three
courts – Forest College, YMCA and Coronation park to avail themselves the
new ball facility. My father, an adept at the old fashioned ‘chop and spin’
game had played for London Varsity. My brother and his partner I. Balu were
Inter-Collegiate champions at Coimbatore and at the University level came
close to being second to the legendary R Krishnan and his cousin Seethara-
man who both played for Loyola. At the forest college grounds we had Major
Morley, Principal of GCT and his son Hugh Morley playing. They were both
good players and it was remarkable how the Major held, more so tossed, the
ball for serve, despite the handicap of two fingers missing on his left hand.
On the return trip, we would park the car at Ponnurangam street to listen to
music concerts arranged by Binny Subba Rao during Rama Navami. I still
wonder how in the Austin 10 sedan, three of us – father, my brother and I
sat till wee hours to listen to great musicians like Madurai Mani Iyer. My
mother back home would be naturally upset waiting and worrying about us.

Paddu was also a talented drama actor. I recall the public looking in amaze-
ment at a ‘madisar mami’ riding a motorbike. This was the dress he was on
to participate at an inter-collegiate drama competition. Notable contempo-
rary actors were Mohandas, then lecturer at the same college and future
DGP Tamil Nadu and Sundaresan of Agriculture College, brother of Kovai
Chezian.

Viji, another elder brother of mine was at that time residing in Coimbatore
on job with Caltex after completing Chemical Engineering at Annamalai Uni-
versity. He also played cricket for the University besides being active in NCC.
I recall an incident my father used to mention. It seems TT Krishnamachari,
then finance minister was on a visit to Coimbatore. My father met him hav-
ing known him and also being related. After pleasentries he was asking my
brother, who had taken my father, generally on oil industry, perks etc. That
time Stanvac, Caltex and Burmah Shell were the three monopolizing the in-
dustry and perhaps IOC was not even thought of. It seems he detailed to my

57
brother how he struggled to come up as salesman and then a dealer for Cad-
bury’s, Vinolia etc. As my father and brother took leave of him TTK saw the
huge imported car given by the company to my brother, in which they got in.
My brother was hardly thirty then. In a few months time the finance bill for
that year included draconian clauses to take care of perks. I was in school at
that time and naturally could not connect these events.

Later on Paddu, after his Mechanical Engineering at PSG, Coimbatore joined

oil industry with Stanvac. Whenever my two brothers met mostly the talk
was on marketing and sales strategies, inter-company competition etc. Some
of the names dropped reverentially by them with respect to their industry
were KS. Rangaraj, called ‘Speed’, Sivaramakrishnan, brother of actor Neelu,
Ramesh Punja etc.

One of the celebrities at Coimbatore I was privileged to be acquainted with

was GD Naidu. It seems he was a contemporary of my father during ’35 – ’37
in London – perhaps he must have come on some tour to pick up some ideas
for his industry back home. My father narrated a funny incident which hap-
pened during the coronation parade – either Edward VIII or George VI –
when it seems he broke the line and got onto the road. The British Tommies
who typically have their arms locked behind caught him and put him
promptly in a local Police Station. My father along with KTK Thangamani (the
future day communist), who was then doing law at London, had to bail him
out.

GD Naidu invited my father and family to dinner. My father was not very
sure of the spread, having known that few months earlier he invited KM
Munshi, Union Minister in Nehru cabinet for tea to be just served jaggery
and groundnut, of course with tea. Many such eccentricities are told of him,
but they could never impair the greatness as an innovator and inventor he
was. It was nice of him to have sent his personal car (Oldsmobile) and his
driver to take us to Gopal Baugh. I still remember the impeccable white pan-
jakacham and the clean and crumple free yellow silk full-sleeve shirt he was
always clad in. Even his spectacles in gold frame could not hide the pair of
mischievous eyes. There was something in his facial expression which made
everyone feel guarded and not take any chances with him even if conversa-
tion was on a crescendo of conviviality.

58
The family at Coimbatore

59
Letter from Sir.CV Raman

60
61
62
 Chapter Five

Madras (student)

63
My degree – Economics (Hons) – I did in Madras, at Vivekananda College. Mr.
Sundaram Iyer, mathematics Professor, who also ran a bus service in the city –
City Motors, was Principal. The college was known for its academic excellence
and games, especially cricket and tennis. Virtually, three fourths of the Madras
University Cricket team was from our college – U Prabhakar Rao, VV Kumar,
MM Kumar, PK Krishnamurthy, J Ramakrishnan, SV Narayanan, to name a few.
Similarly, in tennis we had VK Parthasarathy, Seshadri and Balagopal – a vet-
eran and a part-time professor in the college.

In ball badminton we had a very good team. We won the Bertram trophy or-
ganized by Loyola College in this game. I had the privilege of being a part of
this team. The Bertram tournaments included teams from Andhra. I gratefully
remember the coaching Wahab gave us. In a way personally it was a compen-
sation for the unfulfilled longing I had in Coimbatore in not coming up to the
level of playing him at the tournaments where my partner and I got knocked
out in the early stages. With this reputation we had the privilege of coaching
the Madras State women’s team comprising of Mrs. G Narasiman (wife of Mr.
Narasiman – Hindu), Padmini Raghavan, daughter of Mr. VT Rangaswamy Iyen-
gar and the wife of one Mr. Raghavan IAS, who was the Chief of Hindustan
Photo Films, Ooty, etc. I still remember the delicious and sumptuous breakfast
at Mr. Narasiman’s house.

My favourite games were badminton and cricket, though I did dabble in tennis.
The wristy game of badminton did create problems while at tennis, where a
rigid forearm is called for. Add to this my tendency to clout the ball, a trait
from cricket, which was anywhere but in the court. With all this, I played in the
hallowed courts of R Krishnan, in the company of VK Parthasarathy, Madras
No. 1 and a college mate of mine. Krishnan’s father Ramanatha Iyer, to save
the thatties and the picker boys from exhaustion, devised a method of keeping
me busy. He showed me on a 16 mm projector, clippings on his son’s matches,
one of which was a marathon match between R Krishnan and Ham Richardson,
which went on for more than four hours. There were no tie-breakers or quick
deaths those days. He was an affectionate father who was always on the side-
lines to pep up his son, whom he fondly called Kannan. He would also reproach
him when things went wrong, of course with grunting of teeth and in hushed
voice and no voluble expletives, Dokic’s father was given to.

64
Though my ineptitude in tennis and equally so the attraction I had for other
pursuits kept me away from active tennis, I was a tennis buff of sorts in a
theoretical way. I was privileged to have witnessed some of the all time and
contemporary greats, thanks to Davis Cup and other matches organized by
Madras State Lawn Tennis Association. I have seen Rafael Osuna of Mexico, a
Wimbledon winner and who was reputed ‘to be so fast – he was just a blur’,
Frank Sedgeman, of Australia, another Wimbledon winner, who like Worrell
of cricket, had a mandatory nap before matches, Ken Rosewall, who wove
magic on the court with his artistry in strokes, Jarslov Drobney, the self ex-
iled Czech, who broke the voodoo of being a finalist at Wimbledon for long
with professionals being debarred. I had the privilege of even handling his
Maxply wooden racquet and I was amazed at the small grip which perhaps
explained how he was able to play delicate shots. Then, there were our own
legendary hard hitting Sumanth Mishra, suave Naresh Kumar and Premjit Lal,
Jaideep Mukherjee and the local lads, Krishnan and AJ Uday Kumar. I also
remember witnessing the gorgeous Gussie Moran, whose sneaking pink
laced panties, out of short skirt was more of a draw than her gamesmanship.
Then there was the pint-sized power house from Philippines, Ampone. And
what of Jack Arkinstall from Australia, whose match with Krishnan was al-
most an annual event. Winning and losing was a ding-dong affair.

Equally I was impressed by the organizers and grounds men whose dedicated
work came to the fore whenever a downpour made a pool of the court. After
the rain the way they dried the court with petrol and fire and mopping the
moisture with the greatest care required quite some dedication and patience
which was matched by that of the spectators who did not get agitated over
the disturbance and delay. It is still green in my mind how the great industri-
alist MA Chidambaram, fondly called MAC, who was then the President of
the Lawn Tennis Association and also Chairman of the Cricket Board, led
from the front in these activities. The matches were played mostly in Island
grounds or at the Egmore stadium.

Talking of table tennis, there were matches involving International players at

CLS (Christian Literary Society) near Madras Central station. That was when
the European paddlers’ dominance was gradually giving way to the jugglery
of the Chinese. It was great to see Sido, a hulk of a man from Hungary with
his powerful smashes and quickness of movement. He was World No. 1 but

65
soon had to give up that place to a Chinese. The crowds also saw Andreadis,
also of Hungary and Johnny Leach, a Britisher, a long time after Fred Perry,
who also in tennis was the legendary author of running forehand, and a
Wimbledon winner. That was the time when the wooden face of the bat
gave place to the pimpled rubber surface.

During my college days, my namesake NC Raghavan, India No. 3, a good

friend of mine and a college mate, was well known. He was called Indian
Sido, not only for the height and bulk, but also for the excellence in the
game. He would narrate interesting anecdotes when he was in Europe and
elsewhere. These came forth during lunch at Udipi Suga Nivas in Luz to the
accompaniment of his adai, butter and jaggery, and mine of idly, vadai, sam-
bar with ghee. He was for a while with Madras Motors, the sales outfit of
Enfield India, after graduation but sadly he died young. Another TT player at
state level I remember is Harihara Sastri who was equally talented in cricket,
representing the state in both the games. He was the son of one Col. Sastri,
who had a huge bungalow at Venkat Narayana Road, in T Nagar, now per-
haps occupied by TTD.

I did dabble in Javelin in sports and for two years in succession, bagged the
first prize. One year, the chief guest for prize distribution was Gen. Kariappa.
He took time to ask me the distance I threw and had a good smile at my
luxuriant handle bar moustache.

Vivekananda College was also well known for dramatics. Cho, though not a
student of the college, used to come for the rehearsals of plays staged by
Viveka Fine Arts. His brother, Ambi, Naani (my classmate), Neelu, Kathadi
Ramamurthy were all my contemporaries in college.

Cine fame Jai Shankar was also a contemporary and a good friend. God
knows, pedal loose where we have not roamed on our cycles. We resembled
each other a bit. Once, when I was cycling alone, someone also on a cycle
hurriedly overtook me shouting “Sankara (he was known by that name),
Sankara”, mistaking me for him. Shankar and I cycled to the house of one
Ramaswamy, Chief of Meteorology Dept. somewhere in Nungambakkam. It
was only a courtesy call for Shankar, who seemed to know him. Much later I
came to know that this Ramaswamy was the brother of Sir CV Raman.

66
Shankar never mentioned this and also the fact that they were related. He
was a simple man even when he was a name in the film world. I later met
him on a flight from Trivandrum to Madras with a halt at Trichy. As soon as I
entered the plane at Trichy, he recognized me and for the entire flight, we
happily recalled our College days.

For all of us the favorite haunt was Buhari’s on the Marina. The ambience
was lovely, the serene Bay of Bengal as the back drop and the waft of salty
air, as we relaxed over a cup of tea on the terrace. An added attraction was
the juke box (or the nickelodeon) with select English, Hindi and Tamil songs. I
never tired hearing my favorite, Billy Vaughn’s ‘Sail Along Silvery Moon’.

You were known by your clothes in the fifties. There were not many brands
then, but a few of us could boast of bamboo shark skin or tweed trousers.
Tootal socks, pyramid kerchiefs, Krementz cufflinks and buttons would bring
admiring looks. I had a fancy for narrow belts in different colors. Hickock
belts, made of seal skin were a luxury. Shoes came from Ruben Moses and
John White. My tailors were Ali (Mohammed) to Zenart with the range in-
cluding Bangalore Emporium, Mohammed Sait or Kubers. Not that I was a
dandy, but I preferred to have class and taste in all these things. When my
friends remarked snidely on this, I had to rely on contemporary well dressed
role models like Panchanalla Pignatary of Argentina, Ali Khan and the Shah of
Persia, who had additional reputation of using any dress only once.

When I was doing my Masters at Vivekananda, I ran into an old school mate
– NS Sachidanandam. We called him Sachi. He was doing law and staying in
the law college hostel on Broadway, near Minerva theatre (today the huge
building has been razed to the ground and has been in that state for over
five or six years). He invited me to a hostel day union and the chief guest was
ASP Iyer, then Director of legal studies, an ICS man. After a few pleasantries
he laid his eye on Vasanthi an up and coming film star in Tamil and Telugu.
She was a student of Law College, and had acted in the movie ‘Thaen Nilavu’,
along with Gemini Ganesan, Vyjayanthi Mala, Nambiar and Thanga Velu. And
he talked more about her than the function proper.

Prof. Ganapathy, a brilliant lecturer was professor for one year before he left
the college. He was a great draw especially among the women students at

67
the inter-college lectures. His successor, Prof. Vasudevan, who was equally
good, reminded one of Eddy Cantor.

Cycle was the mode of transport then, from home to college, and for the
aimless wandering. I recall the circuit – from Ranganatan Street in T Nagar,
where I lived, the first port of call would be Dr. Thirumoorthy Nagar, Nun-
gambakkam where my classmate, SV Narayanan, a University Cricketer and
who captained the Colts, stayed. He was a neighbor of film actor Gemini Ga-
nesan, whom I have seen in his Ford Prefect, later a Fiat, and then a Ply-
mouth. From Thirumoorthy Nagar we would pedal to Gopalapuram to meet
another classmate LV Krishnamurthy, then to Triplicane, somewhere near
Star Talkies, to sit and yap with another classmate Naani.

The name of our house in Ranganathan Street was Tupil House, named after
the Sri Vaishnavite Savant Tupil Vedanta Desikan in whose lineage we come.
The house was on nearly six grounds, built by my grandfather in the early
‘20s. As was the custom, the civic authorities it seems wanted to name the
street after my grandfather – the first resident. He suggested it be named
after Lord Ranganatha instead. It seems the whole area was a huge lake
which later due to silting and neglect became karuvelan kadu. I believe the
price per ground then was Rs. 200/- and since there were not many takers,
my grandfather invited some of our relatives to follow suit and also paid for
a few of them.

The walls were nearly 18 inches thick, high ceiling and the beams and rafters
used were gigantic in size. My father told me that these rafters and beams
were bought from the Agriculture College at Saidapet when it was demol-
ished to be shifted to Coimbatore.

For very long – the house was occupied by the Principal of Pachiappa’s Col-
lege, Prof. Krishnamurthy Iyer. Many thought that he was the owner and we
were the tenants. He was a well known English Professor with a stentorian
voice. Many a ward from well-heeled families came to this house for tuition.
One such was Kumararaja Muthiah Chettiar – son of Raja Sir Annamalai Chet-
tiar.

My father narrated an incident with reference to Mr. Krishnamurthy. Tupil

68
house had around 15 – 20 coconut trees and for quite some time the coco-
nuts were enjoyed by Mr. Krishnamurthy’s family. I believe, at one stage my
father decided to give these trees on lease for tapping toddy and made men-
tion of it also to Prof. Krishnamurthy, who said ‘please go ahead’. After a few
months when my father met him for collecting the rent, I believe Prof. Krish-
namurthy exclaimed “I don’t get coconuts anymore” not being aware that
the tree can give toddy or coconuts, not both.

On the same street lived my father’s older sister and her husband VS Sreeni-
vasa Raghavan. My uncle was district board engineer in the Madras Presi-
dency and had seen service in different places including Chittoor – now in
Andhra Pradesh. At that time I believe, one of his camp clerks was Nagaiah,
who was to become later day film star – known for his singing and character
roles in Tamil and Telugu films.

The house and the street was soon to be known better by newer identities
than for Lifco or Ramlok, or the old residents or our house. I remember one
day, an elderly gentleman, dark skinned, with a grey-clipped moustache,
coming home to see my father, his two sons in tow. He asked my father, if he
could build a shop for his sons in the open space in front. He had a small out-
let at Saidapet and wanted to tap the potential on this street, which was vir-
tually a vestibule between Mambalam Railway Station and T Nagar bus ter-
minus. My father agreed and the building came up. The gentleman was Peru-
mal Nadar, the sons were VG Paneerdas and VG Santhosam. Tempted by the
benefits of a commercial building and the rent, my father put up a building
on the other side, which housed Kerala Jewellers and a tailoring outfit on the
ground floor and first floor for Matthew & Sons. With all these buildings cov-
ering the glorious frontage of Tupil House, the landmark that it was, was out
of vision and with many residences turning commercial likewise, anyone new
will vouch; it is a commercial street rather than a residential area. Added to
that, street vendors gathered and that made the street narrower. The irony
was we had to get special permits from the Police to use our vehicles and to
get home!

Once I remember going to Gemini studio along with my brother, whose

friend MA Parthasarathy, was the chief of the studios. Parthasarathy, a
highly qualified cinematographer from the USA, and son of MA Srinivasan, a

69
leading figure in the field of industry and commerce in Mysore was a very
withdrawn man to the extent of being shy. That was the time when Gemini
was busy with ‘Insaniyat’ and its Tamil version ‘Irrumbu thirai’. I was fasci-
nated to run into a human like chimpanzee by name ‘Zippy’. Handled by an
American, Zippy has acted in quite a few movies in India.

I also remember a function organized by the Indian Council for Cultural Af-
fairs at Woodlands hotel. My brother was closely connected with Mr. Krish-
naswamy, the official who had come from Delhi for this purpose. The chief
guest was film star Vyjayanthimala, who was then flush with the success of
‘Madhumathi’ opposite Dilip Kumar. The function was arranged at an open
space in the front of the reception office. As usual my friend and I stuck to
the last row and slowly the crowd started coming in. There was an elderly
gentleman in khadi jubba and panchakaccham – superbly white seated next
to us. While waiting for the chief guest to arrive, I asked my friend rather in a
whisper, where the washroom could be. This gentleman got up and asked us
to follow him and showed us the toilet. We learnt later that he was the pro-
prietor of the hotel, Krishna Rao. His simplicity surprised us.

Vyjayanthimala apologized to the audience, made an apt and short speech.

As she was getting back to the seat, my brother whispered to her – she was
all blush and coyly sang ‘aaja re’. Good looks, grace and talent rarely go to-
gether. Perhaps she was an exception.

I loved movies. My first was ‘Wizard of Oz’ at Tanjore. I must have been
seven years old then. There were a number of cinemas in Madras – Globe,
Elphinstone, Plaza, Casino, Paragon and laterday Odeon, Midland and Anand.
I remember seeing movies like ‘Satan Never Sleeps’, ‘Sabrina’ (brilliant per-
formance by William Holden), ‘Dangerous When Wet’ (more to see the mod-
ern day mermaid – Esther Williams), Beckett (brilliantly played by Richard
Burton to Peter O’Toole’s Henry II). Elphinstone had the advantage of Jaffer’s
ice cream parlor, where the peach melba was the piece de resistance. Of
course we used to avoid going to this theatre during rainy days, for the huge
noise, raindrops made on the zinc sheet roof.

Minerva was a favourite those days. The auditorium was just a bigger version
of a drawing room. Ava Gardner’s ‘Bhowani Junction’ ran for months and we

70
got tickets only on the fourth or fifth attempt, that too only for the lower
class almost close to the screen within caressing distance of Ava Gardner.

During my leisure hours I’d drive my parents to pravachanas mostly at Venus

colony organized so well by the film producer Rathnam Iyer (father of Mani
Rathnam). It was mostly by Balakrishna Sastrigal and Thoopil Lakshminara-
simhachariar. My mother used to talk high of the graceful twosome.- Mrs.
Ratnam Iyer and Mrs. SS Vasan, how they would come in one car and walk to
the seats reserved for them. Their sarees were of the same color and anyone
could tell how costly they’d be. The diamond thodu and mookuthi resplen-
dent and all in all they looked the very epitome of divine grace. This adula-
tion and comments coming as it did from my mother, who herself wore
choicest of pattu for such occasions and always had brilliant diamond thodu
and ettu kall besri (the diamonds it seems were from the Tanjore palace in
lieu of lawyers fees for my grandfather) I knew were genuine and without a
tinge of jealousy. Of course she would also tell me the mythological parables
discoursed on that day when we drove back home.

I also went with my parents to the temples in Madras, nearby Kancheepuram

and distant ones like Oppiliappan. On a trip to Kancheepuram Varadharaja
Swami temple, only my father and his friend, one Somadeva Sharma, were in
the Standard Super 10. I was at the wheel and approaching Sunguwar Cha-
tram, Sharma wanted to pay obeisance to Kanchi Maha Periavaa who was
camping there. My father said yes, but was wondering, he did not have any-
thing to offer except the fruit he was carrying to the temple at Kacheepuram.
Sharma said no problem, “we can buy some more at Kancheepuram”. The
sage was staying in a small hut and I stopped the car a little farther away.
Both my father and Sharma got down and went inside. I opted to stay in the
car, for I felt guilty about my moustache. Within a minute or two my father
came back, the fruit offerings in hand, kept it in the car and told me
“Periavaa wants you”. The Swamiji, raised his eye, and asked me with a smile
“are you feeling embarrassed about your moustache?” He continued assur-
ing “do not worry”. On the way to Kancheepuram, my father and Sharma
explained why the fruits were brought back to the car. The sage had said
“these are not for me, take it where they belong”. I was stunned at the clair-
voyant powers of this great sage. Call it ESP or divine power, I recalled Arthur
Koestler, the communist oriented author who wrote “The God that failed”

71
after an audience with this sage.

After my Masters in Economics, I did Masters in Political Science and Di-

ploma in Journalism, where our lecturers included SA Govindarajan and VK
Narasiman of ‘The Hindu’, Nair of ‘Madras Mail’ and AK Govindarajan of
‘Swadesha Mitran’. TA Balakrishnan, professor of Economics, who later on
was a member of the Tariff Commission, came as a part-time lecturer. This
was more to mark time before landing a job.

72
On my graduation day

73
74
 Chapter Six

Madras (Career /
Marriage)

75
After the stint as scientist at Sugar cane Breeding Institiute my father took up
an assignment as UGC Professor at Vallabh Vidya Peeth, Anand in Gujarat. He
was happy to be back at teaching here. This was long before Anand became
more popular thanks to Amul and Kurien. My father was also happy to have
made acquaintance with Mr. H.M. Patel, ICS Retd who was then Secretary of
this University. While at Anand, once I remember my father going to Ahmeda-
bad to meet Rajaji, former governer general. Perhaps he had come in connec-
tion with the newly started Swatantra Party. It seems after due introduction
Rajaji had nice things to recollect about my grandfather in whose court he
practiced at Salem. Looking at my father dressed in three piece suit, tie etc, I
believe he jocularly mentioned in tamil, “ ennada vellakaran poi evvalavu va-
rusham aachu. Nee innum dorai madiri irukkiye.” ( It is years since Britishers
left. You are still dressed like them).

My father had written to the then editor of Indian Express, Bombay asking if I
could be found a berth there. Mr. Frank Moraes, Editor-in-Chief was a pleasant
gentleman, dressed in spotless white silk suit with a red cravat, which added a
deep crimson color by reflection to the brownish red complexion, which
Goanese are endowed with. He was solicitous and offered me a job at the In-
dian Express although I expressed a desire for job at the newly started Finan-
cial Express. He said that I would be an understudy to his son Dom Moraes –
who was covering the Anglo-French war (over Suez), assuring that I’ll be ab-
sorbed in the Financial section of the Indian Express later on. He also sent a
letter on this to me. But my father – and I too – wished I should be in Madras.
So armed with this letter from Mr. Frank Moraes, my father took me to Ram-
nath Goenka, Proprietor of Indian Express to see if I could join in Madras. The
first thing Goenka said: “how can Frank issue an Order?” Subsequently he
cooled down and offered me a job at Chittoor, where because of a long strike,
the entire Express establishment had been shifted to. I visited Chittoor to
make arrangements for the stay with a relative, TT Rangaraghavan, a lawyer.
Still my mother was not for it and wanted me to be in Madras. A few months
later T Ananthachari, Chief of Hindustan General Insurance, a relative put me
onto DC Kothari, Chairman of Kothari group. HM Patel also put in a word, and I
got into the sugar industry in June 1961.

The same month, Kotharis opened a sugar factory at Kattur, a little village near

76
Lalgudi, in Trichy District. The chief guest was the late Kamaraj Nadar, who
was the state’s Chief Minister. Other dignitaries were M Bhaktavatsalam, R
Venkatraman, both Ministers, DW Law, Chairman of Binny and Company,
which supplied the machinery and HT Parekh of ICICI. I accompanied a group
of press persons in a special bus from Madras, arranged by J Walter Thomp-
son, our advertising agents.
It was a sea of humanity at the function. The draw was the popularity and
esteem with which Kamaraj was held. He spoke in his inimitable southern
lingo. The statistics and economics he spelt out would have been good
enough for a treatise on the benefits of an agro based industry for a rural
economy.
The return trip was by train, the Tuticorin Express. The other occupant in my
compartment was RK Swamy, Chief of Walter Thomson and a close friend of
Mr. Kothari. He was far my elder, near six feet tall and looked like the boxer
Gene Tunny. He initiated a pleasant conversation: how he started his career
and struggled his way to what he was now. He also displayed a great sense
of humor and a sixth finger in one of his hands alluding luck it brought! GK
Vale arranged for the photographs, taken by the proprietor himself. I was
doubly delighted when I found myself in one of the photographs along with
Kamaraj.

Soon after this there was a telephone call from Walter Thompson that they
wanted me as a model for an advertising campaign for Binny’s tussore. I
agreed and their photographer Balakrishna came home and took photo-
graphs, casual and candid. Unfortunately I could not get permission from my
company. Walter Thompson then had the ad done with Lakshman Swaroop,
a leading cricketer and son of the famous double international C Ramas-
wamy, who represented India in tennis and cricket. His uncle Vizzy, Maharaj
Kumar of Vijayanagaram was the one who sent back Lala Amarnath from
England on disciplinary grounds. Vizzy was captain of the Indian team then.
He was better known for his cricket commentary.

After joining Kotharis I did a course in French at Alliance Francais. My class-

mates were Maithreyi Ramadurai, granddaughter of a famous lawyer VV
Srinivasa Iyengar and Roopa Latha Reddy, working in IOB after a stint at
Queen Mary’s College.

77
There were two Frenchmen – one Deloche, from north of France with a typi-
cal french beard, looking like Toulose Lautrec – the famous artist after whose
life ‘Moulin Rouge’ was made into a film, and the other was Mirmand, a
southerner who was in Algiers in D’Gaulle’s Liberation Army – he had a close
resemblance to the Hollywood actor Howard Duff. I was allotted to Mir-
mand’s class and it suited me well for the quest of the language, as he was
totally non-conversant with English and being a southerner, he was garrulous
with gesticulations, outweighing his words. Many a time, after class, I would
go to his house and this helped me pick up the language faster. I could talk
fairly well and even ventured to write a short story entitled “Certain soupir”
– ‘Certain sigh’, fashioning the title after the then raging novel ‘Certain
sourir’ – Certain smile by the teenage sensation Francois Sagan, which was
also made into a Hollywood film.

Mr. Mirmand complimented me on this work but when I showed it to De-

loche, the remark which he wrote in French “tres bien s’il est vous” (it is
good if it is yours), alluding probably more than a helping hand of Mirmande
in it. I was hurt. What a difference in perception between a northerner and
southerner.

When I joined Kothari’s in 1961, the office was located in Oriental Buildings,
at the corner of Armenian street and Errabalu Chetty Street. It was a massive
building constructed by NT Patel, to the architecture of LM Chitale, both
popular at that time. Other tenants included Eastern Bank, a subsidiary of
Standard Chartered where Vittal of Madras Football Association was work-
ing, Negapattam Steel – founded by Rajam of MIT fame etc. On the opposite
side at Armenian Street was Binny and Co. and to their right, the Catholic
Center and further down, the famous St. Mary’s Church. From my cabin, I
could see the white sahibs in Binny’s at work and trooping in to the mess in
turns for lunch. They had liveried ‘boyees’ from Telengana in Andhra Pradesh
as peons, all tall and strapping and known for their loyalty and honesty. It
was a fashion for big houses - William Jacks, Crompton, Shaw Wallace, Best
and Co. EID Parry etc. to have a retinue of them. Kothari’s were no exception
and we too had quite a few of them like Ramaiah, Chivaiah, Narasaiah, etc. –
all gentle giants.

For lunch we got delectable sweets and savories from YMIA (founded by An-

78
nie Besant), just across the road. With commercial tax authorities question-
ing their catering to non-members, en masse from Kotharis lunch room, we
all became members of YMIA.

At first, I used to commute from Mambalam station by electric train getting

down either at Fort or Beach and walked to office through Esplanade, China
bazaar (later day NSC Bose road) then on to Armenian Street. If it did not
take much of a time, I’d stop for a quick coffee either at Ambi’s or Modern
café. On Tuesdays Armenian Street was crowded, as Hindus, Muslims, Chris-
tians would come to worship at the St. Mary’s church.

My fellow commuters were Keerthi Vasan and Rajaram of UCO bank. Some,
who boarded at Tambaram would be having a quiet game of cards and nota-
ble among them was Balakrishna Sastrigal, a great name in Harikatha. He
was then cashier at the State Bank of India.

We commuters were thrilled when Breda, an imported train from Italy was
introduced. Even the metal straps were so sleek, we would like to travel
standing, holding on to the straps.

Soon I got a Lambretta scooter which had only then entered the market.
That was a great day. Even today I remember the registration number – MSV
1923. There was another make, ‘Vespa’ also from Italy, which had a longer
waiting period and a high premium. Enfield India too came out with a con-
traption which looked as if it had come out of ‘tin-pan alley’. It was called
‘Fantabulous’. It was cubic in structure with hardly any contour. Some who
could not wait for a Lambretta or a Vespa settled for this. My route from
Ranganathan Street to Armenian street was via Vani Mahal, Gemini, Cathe-
dral road, Edward Elliots road and then the beach road.

One afternoon the meteorology dept. forecast a severe cyclone, and all of-
fices were asked to close down. To avoid beach road, I came via Munro
statue to get into Mount road. As I was nearing Island grounds the wind was
severe, I had a tough time getting home. The cyclone as forecast battered
the city and huge trees were uprooted. The next day when I once again took
the beach road, I saw a Greek cargo liner had washed ashore opposite Presi-
dency College. I walked the sandy stretch and believe me we all looked like

79
Lilliputians at the shore. For long this ship could not be salvaged, some joked
that it be converted into a restaurant.

Around 1968 – 69 our office was shifted to Nungambakkam High Road,

which was an empty stretch. We had to go all the way to Drive-in for lunch.
Once we told Mr. DC Kothari that the office had been located in a wrong
place. He said “wait a few more years and you’ll find crossing to the Taj will
take you 15 minutes”. This proved right, today traffic is chaotic and that is
putting it mildly!

My boss was an old Parsi gentleman by name Phiroz Navaroze Talati. He was
a Major in WW II and then joined Southern Railways (then SIR), to retire as
chief controller of stores. A disciplinarian to the core, but with a huge heart.
The way he carried his subordinates with genuine human touch was some-
thing which I emulated when dealing with my own subordinates. We’d close
shop at 5 PM sharp and the army man’s footsteps down the corridor would
make me call it a day. Had I wanted to finish something, he’d tap the cabin
door, open it slightly and ask “young man, don’t you have a home?” Similarly
I remember the way he corrected my drafts. He wouldn’t score out, but de-
lete the redundant words and replace big words with simple ones. It would
be a totally revised draft but never gave me a feeling it was so.

I was keen on joining the Sterling Club of Railways for playing Badminton
(Shuttle). It was on Sterling Road nearby. Despite pulling strings through my
boss, a retired Railway man, I was tested for my skills at this game and only
then admitted. I cherish my Club days where like me, there were a few non-
Railway members. I represented the Club in the Inter-Club tournaments and
we bagged the Championship in successive years. I met the Amritraj broth-
ers, Anand, Vijay and Ashok here along with their parents. They were not
allowed to play badminton at the club, their parents said, as they were under
a strict tennis coaching regimen. However, Vijay would at times borrow my
racquet and play a quick shot on the sly and walk away.

At the Sterling Club courts, I distinctly remember Muthanna and his sister
Jhansi Ayanna, a ranked TT player at the Tennis courts. Also, Pradeep and his
sister, Suhasa, the children of the Raja of Pithapuram, who sponsored the
first foreign trip of R Krishnan for a match assignment.

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The TT coach at the club was Thiruvenkatam, an All India ranked player along
with Sivaraman and Mrs. CKK Pillai those days. He was coaching at that time
Latha and Suma George, school girls, who were knocking at the doors of the
State level ranking.

I saw a good many national level shuttlers – Suresh Goyal, Deoras, Satish
Bhatia and Meena Shah. Once I even tossed a few feathers for Nandu Nate-
kar who had come on a private visit to Madras. He was working for ESSO and
many say he was good in tennis too and would have gone places had he not
switched to badminton.

At the club level there were quite a handful of decent players, the Chopra
brothers and their uncle Kapoor who was working for Thapars. Whenever
there was dearth of players I’ve also seen Vishwanathan – the marker of the
club coming in handy. Quite a decent player, though his forte was tennis, in
which he was a reigning champion at the Marker’s tourney which was an
interesting tournament at Madras.

There were quite a few decent lady players – Indrani Prabhakar (daughter of
ECP Prabhakar), Usha Balamore, Shoba Sivaswamy and Mrs. Jai Singh (her
husband was the chief of the Railway Police Protection force). Mrs. Jai Singh
will be so anchored to the court, she will hardly yield place for others waiting
and will keep on continuing game after game. There was a standing joke, it
takes a rope to lasso her from the court. Quite many a time, I would have to
undergo this agony as her partner.

The chief patron of the club at that time was Ganguly – GM Southern Rail-
way. Occasionally I have seen him whenever there was what was called a
‘social’ at the club. A dapper of a man with felt hat bow-tie, suit etc. and a
cigar to boot. The moment he was in, the railway members will be around
him in layers, with HoD’s being the nearest. This was the man who crossed
swords when he was chairman, Railway Board, with K Hanumanthiah, Minis-
ter for Railways and had the ignominy of light, water and sewer connections
taken away from his saloon, which perhaps was the brahmastra used by the
minister.

In ‘63 I joined the Business Management course conducted by the Madras

University in the evenings to suit working men and women. I had the privi-

81
lege to be the class representative for the first year and was in charge of or-
ganizing a farewell party for the third year students. It was organized at the
Madras Gymkhana club with Sir AL Mudaliar as the chief guest. Notable
among the final year students was Meena Muthaiah, a distinguished, well
dressed and good looking lady belonging to Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar fam-
ily. She was amused when I made stray reference in my speech to her
‘sartorial flamboyance’.

I should mention a funny incident. We had a part time lecturer, an elderly

gentleman by name Sankaranarayanan, a native of Tirunelveli. In the course
of the dinner at this famous club, I approached him more by way of courtesy,
to ask him how the ambience and the dinner spread were. At that time he
was having a bowl full of sweet corn soup in his hand, took a spoonful of it
only to wince and come out with a remark “namma sola kanji” which doubt-
less punctured the puffed up self of mine, for all the painstaking effort I took
for an elaborate dinner at this famous club, perhaps the oldest in the coun-
try.

The next year also we had a similar get-together at Hotel Woodlands with
HVR Iyengar (ICS, Retd.), then Chairman of EID Parry as chief guest. Very sim-
ple and humorous, he gave me a low down, in the short association with
him, on his humble beginning at Holenarsipur in Karnataka. His father was a
teacher or a purohit, I do not remember. I however took care, by way of
abundant caution to include in the menu, items which would be liked by
Prof. Sankaranarayanan!

One of my classmates was Raja Rao (working in Binny’s). He and his wife An-
jana Bai, for some time principal at Meenakshi College and for long professor
of chemistry at QMC, were excellent hosts. Some of us used to go to his
house under the pretext of combined studies, more for the crisp dosas that
came out of her kitchen. I still remember the spread at Ugadi lunch,– holige,
kadibu, kosambri, anna saru, mandige etc. Apart from me, another couple
who were struggling as to what to start with, in this array of inviting delica-
cies was Radha (daughter of Sadasivam of Kalki) and her husband Viswana-
than, a colleague of Raja Rao at Binnys. On being introduced as an ‘eligible
bachelor’, Radha readily volunteered to ‘find’ a suitable girl. The Rao’s, a
very religious couple, it transpires have sold their excellent property which
was just off Edward Elliot’s Rd. and donated all the proceeds to Udipi Mutt

82
where they have settled now.

I well recall another classmate, Sivaraman, who was working with the Times
of India as Circulation Manager at the newly started branch. His office had to
organize a beauty contest for Femina, another magazine of TOI. He had just
two months and so asked me for help. We were virtually thrown out of the
two or three women’s colleges we approached for participants. Understand-
able, for Madras was still conservative and somehow concepts like fashion
show and beauty parades had an uncharitable stigma attached to it. Next we
formed a committee to give our endeavour a semblance of respect and
credibility. We managed to get in Mrs. Clubwallah Jadhav, Mrs. Indira
Kothari, Mrs. Leela Ratnam and Mrs. Renuka Rao, all well known in social
circles. Only Renuka Rao (daughter-in-law of CV Narahari Rao, Retd. Account-
ant General) gave us some encouraging words. Sivaraman was despondent
and time was running out. As a last shot, I approached Ananth, who was with
me in College, a covenanted executive in Best and Co. His secretary, an eura-
sian helped us out with prospective contestants from that interesting com-
munity. Ananth was also in touch with them, as he used to attend the Christ-
mas ball and New Year Eve get-togethers organized at the Perambur Railway
Institute. In a week’s time we had a line-up with names like Jean Michael,
Yasmeen Fernandes etc. Ananth is the brother of Coffee Board Balu, who
with his wife Sakku was a great name in the social circles of Bangalore.

Govi my brother, got us for venue, Sapphire theatre owned by Vecumsees,

jewelers. The complex was made up of three halls – Blue Diamond, Sapphire
and Emerald, perhaps the precursor to the current day multiplexes.

For the first time in Madras, breaking the hoodoo of conservatism, the
Femina contest was a huge success. It was sponsored by Helene Curtis and
top ranking models like Persis Khambatta were in service for the curtain
raiser. This must have been in mid 60’s

Femina contest caught on and was to become an annual affair in all the ma-
jor cities. Much later I wrote to Vimla Patil, Editor of Femina, on the travails
at the first attempt in Madras, which touched off a friendship which contin-
ues.

I was married on March 22, 1967 at Mettupalayam – a small town on the

83
foothills of the Nilgiri mountains. My father-in-law Varadaraja Iyengar was a
leading cooperator, correspondent of the local high school, steeped in poli-
tics (Congress) which he represented in the municipal council as Vice Chair-
man. He was a hard working farmer having areca nut farms at Kallar, besides
paddy, banana and maize at Mettupalayam. He also had a small coffee cur-
ing works. He was founder director of the Indo-Swiss synthetic gem factory
in which Mr. N Mahalingam was chairman.

My father-in-law did his BA at Loyola College and one of his classmates was
R. Venkatraman, who later became the country’s President. It seems RV was
expelled from the college because of his political activities and had to con-
tinue his studies at St. Josephs, Trichy.

He used to organize music festivals during Ramanavami, in which great many

artists like Lalgudi Jayaraman, TN Seshagopalan, MLV, Sudha Raghunathan,
and Mandolin Srinivasan (it was his early days) participated. It was great that
these artistes whose normal fees for a kutchery was fairly high, were content
for lowly sums, for these were religious festivals. The expenditure was met
from public donation, and any shortfall my father-in-law met. My mother-in-
law was from Bangalore, she could talk Tamil but learnt to read and write it
only after marriage.

The marriage was memorable for two things. First, my parting company with
my moustache, the other was the rituals connected with wedding. Summer
had set in and the janavasam in the evening prior to the wedding day was an
agonizing and a sweltering affair with poor me in a terry wool suit. Such a
small town, I still wonder how it took near three hours for the janavasam –
procession to be over, even allowing for a few stops which the accompany-
ing nadhaswaram party wanted. That I was seated in a Packard convertible,
belonging to one of my father-in-law’s friends, did not mitigate the hardship.

Thankfully the muhurtham was under a huge pandal erected at the vast
open space of my father-in-law’s brother’s bungalow and there was a cool
breeze which was very comforting. AKC Natarajan’s concert was scintillating
at the reception in the evening. There were numerous request chits for thuk-
kadas which progressively, however, made me and my day old wife look for
a stop for better things. Thankfully some helping hand requesting for man-

84
galam brought the curtains down.

Some of the invitees whom I could remember were Late Giri and Krishnas-
wamy, popularly known as Kittu. He was a great motorcycle and car racer of
those days.

My wife though born at Mettupalayam had her schooling at Coimbatore (St.

Francis) and Madras (Vidyodaya), and did college at QMC. After marriage,
my wife had a meaningful tutelage under my mother from whom she learnt
all culinary skills. An adept dancer and a lover of the fine things in life, she
was a great help to me in my years at the sugar factory where social life was
as intense as our sugar making.

In due course Kotharis gave me a slightly used Herald car. My joy knew no
bounds. ‘Tyreloose’, God knows, where all I would have travelled. Once I
went with my friends, Raja Rao and Aravamuthan of King & Partridge, to
Mettupalayam via Bangalore, Mysore, Bandipur, Mudumalai, Ooty to look up
my son on the occasion of his naming ceremony.

I was returning once from Bangalore after a weekend stay with my wife and
one year old son. En route at Chitoor, we had tiffin and rest at my sister-in-
law’s uncles’ place – Mr. TT Rangadurai, a leading lawyer. In about half hours
time after taking leave of him, he was surprised to see us coming back in a
cycle rickshaw with bruises and limp. Just beyond the outskirts of Chitoor, at
a place called Kothapalli, the car skidded and hit the kerb stone at the curve
of the national highway, breaking it in the process, throwing my wife and
child on the national highway. The car continued to turn right, got down
from the road, onto the fields, only to stop with some bushes catching the
axle, virtually suspending in the yawning opening of a deep dry well. The en-
gine was on and God knows how I got out of the car without making it
plunge into the dry well. On coming to the road I was happy to see my wife
with the baby in the arm, standing safely. Luckily there was no traffic at the
time when they had fallen. All in all it was a miraculous escape and the local
Inspector of police whom we were put onto by my relative, made a mention
after retrieval of the car, which is still green in my memory “Neil Armstrong
landing on the moon today is not a big thing, but your escaping this accident
is a great miracle”. That was in 1969.

85
86
DC Kothari and myself with Kamaraj Nadar at Kattur factory inauguration

87
PN Talati blessing TLRs at wedding

88
The Tupil brood—1972

89
90
Chapter Seven

Kattur

91
I was two years old in service at Kattur, five years in matrimony and a son at
four, knocking at the doors of schooling. The casualness and trouble-free ex-
perience of yesteryear made me take things for granted and complacency
wrapped me into inactivity. When I went to Campion high school, a popular
school run by Jesuits then, situated at Trichy, I was brusquely told then that
even issuing of application forms had been suspended. All I could gather was
Rev. Father Thampi was the Principal. I rushed to the office of a colleague, MH
Khan, a pleasant young man, always eager to help. He at once made a couple
of phone calls. Both of us then trooped to the gates of Campion School again
where two gentlemen were waiting for us.

One of them was fuming with anger and charged into the Principal’s room. Fa-
ther Thampi squirmed, and told this gentleman he was sorry for refusing my
son a seat and would admit the boy at once. His name was Lourdusamy Pillai,
who made his millions as a ballast contractor for the railways during the British
rule. Much later I got to have close association with his two sons – Adaikalraj,
MP for some time and Gnanraj, President, Chamber of Commerce. They were
principal dealers for Trichy and other districts nearby for ITC. The other was Dr.
Ram Mohan Rao who was Mr. Pillai’s physician.

I remember hosting a lunch party to Khan, Dr. Shivarao and his brothers and
few others at Trichy, at the Ashby -a hotel with all the trappings of a colonial
English building, and the name taking one to Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. The
owner, TM Narayanaswamy Pillai, was a leading lawyer, former VC of Anna-
malai University and a member of the public service commission. His sons Capt.
Ramaswamy and Mookapillai and the captain’s son Chinnu – a professional
coach in tennis at USA were good friends.

In a delta area like Lalgudi where paddy was predominant and other crops fol-
lowed fluently in the cropping calendar, coupled with banana occupying sub-
stantially, space and time wise, it was a constant struggle for us to garner
enough area for cane.

Once, this struggle took me to Pudukottai on the banks of the Kollidam border-
ing Thanjavur district. Driving past small villages of Melapazhuvur, Keezhapaz-
huvur, Kulamanikam, Kandirathitham, Sembiakudi, Thirumanur etc. was like
wading through Chola history or browsing through the pages of Kalki’s histori-

92
cal magnum opus “Ponniyin Selvan”. Pudukottai was cheek by jowl with Thi-
rumazhapadi – a shaivite sthala rendered famous by the nayanmars.

Cane was aplenty but not a stick was cut for the factory. The farmers had an
axe to grind – yes, grinding cane for jaggery. My officials told me it would be
a futile attempt. But one morning I went to that place. I saw smoke in the
distance. Perhaps, jagerry crushers in operation, I thought. On the banks of
the river was an old woman on her haunches amid a cluster – pots, water
bath, spouts made of cycle tube. I asked her what she was doing. Without
batting an eyelid, said she was brewing liquor from the ferment of jaggery,
fruits etc. “Let me have a wet“, I asked. She looked at me quizzically, “are
you a social worker or a police informer?” was the question. It never oc-
curred to her that I could be from another quarter – sugar industry. “If you
know what’s good for you, lay off this haunt”. I instantly complied but not
before she gave the lowdown on the way they distil the hooch.

I then met the Superintendant of Police (Prohibition) at Trichy, and told him
this story. I thought raids would push the canes to the factory! What he said
was no different from what the old woman told me. Only thing it was subtle
and not so direct.

It must have been late ‘70s or early ‘80s; I came to Madras for a weekend to
look up my aged parents who were living at ‘Tupil House’. My father was
rather concerned about my near nonstop cough and insisted that I see a doc-
tor before returning to Kattur / Lalgudi. To bolster parental diktat he told my
wife also ‘not to pack’ for the return trip. Like a school boy directed to do
homework I meekly obliged keeping Mr. Kothari informed about prospects
of extended stay at Madras and also for the permission to keep the car and
driver I had brought from the factory.

Dr. Rangabashyam, family doctor for my sister, had a thorough examination

and diagnosed that a small gland I had to be the cause. I was admitted for a
minor surgery and had to stay there at the nursing home for a few days. Ra-
mana nursing home at Venkatnarayana Road, T Nagar was well known for
cleanliness to supplement the reputation Dr. Rangabashyam had as a sur-
geon. A pleasant doctor with good personality (was a karatika of some
standing). He had time to listen to patients which helped in proper diagnosis

93
and equally important to instill confidence levels in his patients. His father-
in-law – Saravanan was a leading figure in commercial field whose pulicat
lungis were very famous.

The nursing home was spic and span, thanks mostly to the strict discipline
exercised by the Anglo-Indian matron he had. I have never seen a smile even
by accident or mistake in her, which kept the nursing orderly on their toes
and job. Also the visitors, who normally ‘take a yard when given an inch’
never took chances and stuck to discipline in the matter of numbers and
noise level.

One day when I was still there I was surprised to have a prominent visitor,
Anbil Dharmalingam who was then a senior cabinet minister. He seemed to
have recognized my driver Baheer, who hailed from Manakkal, near Anbil
and got to know I was admitted there. It was nice of him to have visited me.
It transpired that he had come to call on actor Nagesh who was convalescing
in the same nursing home after a major liver surgery. The Minister men-
tioned that it was a miracle that Nagesh had survived.

I never realized how this man, Nagesh, whom I had chanced to meet as a
scrawny scarecrow of a fellow in early 50’s at Clubhouse in T Nagar would
create name and niche for himself in the film world, quite disproving that
comedians are mere sidekicks. In many movies he categorically edged out
the hero or the heroine to claim the center stage.

Clubhouse belonging to LR Swamy and Co. was a lodging facility at Usman

Road near the T Nagar bus stop. The manager, Sundaram, was a tenant of
ours (we had a smaller house in the same Ranganathan Street – which per-
haps now houses Saravana Stores. Earlier tenant was the famous Tamil
writer Sandilyan). Whenever there was a delay in receipt of rent I was dis-
patched by my father to collect it more than just reminding him. On one such
visit Mr. Sundaram showed me his usual courtesy of offering seat and tea –
both of which he knew well were no substitutes for the rent I came to col-
lect.

When I was seated, the office boy came in to say that Gundu Rao wanted to
see him. Not wanting to be disturbed Sundaram told the office boy “give him

94
also a glass of tea”, more by way of getting rid of him. Turning to me he said
“that is a small-time stage actor Gundu Rao from Dharapuram – what a
name for a small made fellow. He now calls himself Thai Nagesh”. Though I
never got to meet him that day – the fleeting glance of his face which stood
out rather big on a small frame, had two more significant things – pockmarks
that had clawed numerous craters and a pair of eyes spilling out sadness. I
never realized then what a scintillating array of kaleidoscopic changes he
could bring in the same face matching the fluidity of convulsive contortions
in his body, and an amazing histrionics to catapult him to glory in future in
the film world. In my mental screen Maadhu of ‘Edhir Neechal’ fame had
already arrived – Vandachu. No wonder when he passed away recently, en-
comiums poured all around from the aesthete to Aurangazeb alike.
Years later, when I was doing a feature for Chennai Online on well known
citizens of Chennai – MS Swaminathan, Vijay Amritraj, Sivasankari, C. Subra-
maniam, ‘Grand Sweets’ Nataraja Reddiar, Romulus Whittaker etc – I was
keen to do one on Nagesh. My good friend Kovai Chezian put me on to him.
Several times I talked to himn over phone and finally he said “sir, you must
have known by now I am not interested”. There was an unmistakable amal-
gam of frustration, sadness and pain in his tone which I thought was incon-
gruous in a man who made millions laugh.

Kurt Stefan of Elin Union, an Austrian, was a good friend of mine. His com-
pany supplied my factory power turbines on deferred payment and this was
a great relief those days of acute foreign exchange stringency. He was based
in Bombay and he once (in the mid ‘70’s) invited my wife and me for a New
Year Eve party at his house in Walkeshwar abutting the sea. There was a
fairly good crowd on the verandah looking to the sea. The dim light, fine mu-
sic and the noise level going up progressively did quite a new kind of tricks.
Around midnight, Kurt pulled me aside to introduce me to someone who had
come just come or was about to leave. In the dim light I could not make him
out and I asked him what he was doing? He said “I make films”. Later it
dawned on me that he was none else than Shyam Benegal. His ‘Ankur’ was a
favourite film of mine and he also discovered a fine actress in Smitha Patil.
Stefan played a great role in Mr. H.C. Kothari becoming Hon. Consul General
to Austria.

There was a Sugar Technologist meet at Madras which I attended as usual

95
with a large contingent from my factory. It was a two day seminar and one
evening I hosted a dinner at Queen’s hotel for my friends which included Dr.
NA Ramaiah, former Director of National Sugar Institute at Kanpur, Dr.
Mohan Naidu, Director Sugar Cane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, Mydur
Anand (my boss) and others, all stalwarts connected with the Industry. We
all assembled at the hotel. Dr. Ramaiah was missing for long. After sometime
I got in touch with him over phone to find out he was in the process of ar-
ranging dinner for Vasanth Dada Patil, CM of Maharastra, and President,
Sugar Technologists Association of India. Ramaiah quipped, “I am a panthulu
in search of bantlu”, I must have looked blank over the telephone and soon
he clarified the pun in Telugu – I am a brahmin looking for fruits. He asked
me if I could help. I checked with Hotel Queens and reeled out a list of sea-
sonal fruits and others that are canned. Dr. Ramaiah was impatient to let me
know he was looking for fresh papaya which along with a glass of milk was all
the strong Maratha had for dinner. He wanted me to help him get it. Now
where do I find papaya at Madras that too, when the evening was inching
towards night. All the same, the never say die spirit of a sugar industry man
made me go with Dr. Ramaiah on papaya hunt. With the knowledge of the
city of Madras, the place where I have domiciled, no corner was spared and
ultimately we landed in fruit bazaar where all shops were closed. Luckily one
owner was sleeping outside his shop. We woke him up and forced him to
open the shop to lay hands on a shriveled and shrunken version of a papaya
fruit. We grabbed it and went straight to Dada, who was happy his night was
done, after which Ramaiah and myself went to join the friends at dinner who
had by then come topically to the dessert stage having waited for nearly two
hours.

One day I was returning to Kattur from a field visit at Manaparai. It was well
beyond evening when I was passing through Trichy. Suddenly I thought I
should call on my friend Mr. Srinivasan – District Judge then. I went into his
huge compound. He was sitting along with two other friends Umapathi – Jail
Superintendent and Perumal Swamy – Superintendent of Police. After some
pleasantries I got up to leave, not wanting to disturb their get-together when
Perumal Swamy jokingly said he will arrest me to which Jail Superintendent
Umapathi added, he will put me behind bars – all to restrain me from leav-
ing. Before they could realize Mr. Srinivasan said “I will bail him out as I know
the dilemma of someone targeted by two persons”. I thought he should

96
know being married to two women and living in the same house. A pleasant
jovial man well versed in Tamil and Sanskrit.

Work at Kattur made me meet most of the District Collectors. The town
Trichy, being the fulcrum politically and geographically, they were very pow-
erful officers. One of them was Mr. Vaidyalingam who was earlier PA to CM.
He was always helpful and especially comforting when the chips were down
at the factory front. Much later I met him when the Sarkaria Commission was
investigating fertilizer and sugar ‘scandal’. Both of us were witnesses for the
prosecution.

Sub-Collectors of subdivisions in Trichy district were a helpful lot. I recall

Malathi Swaminathan, who was at Musuri and was instrumental in my ef-
forts to develop new cane areas in Peramur and other nearby villages. They
were all under nut grass used for mat weaving. She was the daughter of Mr.
Swaminathan, ITI of Bangalore and granddaughter of the well known physi-
cian Dr. A Ramachandra Iyer who in the mould of legendary doctors like Gu-
ruswamy Mudaliar and Ratnavel Subramanyam relied more on the pulse
than the stethoscope. The family of Royarpalayam zamindar, who owned
lots of land in that area, also gave me cane. The zamindar’s only daughters’
marriage is still the talk of the town. It was the guest control order era, the
government did not even spare sumptuous wedding lunches at cities and
towns. To overcome this, the zamindar – Prasanna Raghavendra Rao – built a
palatial house in Peramur – his village, and had the marriage there. The large
number of guests for breakfast, lunch, and dinner were also treated to fine
music from the raging singing star of that time MLV and bharathanatyam by
Vyjayanthimala. The zamindar’s grandson Prasanna and his charming wife
Raji were great help to me.

At a particular phase in Kattur life I was visiting Delhi frequently - once in ten
days. It was to attend the Government of India constituted committee in
which I was representing Indian Sugar Mills Association consisting of 400
member factories. The ex-officio president was the Chief Director of Sugar –
Lakshmi Rathan IAS, a very intelligent, organized and objective oriented bu-
reaucrat. There were representatives from machinery manufacturers, lead-
ing sugar technologists etc.

Luckily there was direct evening flight on a few days from Trichy to Delhi and
97
luckier still I was accommodated at India International Center at Lodhi. HC
Kothari was a life member and this center was promoted by intellects like CD
Deshmukh. The elite can be seen here: MS Swaminathan, Vyjayanthimala,
Singhvi, (lawyer and later day High Commissioner for India to UK) to name a
few.

Once I have also seen Dara Singh who was more famous for his acting then
than even wrestling, at the dinner table and marveled at the morsels of mea-
sly meal he was helping himself to, which seemed quite out of tune with his
gigantic stature.

I once ran into a fairly elderly gentleman seated at the neighboring table. He
had a good looking lass for company. There was lot of talk from this gentle-
man accompanied by expressive gesticulations. The young woman was all
rapt attention to the near monologue which covered subjects as varied as
recently completed Asiad at Delhi to the first Antarctica expedition from In-
dia. All these I could hear not merely overhear as the tables were near – near
enough to extend a hand for a friendly shake or pinch a tasty bit or two from
the plates. I said a hello to him and lured them to my table which they com-
plied with. After being briefed as to who I was and what for I had come to
Delhi for etc, he wanted to know what books I had read on management.
Peter Drucker came to my mind and rescue. He asked, “haven’t you read any
of our Indian authors?” Seeing the lost and ‘babe in the woods’ look, he was
on a rescue mission by relievingly dropping the name “Rustomji – yours
truly”. He had authored many books on management with Parkinson. A
pleasant old man full of energy and bonhomie, though he must have been 75
plus. I was in touch with him subsequently and even invited for a lecture at
Kattur whenever he came to NLC, Neyveli where he had an ongoing program
then, but it did not materialize.

One evening the factory union arranged for a meeting addressed by M Ka-
runanidhi who was on a whirlwind election tour of Trichy District. He was to
open an office of the DMK union. The management had given much support
for the project, and I had even suggested it be named Pagutharivalayam.
The venue was an open space belonging to the factory adjoining Kattur rail-
way station. Prior to the arrival of Kalaignar, there was a sudden strong wind,
and low hanging dark clouds, followed by a downpour. And then it stopped

98
as suddenly as it had begun. The crowd remained glued to their seats. They
were eager to listen to the Kalaignar. Kalaignar and others arrived and were
taken to the dais for their seats. With him were minister Anbil Dharmalin-
gam, he was from Lalgudi taluk, Madurai Adheenam and a few district and
taluk level functionaries. I welcomed the gathering and greeted Anbil Dhar-
malingam. It was his birthday. He himself was pleasantly surprised. After the
meeting Kalaignar said I had spoken well in Tamil. “I too am a Thanjavooran”,
I replied. He had taken me for a northerner.

Besides the pleasure of sharing the dais with someone of the stature of
Kalaignar and also speaking on the occasion, the greater satisfaction was
when I heard subsequently, from a very senior state level DMK functionary,
that Kalaignar was inspired to name the DMK Headquarters which was com-
ing up then at Madras as Arivalayam by the name given for Kattur DMK Of-
fice. The reliance Kalaignar had on intelligence and not common sense, did
not however dilute the consummate satisfaction. The crop of flyovers /
bridges which we see now a days in cities and towns all over the country
take me back to the two in Trichy district, the inauguration function con-
nected with which I attended. One was the flyover at Thiruverumbur, the
portals of BHEL, to replace a railway level crossing. B. Natarajan, Chief of
Trichy Railway division had invited me. He is the son of the renowned head-
master of Sivasamy High School, Thirukkatupally S. Balasubramaniam. The
chief guest was Karunanidhi, then CM. On the dais were the GM of BHEL and
M. Kalyanasundaram, MP & Communist leader. It was in rather bad taste
when he complained about how once he was subjected to checking by the
security while entering BHEL. Karunanidhi when he rose to speak compli-
mented the Railways and PWD for a useful flyover and was critical of the
complaint by Kalyanasundaram mentioning that for the security personnel
MP and general public are the same. Karunanidhi is well known to call a
spade a spade although he modifies the shape to suit the occasion. But it
must be appreciated this came at a time when the party in power depended
on the support from communists.
Another one was the inauguration of the bridge across Cauvery where it is
the grandest and widest in its long stretch from Bagamandala to Kaveri
poompattinam. This bridge connected Kulithalai and Musiri. The function
was a grand one with a sea of humanity who had come to see and hear MGR
the then CM. Long after the function I ran into my friend Muthukanna, sen-

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ior DMK functionary from Kulithalai and asked him “how come I did not see
you at the function”. He had a big laugh and said “even Kalaignar was not
invited. What more, the party in power has disturbed even the number of
spans from 37, as designed by DMK government to 36 or 38, God knows
what”. I believe when Karunanidhi contested the elections for the first time
from Kulithalai he was 37 years of age and he had promised this bridge. Of-
course it took quite some time as the DMK had to come to power and he had
to become CM after Annadurai. I was enlightened on how even inanimate
things like spans in a bridge build up personality cult and how in politics the
dictum ‘out of sight is out of mind’ works.

Mid ‘80s I was sponsored by the company to attend a three day seminar at
Srinagar organized by Management Development Institute. The theme was
‘Managing the Manager’ and I thought I will therefore go with my wife – my
manager. Of course she did not attend the seminar and like other wives was
busy with outing. The seminar was at Nedou’s Hotel, a very ornate old hotel
in Victorian architecture – huge verandahs, wooden flooring etc. I believe it
was the creation of one Col. Nedou, a Britisher who married a Gujjar woman.
Their daughter was the wife of the first Chief Minister of Kashmir, Sheik Ab-
dullah.

Other delegates to the seminar were all men in high position – senior bu-
reaucrats of UP, high ranking officials, top officials of UP Tourism, Textile
Corporation, there was a Chief Conservator of Forest, from Karnataka and
also Indubhai Patel, one of the founder Directors of Anand Dairy and also
leading Janata Leader.

The course director was one Mr. Prasad, a rotund short-statured, well-
meaning Bihari. Only thing, he treated us as school boys. On the first day
when we all dispersed for coffee, he told us rather seriously “strictly 10 min-
utes. You should all be back on time”. We all went down and the trooping
was more towards the rest room than the dining hall with the spread of as-
sorted biscuits, nuts, coffee and tea. Understandable as the climate was
rather cool and snow had already started falling. Naturally therefore there
was some delay with so much of rush at the limited space where we all
headed and also the time taken for smoking etc. Resultantly we were consid-
erably late beyond 10 minutes allotted. Mr. Prasad, was rather serious about

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the delay and hoped it would not be repeated. The funny part of it was eve-
ryone behaved like a school boy who has been rapped on his knuckles. I
thought Mr. Prasad had to be put in his place and said, “we had difficulty in
locating …” and before I could continue, in a hurry he said, “there are indica-
tors to the toilet etc.” That’s when I had to clarify the difficulty was not with
regard to finding the loo, but the tool. There was a big laughter from the fel-
low delegates and charitably Mr. Prasad also had a streak of smile resem-
bling that of Mona Lisa.

Four (or five) years after I was made general manager, I suggested to Mr.
Kothari that a Board Meeting be held at Kattur. “That is a good idea”, he
said, “but I am worried whether there would be proper facilities for the
other directors. They are ‘big chaps’ ”. There was MR Bhide, ICS former
Chairman of LIC, Lala Bansidhar, scion of the then DCM Group and KM Nan-
jappa, Chairman Allahabad bank (brother of KM Cariappa). I assured him that
there would be “no problem”. Never did I imagine such a task would be so
troublesome. The venue had to be arranged, then transport from the airport
to the factory twenty miles away, then their stay. I arranged this at Sangam
which was a new hotel. Chinna Papu – the proprietor agreed to spruce things
in that short time. VR Deenadayalu, deputy GM of BHEL, spared one of his
vans used for executives.

All went well at the factory and when we returned to the hotel at Trichy, my
problem started. After a few drinks no one seemed ready to leave and they
had to catch a flight back to Madras. When I made a hint, Nanjappa asked
me point blank, “Mr. Raghavan, you say you have been here for some time,
can you not manage with the Indian Airlines? We have to finish the bottle”.
He might have sounded jocular but I could read the ultimatum. I talked to
the station manager of Indian Airlines – Richard Maduram, a senior of mine
at the PSG Arts College, Coimbatore, (later played the part of Kamaraj in a TV
serial). The flight was delayed by an hour. The reason given was ‘technical
snag’!

As a manager at the factory I reported to Mydur Anand, who was at the

Head Office. He had worked in Maharastra, Malaysia and Africa. Once there
was an acute shortage of cane and I decided to declare a layoff, though the
rules were silent on this subject. Mr. Anand gave me the green signal. Few

101
days later, Mr. Kothari rang me up from London seeing newspaper reports. I
sounded apologetic. All he said was “you are the local man. you know best”.

Right enough the government questioned this. The workers did not make
much noise for they got ‘half pay’ as compensation though the rule book did
not cover such payments for a seasonal industry. In a way it was a precedent
for the industry.

VRT Dorai Raja and his wife Viji were good friends of ours. He was the
nephew of the Raja of Pudukottai – Vijayaragunatha Thondaman. Once on a
visit to his house, I ran into his mother, sister of Thondaiman. She was keen
to visit some Murugan temples. I suggested she visit Thinniam and arranged
for it. A simple lady, though she was a zamindarni. That time Mrs. and Mr.
DC Kothari were staying at Kattur and Mrs. Kothari told me of her interest in
some antique jewelry. This I mentioned to Dorai Raja’s mother, when she
said “please wait, I shall give you a pair of old anklets, which I’ve been want-
ing to sell”. She brought them – rubies in sheer brilliance inlaid in solid gold.
Casually she wrapped the anklets in a piece of paper and she handed them
over to me. Before putting it into my pocket and drive back to Kattur in the
night, I asked her about the price. She said “I would have expected seventy
five to eighty, but if it is for Mrs. Kothari, fifty lakhs should be fine”. I felt jit-
tery, gave back the parcel to be collected after ascertaining Mrs. Kothari’s
interest. Mrs. Kothari did not show interest.

Despite this aborted deal, my contacts with Dorairaj and their family contin-
ued. Once I visited his sister, who was married to Raja’s youngest brother,
chinna dorai (MP of Pudukottai then), at their bungalow, ‘Nutshell’ in Kodai-
kanal. I was also acquainted with nadu dorai, younger brother of the Raja,
and his wife Rama Devi, a Keralite, who helped organize a lady’s volleyball
match (as a curtain raiser) to an All India Tournament which I had the pleas-
ure of conducting at Trichy as the President of District Volleyball Association.

Another couple close to us was Gita and Kalyanam. Kalyanam was a good
cricketer and shuttler with a razor sharp sense of humor and well up in eti-
quette and personal demeanor. Gita though from Bombay adapted herself
to the Trichy ambience. Good hosts and were very fond of my son who was
5 or 6 years old then. He had free access to every nook and corner of their

102
house which was tastefully furnished and embellished. Thoughtfully Gita will
put some of the small pieces safely away from the marauding hands of my
son. Many a time my wife and I have settled for tasty adai and avial after a
work out at the Railway Club courts. Kalyanam’s father, Rajagopal iyer was
the proprietor of Popular Automobiles – dealers for Ambassador cars which
was the only car available then along with Fiat. A large hearted kindly man
and always had time for a pow wow whenever I visited his outfit for atten-
tion to my car. Once he spared his vintage Humber with his old driver Nair
for almost a month when there was a delay in the delivery of a new car
booked with them. Those were the days of car control order and one had to
wait for years to get one after registration.

I had two trips abroad with my wife – one to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia
and Bangkok organized by the Trichy chapter of the Jaycees and another to
attend a food expo at Seoul, Korea with a trip to Taiwan thrown in. The first
(with some of my very good friends at Trichy and their wives, Deepak Shah,
Raghu, Raja, Lax and Krishnan) was a pleasant trip, and at Bangkok the hus-
bands had gone for a massage sessions leaving their wives in our care. At
Seoul I went on a tour of the ‘Danish Dairy’ which processed soya milk in dif-
ferent flavours and at Taiwan scouted electronic projects. It was difficult for
vegetarians in some of these countries. But in Taipei, we were taken to a res-
taurant which catered mainly to Buddhist monks. The sea weed soup, vege-
tarian stuff alright, but smelled awful. And with quite some effort we gulped
more than what we cared to chew.

In the long service at Kattur I saw strikes and lock-outs. Once striking workers
confined me to my office and at first I thought I was thrown to the wolves.
But having been left to fend for myself, my employers knew I would soon
‘learn my ropes’ and I did.

The outside labour leaders like Umanath, Ramachandran (CITU) and Palani-
yandi; Moinuddin (INTUC) were all well known war-horses. Umanath, looked
more like a Roman general with dark hair swept back and a pair of mischie-
vous and piercing eyes on a crimson face. He had the reputation of provok-
ing anyone at the discussion table. Luckily for me, after two or three sittings
he told his local cronies that he may not be needed, as he was convinced of a
fair deal. This I felt was quite some testimonial. Palaniyandi (for long, MP and

103
MLA and also for a short-term, President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Com-
mittee) and Moinuddin (then President of All India Cement Workers Union)
gave me lessons on welfare of workers. Both of them were ‘chelas’ of the
great labor leader G Ramanujam fondly called GR.

Those were the days when the labor problem was perhaps at its peak all
over the country. In Bombay, the textile industry was crippled by the medical
practitioner turned labor leader, Datta Samant. Even the great group TVS –
known for its excellent labor relations thanks to the synergy of the great In-
dustrialist – Krishna, GR and his able lieutenant Bommiah, had some fairly
longish strike.

In a ‘micro’ perspective I was, but a meager chestnut in the raging fire and
had to anneal and season myself by experience and exposure. This will have
driven a less stout hearted person to have called it a day and deserted. In-
stead I reconciled to the situation and came through without much of dam-
age to the person or reputation. I must acknowledge whole-heartedly the
guidance that I got from these labor leaders and also the cooperation and
team work of my colleagues.

It was March – April 1977, peak crushing season, the factory had seen
enough trouble and the atmosphere was still not cool. As fate would have it,
I was selected to lead a Rotary study team to the USA. My Chairman Mr.
Kothari was kind enough to give me permission to do so. Meanwhile I told
my labour union representatives I would go only with their permission. Their
reply was spontaneous that production would go on unhampered. As prom-
ised not only did they ensure uninterrupted production but it was
‘embarassingly’ better than when I was present. The crowning glory was
their disposition to await my arrival to sort out an issue connected with a
workman being slapped by an officer which might otherwise have precipi-
tated an instant crisis.

The Sarkaria Commission which enquired into the sugar scandal was most
talked about at that time. Judge Sarkaria held his sittings at ‘Kurinji’ – a bun-
galow that housed the Inspector General of Police during British times and
called ‘The Grange’. The witnesses were briefed by Mr. NT Vanamamalai,
senior advocate and VR Lakshminarayanan, Director CBI.

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Sarkaria was a jovial Sardarji given to off the cuff remarks. One of the wit-
nesses, a senior director in a well established sugar factory (this commission
covered all the factories in Tamil Nadu) was so frightened – his advocate
sought permission for him to be seated while deposing. Sarkaria teasingly
remarked “sir, I thought you are someone with a ‘standing’ in the Industry.
Why do you want to give it up and opt for ‘sitting’?” Many witnesses were
tongue-tied, and hesitated to come with what made the industry take to de-
vious methods. I decided to be articulate and narrated the circumstances
that forced the industry to adopt certain methods in collusion with the state
government to come by cash required to meet the commitments to cane
growers and labor. Sarkaria interrupted me and said, “Mr. Raghavan, do you
realize that every word you speak is being recorded?” I answered “I do know,
and I do not want even a single word to be missed”.

I remember at the end of the day, Mr. Lakshminarayanan coming and con-
gratulating me. Based on the Commission’s report, Indira Gandhi’s Govern-
ment at the Center dismissed Karunanidhi’s Ministry in Tamil Nadu. Curi-
ously within a week or so of the dismissal, I was one of the guests at a func-
tion at Lalgudi where Mr. Anbil Dharmalingam was the chief guest. As he
neared the dais I extended a hand to help him climb up. He looked at me
with that characteristic smile of his and remarked “thanks for helping me up
after pushing us down”. It was remarkable the man should have showed no
rancor. There was a lot of sport among partymen those days.

I need to mention ‘a close encounter of that kind’ on one of my trips to Bom-

bay for discussions with machinery manufacturers. It was morning flight
from Madras and as I was entering the aircraft I saw a darkish, short statured
man with a huge kumkum on his forehead blocking almost half the doorway.
Behind him was a police officer in uniform. I winced a bit that he did not
make the minimum of motion to give room when I noticed the police officer
putting his index finger on his closed lips to say “do not create a ruckus. Get
moving.” Move I did and found my seat besides a more accommodative
man, who asked me when hardly had I seated, “do you know who that is?”
pointing respectfully by glance towards that kumkum man. I nodded “no” by
shake of head not wanting to perpetrate a sacrilege by being vocal. In a hush
he said “that is Varadaraja Mudaliar. He has been nabbed in Madras and is

105
being taken as a prisoner to Bombay.” There was absolutely no sign whatso-
ever of his being a fugitive – no handcuffs etc. The police officer was all rev-
erence. The plane landed at Bombay and I had the temerity to closely follow
Mudaliar and his escort. Surprise of surprise the police officer at the airport
who had come to take charge of him saluted him and whisked him away to
the car.

A nice movie Nayakan based on his life came much later with a brilliant por-
trayal by Kamal Hassan. Mudaliar was a contemporary of Haji Mastan, an-
other don, who also hailed from Tamil Nadu. Both it seems were in the
mould of the rogue of the Sherwood forest. With impoverished Peters’ pre-
ponderating in our country no wonder these men are held in esteem. I be-
lieve a la Nayakan, Mastan’s life is soon to see shadow in celluloid.

Most of the old generation never can help think, youngsters do not know
enough about the local leaders and martyrs. Many may know more about
Kennedy than Kattabomman. I initiated a scheme of collecting data on ten
‘Sons of Trichy’ for a book entitled ‘Titans Ten of Trichy’. Thyagaraja Bhaga-
vathar (cinema and singing), Rathnavel Thevar (freedom fighter), KAP Vish-
wanathan (Tamil Scholar), Sir T Desika Chari (Lawyer), Seshasayee brothers
(founders of FACT), Diwan Bahadur Ramaswamy Iyer (educationist), Diwan
Khalifullah (Administrator of Pudukottai), Dr. Maduram (doctor), Saranathan
and Fr. Erhard, both in the field of education (from National College and St.
Joseph’s College).

Prof. Kamalarathnam, Shakespearian Professor and artiste, worked on the

brief biographical sketches. Sad to say the whole project did not take off as
publishers were lukewarm, quite matching the indifference of the young, for
the local heroes of yesteryears!

When I became the unit chief at the age of 38, more than ever my pursuit in
the direction of PR – with the Cane growers, labor, community around the
factory, Govt. Officials, and also the ones near Trichy, became almost a sec-
ond habit. I was accepting any invitation to be Chief Guest at functions in as
wide a sweep as field day to inauguration of the newly elected Student Un-
ion in different colleges. With a friendly press featuring me on the engage-
ment column and also with detailed reports on the functions it almost be-

106
came one of the subjects for my friends especially in Trichy. Some of them
used to heave a mock sigh of relief finding me in the town without any en-
gagement to back me up.

While this helped me with good many friends and acquaintances, there were
instances replete with potential embarrassments. One such was the zeal
with which one KN Kandaswamy, a native of Kattur and son of a highly re-
spected person of the village, K Natesa Wodaiyar, followed me up to fix me
to inaugurate his toddy shop. That was the time when there was a sudden
encouragement for toddy from the Govt. angle to discourage consumption
of IMFL. To escape him I had to flee to Trichy incognito, known only to my
wife and my driver Basheer who took me there and for full two days I en-
sconced myself in Sangam Hotel. My office was told that I was away at Ma-
dras for discussions, should Mr. Kandaswamy call up. The shop was inaugu-
rated by someone else and when the coast was clear I came back to Kattur.

At a social gathering at BHEL, during the tenure of V Krishnamurthy as gen-

eral manager, I recognized someone whom I had last seen on the sidelines of
the badminton court at Vivekananda College. He was in the PUC then, lean
and lanky and I recalled him shouting hoarse to encourage the team. I asked
him “are you not Krishnamurthy?” he said “yes”. At that time he was GM at a
UNIDO aided Welding Research Institute on the campus. Our friendship was
re-ignited and welded in a strong bond from then on. His pleasant wife Chi-
tra, was a great catalyst in this. Krish had undergone training in welding in
Czechoslovakia. Once I asked him if his institute could develop a speciality
hard-facing electrode, which my factory was then importing for the cane roll-
ers. He developed a product which proved useful, and helped BHEL transfer
this technology to Kotharis.

The technology transfer formalities were gone through at Delhi, with Mr. KL
Puri, Chairman of BHEL and Mrs. Kothari, wife of Chairman, HC Kothari as the
transferor and transferee respectively. We were waiting quite a while and
the silence was forbidding. I was fidgeting, worried if Mr. Kothari would be-
come impatient. The whole line-up of BHEL executives, right from Mr. MK
Sridhar, Director looked tense. At last he stepped in, a full 6’ 4” towering per-
sonality with a mop of silver grey hair. The agreement was signed without a
hitch and Puri did not seem the toughie he was made out to be. He went out

107
of the way and spoke charmingly with Mr. Kothari’s daughter asking her
about her painting exhibition which was then on in Delhi.

Mr. KL Puri was a highly rated Chairman of the PSU and perhaps the addi-
tional factor that Mrs. Puri was personal coiffure specialist to Indira Gandhi
and the author of famous cultivated grays on her temple, made people talk
of Mr. Puri in a hush-hush.

There was a once a message from Mr. DC Kothari who was in Delhi, that one
Dr. M Visvesaraya (grandson of Sir M Visvesaraya) would need some help. He
was the Director General of Cement Research Institute. I met him one eve-
ning at Kattur, wondering what a ‘cement man’ expected from a ‘sugar man’.
T.A. Pai, Industries Minister in Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet was to address a
meeting on the occasion of the revival of the vertical shaft kiln of the Cement
Research Institute near Dalmiapuram. Visvesaraya said “Mr. Raghavan, I
want a crowd of atleast 5000 people at this meeting”, I was floored but not
wanting to let Mr. Kothari down, I said ‘yes’. Indeed I more than met his re-
quirement by diverting all the cane tractors with trailers to take villagers to
the venue. Sure, not one of them would have understood where they were
taken, much less anything about cement. “Raghavan, if you are out of a job, I
am sure you can make a living organizing crowds” was jocularly said by Mr.
Kothari after the mission was over.

108
 Kalaignar at Kattur

With Vaidyalingam, Collector

109
Malathi Swaminathan, Deputy Collector, Musiri
Inauguration of Kothari’s Musiri office

110
Mydur Anand (above), TLRs at Kashmir (below)

111
At Bangkok (above), at Seoul (below)

112
Krish of WRI (above), Lourdusami—CITU leader (below)

113
114
Chapter Eight

Chennai / Mewar /
Sameerwadi

115
My last task for Kotharis was to get government clearance for a para Nitro
Chloro Benzene(PNCB) project to be located at Karaikal. There were many hur-
dles to cross. The Pondicherry government was sensitive to ecology, mainly en-
vironment. Then we had to get around Auroville and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram
as well as INTACH, a major constituent of the environment committee. Fortu-
nately, Chief Minister Vaithiyalingam was keen on industrialization and he
helped the project get through. He hailed from an aristocratic family. Venkata
Subba Reddiar, his father was also a well known CM of the state. His Secretary
Bhasker (his brother-in-law) was helpful in getting the clearance. In this I was
fortunate in having two very dynamic and sincere local contacts in Kumar and
Jeeva but for whom this project would not have seen light of day.

I had already resigned from Kotharis for better prospects at Rajasthan, but had
assured Mr. Kothari that I would not leave unless the clearance was received. As
committed to Mr. Kothari I relinquished services only after getting the clearance
for the project. With some reluctance he relieved me. Yes, our bond was 3 dec-
ades plus, old. It was not easy for me either to wrench myself from the attach-
ment. But things happen and I was Rajastan bound.

I went to Rajasthan at a place called Bhoopal Sagar as Director and President of

Mewar Sugars in Chittorgarh district (of Rani Padmini fame). The unit had then
recently been acquired by the ESSAR group and their associates. The license for
the factory was originally granted to Madan Mohan Malaviya in the Raj days
and later managed by Rana of Mewar. During my short stay there, despite my
lack of knowledge of Hindi, I developed good rapport with the farmers who
were mostly Jats and Gujjars. I had the pleasure of meeting Lt. Gen. Jaswant
Singh, who was not a minister, but an MP. This was much before his panegyric
of Pakistan including Jinnah pushed him from the party (subsequently taken
back into the party fold). He commended my efforts in development of sugar-
cane and cane growers in that area.

I must make a mention of Mr. Venkatesan of ESSAR and formerly SBI who was
instrumental in this fixture. He and his wife Malathi, a class mate of my wife are
a lovable couple with simple disposition. My stay in Mewar Sugars was rather
short.

Somaiya group was on the lookout for a CEO for their sugar complex at Sameer-

116
wadi, near Mudhol, North Karnataka and thanks to my good friend Gopal
Agarwal, a leading name in sugar machinery manufacturing field, I got to
meet Dr. Shanthilal Somaiya and his aged father K.J. Somaiya over dinner at
their sprawling bunglow –“Padmanabh” in Carmichael Road (Mumbai). I got
fixed up and my association with them continued for nearly 10 years in two
spells. The Somaiyas’ are a very cultured and enlightened group.

I cherish my friendship with Satish Shah, Dilip Talati, Satish Talati and Jayant
Shah. Though settlers in Mudhol from Gujarat many centuries back, they
spoke Marathi or Kannada. They were a nice bunch of friends, who were
very helpful on the social front, as also in my contact with farmers. Similarly I
also must mention Arjun Singh Jadeja, a nephew of the Maharani of Mudhol
(it was a flourishing Maratha state ruled by Ghorpade’s – cousins of Shivaji
Maharaj) and also the princess Menka Raje and her husband Vijay Maurya
who live in Pune. Whenever they were at Mudhol, many a delightful evening
I have spent at their palace.

Call it telepathy, ESP or premonition. The prescience I had of Mr. HC

Kothari’s death at Chennai when I was far away, somewhere near Shiridi in
Maharastra (while on duty with Somaiyas) still brings the goose pimples
when I think of it. I was then at the guest house of Sakharwadi Sugar factory
at Kopergaon. I had had a disturbed sleep and got up rather early to a flash
on my mental screen that Kothari is no-more. Jerking it off as one of those
bad dreams, I got ready for travel back to Mudhol when unfortunately, my
car broke down. My host then arranged his car and driver. As we were near-
ing Ahmednagar two persons on the highway waved us to stop, but the
driver took them to be hitch-hikers and drove past. A kilometer further an-
other person waved and this time the driver recognized him as someone
who worked at Sakharwadi. He stopped, and I too recognized him as my
good friend Gopal Agarwal’s brother. He opened the door and said, “Mr.
Raghavan, I have bad news, Mr. Kothari is no more”. Instead of returning to
Sameerwadi I went to Bombay to take the next flight to Chennai. As if by co-
incidence, on that plane were Kokila ben (Mrs. Dhirubai Ambani) and Kamal
Kothari, back from the USA on getting this news of her father’s death. The
funeral was postponed by a day for her arrival.

Back at Sameerwadi I felt I should do a literary work and dedicate it to the

117
memory of this great man. It was my first book on the sugar industry, titled
‘Honey Reed and its Bounty’, and released on a grand function arranged by
Kotharis at Hotel Savera and meticulously organized by Nina Kothari, wife of
Shyam Kothari and daughter of Dhirubhai Ambani.

118
Malathi and Venkatesan of Essar (above), with Mudhol Royalty (below)

119
My book on Sugar (above), release function with BH Kothari, Maruthaipillai &
Ram Thiagarajan (below)

120
 Chapter Nine

Post retirement

121
After retirement, I went on pilgrimage to many places. Once at Kanchipuram, I
was keen to know more about Thoopul, a suburb where the great Vaishnavite
philosopher, Sri Vendata Desikan was born. My family is supposed to come in
the same lineage. On the way I asked a middle-aged man, standing in front of
his house, for directions and he said “first come in and have some coffee, then
I’ll give you all the help”. The coffee was delectable. His name was Sundarara-
jan, a retired executive from Dunlop. His wife Nirmala, is a well known artiste
in carnatic music and doctorate in music. Sundararajan accompanied us to
Thoopul, which was just a few kilometres away and we worshipped at the Vila-
kolli Perumal temple (deepa prakasar in Sanskrit) and at the Desikan Sannidhi
there. It was virtually a route to your roots!!

Almost every year I go to Guruvayoor where meticulous arrangements are

made by my good friend RK Menon, a self made man who is a well known
name in the field of sugar machinery manufacturing. He was also a regular and
active participant at our New Year eve parties in Kattur.

Arun, my son after his MS from US is into manufacturing and selling of fruit
supplements of therapeutic value - made from fresh fruit extracts of native
Indian fruits like pomegranate and jamun.
Harini, my daughter is a senior consultant with Stanton Chase, a leading re-
cruiting agency.
Radha, my daughter-in-law is a senior consultant at NIIT Technologies Ltd.

The evening of my life is spent doting on my grand-son and grand-daughter.

My wife and I happen to spend more time with them than we did with our son
and daughter.

Well, in an overall matrix God has been kind to me with no major complaints
nor being a source of that for others for which I am grateful. I am also thankful
to the numerous associates mentioned in this write-up who made life interest-
ing. I am also thankful to my parents, siblings and next of kin for what little I
am today.

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 Retirement—an interesting phase
(above)

Thooppul Vedanta Desikan-

Vaishnavite Philosopher
(1268—1369)
(left)

123
Four generations of grand parenting

My father (1910)

124
Myself (1942)

125
My son at arm (1969)

126
My grandchildren (2006)

127
With RK Menon

128
Afterword

129
Home your own

Like the first two-wheeler and four wheeler, the first roof above my head, it
continues to be so even now, made my head understandably unsteady. I was
past 50 when it happened. The credit to a great extent should go to my then
Chairman Mr. BH Kothari as it was he who enabled me to achieve this.

During one of my trips to Madras for discussions as I was taking leave of him
he asked me if I could postpone my trip so that I could take him to meet the
Chairman, SIPCOT who was a friend of mine.

When we were waiting at the SIPCOT office, Mr. Kothari asked me what my
retirement plans were – where I was looking to settle, whether I had a house of
my own etc. On being informed that I had bought a plot some seven or eight
years earlier at Madras and a house had not been built, he asked me why. On
being enlightened it had to do with paucity of funds, he volunteered that I
should immediately send an application for a housing loan. This was done and
this housing scheme for the group was inaugurated with my loan being sanc-
tioned. It is remarkable how sagacious and concerned was he at such a young
age (he was born after I joined service in Kotharis). A trait indeed, he must have
inherited from his late father Mr. HC Kothari.

Men of substance

In my long innings in the Industry, I came in contact with good number of bu-
reaucrats and public servants. Some that come to my mind, I need to mention
with reference to certain events.

In the early ‘60s I had occasion to meet the Director of Industries to explore the
possibilities of allotment of steel and cement. Mr. Sabanayagam, dressed in
white khadi trousers and a bush-coat, red kumkum on his forehead had a pierc-
ing pair of eyes. He had a mild smile as he said, “young man, your industry
comes under privileged class to be taken care of by the Government of India”. I
knew it was said in a light hearted, but subtle way meaning I had not done my
homework. He rose to become Chief Secretary and a notable one at that.

Another IAS officer was ECP Prabhakar, who later became Chief Secretary. I

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gate crashed late one night into the Thanjavur Circuit House. Prabhakar was
then Chairman of Tamil Nadu Sugar Corporation and was spearheading the
Government’s move to sponsor a sugar factory at Perambalur, where we had
developed a lot of cane area. All factories were against this proposal, includ-
ing All India Sugar Industry Association. That was what found me knocking at
the doors of the Circuit House. The dawali (often they are more difficult than
their bosses), stoutly would not allow me to meet Mr. Prabhakar. I tried
much name dropping, but to no avail. I then told him “tell Mr. Prabhakar, a
friend of his daughter Indrani has come”. He relented, and opened the door.
After pleasantries about his daughter, badminton (which had brought us to-
gether), I broached the subject of Perambalur. He answered “these things
happen”. Yes all happened – naming the factory after Jawaharlal Nehru, a
quick bhoomi puja, everything with the general elections round the corner,
in view. AIADMK was in alliance with Congress. MGR continued to rule after
forging an alliance with Congress.

There was industry-wide agitation on cane price issue. For nearly two
months all factories were closed. Government convened a meeting, with the
Secretary, Agriculture Mr. TN Seshan presiding. Seshan was pleading
strongly on behalf of growers who were duly backed by the ruling party
MLA’s, led by the Kattur / Lalgudi legislator. When the industrialists voiced a
unanimous ‘no’ to Seshan’s plea, he called Kothari for tete a tete. I too was
called. Seshan was almost beseeching Mr. Kothari to consider at least a small
increase to save the face of the Kattur MLA. Kothari bluntly said “just to pla-
cate the political ambitions of a first time MLA I will not land the industry in
commitment and set an unhealthy precedence”. It is surprising that, years
later Seshan made stringent election rules to fight power, political, monetary
and muscle, but earlier had views pandering to these very evils.

A similar incident took place during a labor problem at our factory. After a
long strike the Labor Secretary Mr. Pasupathi convened the meeting in pres-
ence of the Industry Minister K Rajaram. Hardly had Kothari and I found our
seats than Pasupathi was a virtual volcano disgorging vitriol and brimstone
as it were. Kothari was embarrassed and then irritated. All the while Rajaram
was silent and doodling on his pad. When Pasupathi’s diatribe got out of
hand Kothari stood up, took a bunch of keys from his coat pocket and
pushed it towards Pasupathi saying “here, you run the factory” and moved

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towards the door. That’s when Rajaram stopped his scribbling and asked Mr.
Kothari fondly in Tamil: “HC, why get excited? I am done with my work. Let’s
discuss the issue now”. He asked Pasupathi to move to the lounge and then
continued, “HC, we in government are trained to talk through our hats, more
so through bureaucrats” and showed Kothari the scribbling pad. It was full of
caricatures, absolutely no figures or notes. Both had a hearty laugh. Kothari
and Rajaram were once classmates.

Another was SP Ambrose. When he was Director of Sugar the Government

had convened a meeting of the Industry – private and co-operative sectors,
to discuss common issues. The Agriculture Secretary called Ambrose to the
dais. The latter politely declined saying, “I would like to stand by the Indus-
try”. Years later I met him on a Delhi – Madras flight which had a halt at Hy-
derabad. He was with ICRISAT then. I ran into him on the aisle (near the toi-
let) and recalled the occasions we had met in Madras. I asked him if he was
not coming back. to Madras. Pinching his nose he said “it stinks” and moved
on with a smile. I knew ‘it’ wasn’t the loo.

Apart from the police contacts which my work brought, being an active com-
mittee member in the District level Police Public committee, I was associated
with organizing good many sports meets in which Police and public teams
participated. These were all organized at places like Ariyalur, Jayamkondam,
Lalgudi, Musuri and Perambalur, which were all under our jurisdiction for
cane supplies. I recall our meet at Lalgudi at the girl’s high school grounds.
That time Walter Dawaram was DIG and Rajmohan was SP. We were set-
tling down and discussing in a lighter vein while the teams were at the con-
test. That is when Mr. Kanakasabai, the correspondent of the school, hailing
from the illustrious family of Lalgudi Paramasivam Pillai came our way and
remarked, “what are the ‘Three Mushketeers’ conspiring?”. All three of us
had huge whiskers.

Even now Panjabakesan, the Superintendent of Police recalls how Letika

Saran (the current DGP) had her training as ASP at Lalgudi taluk. Panjabake-
san wanted the IPS trainee to be accommodated at the factory’s guest
house. She was then Letika Dhar. She was accompanied by a gentleman
whom she introduced as Saran, her fiancé. She said “Saran will not be stay-
ing at the guest house” more to assuage me. He was from UP where he was

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going back to. I never got to meet her for a week or so and learnt that she
left early in the morning and was back only late in the night. One day I sent
for her. Small made, she looked more like a schoolgirl. After due pleasant-
ries, I asked in mock sternness, “you said you’re alone in the guest house,
but I have information somebody’s staying with you”. She was more than
surprised, “No sir, Saran left the same day”. I said “I meant your dog” (she
had a pet Lhasa Apso). She laughed in relief. She was a tough police officer
and the entire taluk in just two or three months was soon rid of the bad ele-
ments the place was noted for.

Sanjeevi was Inspector of Police at Lalgudi and frequented our club. A jovial
and pleasant man. When he was promoted as Deputy Superintendent of Po-
lice, Salem, he invited me as guest to the inauguration of a gym facility at the
Police Sports Club there. It was an occasion to renew acquaintance with Wal-
ter Dawaram who was DIG, western range and get to know K Vijay Kumar,
SP. The latter was later incharge of personal security for Rajiv Gandhi and
then chief of STF formed to nab Veerappan. He was straight as a ram rod and
was known for his bravery. No wonder, as he was the son of a well known
Police Officer, Krishnan Nair.
Another well known Police Officer who was college mate of mine with whom
I renewed my acquaintance after many years was Mr. Vaikunth. He was DIG
Trichy and rose to become DGP of Tamil Nadu. It was at the TA Battalion
Mess at Trichy where I was one of the few civilian members. The occasion
was a dinner to host GOC Southern Command – Gen. Mahadevan. I spotted
Vaikunth who was an invitee. He was however uncomfortable and squirming
as I pulled up a chair to sit by his side. I realized soon it was because of a
glass with tell tale color of the liquid I was holding. That was the regime of
MGR when it was a taboo for government officials to drink. Of course Mr.
Vaikunth was a known teetotaler. I therefore switched over to a glass with
an innocuous liquid and sat by him to enjoy his wry sense of humor. He has
also come out with his memoirs – interesting and informative. A distin-
guished police officer wrought in the mould and grammar of Stracey and
Arul, known for discipline and diligence.

While I was at Sameerwadi I had the privilege of hosting a District Rotary Vil-
lage Corps Conference on behalf of the Rotary club of Mudhol in which I was
a member. The President Rtn Satish Shah was a good friend of mine. Nearly

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1500 delegates drawn from parts of Maharashtra, Goa and North Karnataka
attended. Apart from Shanthilal Somaiya, I had invited S.T. Ramesh, IPS –
DIG at Belgaum to inaugurate the morning session. Considering the distance
Mr. Ramesh chose to come the previous night for halt at Sameerwadi. We
had a long chat over dinner when curiously, to the plesant surprise of both of
us, it transpired we were closely related – he was the grandson of my fa-
ther’s cousin sister. Earlier I thought he was a kannadiga and God knows
what he thought of me. A fine and humane officer with a clean record, he
was a keen and good tennis player.

Like my link with police, my liaison with armed forces was equally on a pleas-
ant plane. Trichy, Trichanapolli – in the Raj days and Sirapalli in Chola times,
was an important military center with a Cantonment to boast – perhaps dat-
ing back to Anglo-French Carnatic war. Robert Clive had posted himself in
the Fort in the vicinity of the famous theppakullam. Even today there is what
is called ‘Clive Hostel’ where students going to school and colleges reside,
perhaps with a prideful distinction of being successive residents to Robert
Clive though skipping centuries.
At the TA Battalion I had the pleasure of knowing quite many army officers. I
remember Col. D’Souza, Col. Papu (his wife is the granddaughter of VV Giri),
Col. Nair, Col. Mehta and others at different times. I remember the Pongal
festival at Bishop Heber school grounds in which Nedunchezian, senior minis-
ter in Karunanidhi’s cabinet was chief guest. Kalaignar was attending similar
function at Tirunelveli. I was seated in the front row along with District Col-
lector, DIG and Col. Nair, Commandant of TA Battalion 117. While Mr.
Nedunchezian was waxing eloquence Col. Nair was whisked away by the Or-
derly. When he resumed seat he whispered “Raghu, the Minister has to
come down. The DMK Government has been dismissed”. That there was a
tiff between Indira Gandhi and Kalaingar, touched off by some derogatory
personal remarks made at the DMK conference at Coimbatore few days back
against the PM, was known. All the same, none will have expected such a
quick and sudden move from Delhi, that too on an auspicious occasion.
Nedunchezian also got the news through his coterie and wrapped up his
speech which was wending its way to his usual hour and above oration, and
got down to meet his destiny. In such situations it seems the army is first to
be alerted. In a vicarious way therefore, I was proud to have been virtually
the second in the district of being privy to this news even ahead of the dis-
trict collector.

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Nearby Kattur, there is a village called Viragalur, where in the course of my
cane hunting I ran into an ex-army man Major Daniel. He and his wife were
very courteous and from Mrs. Daniel, my wife learnt a lot about gardening
and implemented it at our bungalow. Very often I used to visit their home
for get-togethers and they also returned the visits. A very large-hearted man,
he gave me two artillery shells which he got as mementoes when he was at
the front in Indo-Pakistan war. Today both these adorn my home duly con-
verted as lampshades.

Unless you live in a rural area and get to know such persons, you never real-
ize what an arsenal of large, stout and loyal hearted soldiers rural areas have
been. I had an ex-army man, in the watch and ward who was an Ashoka
Chakra decoratee. There is a stupa in his honor at the Lalgudi station. It is
indeed great for someone like Major Daniel to have settled down in his na-
tive place like Viragalur, a dry tract in the Pullambadi taluk, where rice eating
was a luxury till few years back. Normally such men gravitate to hills espe-
cially with a mess and canteen as an important constituent, perhaps the rea-
son why Coonoor with MRC around, had a galaxy of such men – Field Mar-
shall Manekshaw, Gen. Sundarji to name a few.

Fourth Estate

I had always had a friendly press, perhaps thanks to sagavasa dosha in hav-
ing done journalism course or as nemesis having given up a career in journal-
ism, in favor of the sugar industry. This was also the trait of Kothari’ who al-
ways believed in regular press meets whenever they had something new to
talk about, be it expansion, a new project or a new process etc. I gratefully
remember the support I had from Ramanarasu of ‘The Hindu’ and Gopalan
and Sambandam of ‘Indian Express’, well known journalists at Trichy.

I also recall my association with Manikam of ‘Dhina Thanthi’ and its

eveninger ‘Malai Murasu’. I remember an amusing incident. Karunanidhi
had come on a visit to Trichy perhaps during his second or third term as CM.
Most industrial houses had put up welcome buntings and arches, on all the
roads leading to Trichy. Apart from this, photographs of the CM being gar-
landed was a big ritual. One picture of my garlanding the leader, I was keen

135
should appear in the paper that evening. Mr. Manikam took one look at the
photograph, pursed his lips and I knew it was no go. But I was greatly
amused when he explained why. It seems I appeared taller in the photo-
graph.
Considerable help by way of publicity came forth from the leading Tamil
daily ‘Dina Malar’. It’s a very popular daily giving more slant on news con-
nected with rural areas and agriculture – founded by the visionary TV Rama
Subba Iyer and now ably run by his two sons, Lakshmipathy and Krishna
Murthy. Lakshmipathy was Lions Governor and that brought me close to him
when I was active in Rotary and his brother Krishna Murthy was a well
known numismatist.

Similar friends in Press I had while in North Karnataka where I was a regular
invitee to the Mahalingpur Press Club. I remember names like Jayaram
Shetty, Mallikarjun Heggalge, and Udupi etc.

Culture bug-bite

Not that I was a culture vulture, connoisseur of arts or an aficionado of

sports to addiction level. But I greatly believe that the colony life, where
most of mine was spent, needs to be tempered and tainted with all these if
only to entertain though not essentially for elevating the standard of life for
the residents. But I must admit, however, there is a streak of fetish for going
after cultural activities – perhaps thanks to the synergy of nativity in Thanja-
vur and relevant characteristics being passed on genetically by my mother
who had lot to do with what is being discussed.

Volley ball team of Kotharis was a legacy of my predecessor, Bushan Dutt,

which I latched on to for virtually launching on these activities. Soon
Kothari’s team made waves at the district level and was No.2 in the state.
The team was made up entirely of local talents. We were known more for
Volley ball than sugar – our bread and butter. Not unlike TISCO in Russi
Modi’s time – I had to make efforts at the slogan “we also make sugar”.

In due course I was made President of Trichy District Volleyball Association

when my first task was to conduct an All India tournament. It was thick of
power-cut era. All the same the matches were gone through with great suc-

136
cess thanks to the help of Paul Manickam, Executive Engineer (PWD), who
procured a generator set at a nominal rent from government and Achan,
GM, BHEL who helped with flood-lights and a team to manage them.

I also bought about a good club facility at Kattur – shuttle and tennicoit
courts, cards and reading rooms etc., a little lawn thrown in as a frontice
piece. I must admit however, quite some benign bluff had to be made to
bring all these under the subterfuge of a cane growers meeting hall and get
the approval from the “powers that be”. The shuttle court has had distin-
guished players like PG Chengappa playing occasionally.

On the lawns quite a few musical concerts – Bala Murali Krishna, Lalgudi
Jayaraman, MLV, DK Jayaraman, Chitti Babu, Sheikh Chinna Moulana, AKC
Natarajan, have been held. Also it was put to use for literary and religious
discourses – Ki va ja, Pulavar Keeran, Kundrakudi Adigalar, Swamy Chinma-
yananda, Balakrishna Sastrigal, Sivasankari and the like.

I must mention how the acquaintance with Sivasankari was engineered. Dur-
ing my numerous trips to Madras by road, I had always wanted to gate-crash
into a small cottage at Vazudhareddy near Villupuram which had a sign
board “Shyama irukkiral” – with reference to the Alsatian, virtually a mem-
ber of Sivasankari’s household. My driver Basheer and I worked on a break-
down on one of the trips to seek shelter at her home. My wife was a mute
accomplice in this conspiracy. The coffee and conversation we had with Siva-
sankari were delightful. From then on, all my trips to Madras had a manda-
tory halt at her house. Years later when her monumental literary work “Knit
India through literature” was launched at Connemara Hotel over a grand
function, I made the trip from N Karnataka to attend this function. I was
happy to have met literary giants like Khushwant Singh, MT Vasudevan Nair,
and Mahadevan, Editor, Reader’s Digest, at the function.

While my getting to know Sivasankari was contrived, the one with another
great – Sujatha, was accidental. The car in which he and his wife were taken
to Ariyalur, Jeyankondam etc. by Revathi and Ravindra Kamak, good friends
of ours at Trichy, had met with an accident. Revathy wanted to know if I
could help for their return trip. This message came to me at a nearby village
– Poovalur, where I was playing a cricket match after a long time. In fact I

137
was at the crease and going great guns with all sorts of unorthodox and un-
conventional shots like what you see in current day capsulized cricket. Reply
was sent with a car, that they should come for lunch. Sujatha was a pleasant
conversationalist and was amazing – what a power and storehouse of knowl-
edge he was, which you could never make out from the frail frame he had.
Subsequently my wife and I had the pleasure of breakfast at BEL, Bangalore
where he was working.

There was hardly any provocation which did not have a function as its se-
quel. This indeed prompted Mr. Kothari to quip, when Lala Bansidhar, a di-
rector on our board asked me what my functions were. “I do not know func-
tionally what Raghavan is. But he is a functions man allright”.

The literary escapades were there at Sameerwadi also. I stumbled onto infor-
mation on poet Ranna, thanks to a small news item about his 1000th birth
anniversary being celebrated. Peculiarly at Mudhol, near about where he
was born, this news did not have much of an impact. My mind was busy with
reinventing the wheel which saw nearly a month long activities connected
with oratorical contests for school children in the entire district on this great
rashtra kavi. This culminated with a gala function. Thanks to the din and bus-
tle, the Kannada Sahitya Academy had their meet later on at Mudhol with
special lectures on Ranna. The civic authorities also erected a stupa at a stra-
tegic place in Mudhol town. I was happy, the stupa had the design - a cross
of gathaas which was the design I had worked on in the certificate given to
oratorical contestants. This depicts Ranna’s magnum opus “Gathaa yuddha”
which brought the quintessence of the entire Mahabaratha while narrating
the mythological fight between Duryodhana and Bheema.

I also did the birth centenary of Kuvempu, another rashtra kavi. The two day
seminar saw leading luminaries in the field of literature - Patil Puttappa,
Cham Pa, Justice Ko Cha, Dr. H.M. Marulasiddaiah and others. It was also
graced by the seers of Thontadari, Chitradurga and Mahalingpur mutts.

In the field of folk arts and music, concert by Banandur Kempaiah was ar-
ranged. Similarly, with the help of Belagal Veeranna, puppetry relevant to
sugar industry in general and the house of Somaiya’s in particular was pro-
duced and titled “Kabbina Mahatme”.

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Chandrasekara Kambar, former VC of Hampi University and Kalburgi, former
VC of Dharwad had come for a lecture.

I’ve also had opportunity to meet and discuss with great writers like UR Ana-
tha Murthy and SL Byarappa when they attended a function at Kulloli on the
occasion of Sathya Kama’s birth centenary.

Thanks to Dr. H.M. Marulasiddaiah, emeritus professor of social work of Ban-

galore University, I came in touch with Dr. M. Chidanandamurthy, a firm be-
liever in Hinduism, H.S. Doreswamy, perhaps the last of the living freedom
fighters and Dr. G.D. Narasimaiah, an eminent professor of English, well
known for his institute at Mysore called Dhwanyaloka. He was a contempo-
rary of Albert Einstein at Yale. Remarkable how all these men past eighty are
still energetic and zestful in pursuits which they believe will put the nation
back on the glorious pedestal it was on.

I was awarded the “Karnataka Shree” by the Kannada Sahitya Parishad, held
at Moodbidre. Perhaps, I was the lone non-kannadiga, besides PB Srinivas.
Other notable awardees were Veerappa Moily and MV Kamat. Later on I was
recognized by the Sir M. Visvesaraya Trust as one of the six Gold medal
awardees on an all-India basis.

I was also associated with the prestigious Pattadakkal festival organized by

the government of Karnataka at Bijapur, Pattadakkal and Badami. Giants like
Bhimsen Joshi and Chourasia have graced the festival.

At the sugar unit dandiya ras was organized during Navrathri, which was a
great religious and social event. Many were amazed that someone from
Tamil Nadu had to hit upon this at a unit sponsored by a Gujarathi, after
nearly three decades of existence.

Amidst all this I did “work” also as a CEO. The sugar unit was second in the
country in production and I also managed to implement downsizing of the
work force at a time when such moves were replete with problems.

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Persona Grata

Basheer was my age group and was my personal driver along with Rangara-
jan. He was a voracious reader of Tamil classics, mythology and literary
magazines like Kalki, Amudhasurabhi etc. I remember how he convinced
mobs to clear the road they had blocked at different places en route from
Bangalore to Kattur when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. He used sama,
dana, bedha, danda. He would never miss the TV serial Ramayana by Raman-
and Sagar on Sundays come what may. If he was on duty he would somehow
wrangle that slot for himself.

I almost stepped into the tinsel world when I was at Madras. My good friend
and film producer Kovai Cheziyan (of ooty varai uravu fame) invited us to a
film shoot of the movie ‘Azhagan’. It was a party scene by the side of a swim-
ming pool at a private guest house on Mahabalipuram road. I turned around
and there was Cheziyan along with director K Balachander. They were wor-
ried that the person to play the guest role had cried off. They asked me if I
could do the guest role. My wife readily said yes. It was the first time I faced
the lights. Balachander, who is tough even on top stars not ‘delivering the
goods’, was patient (perhaps because he was an alumnus of Annamalai Uni-
versity, and a student of my father). It was good while it lasted.

Now a little on Chezian - He was drawn into politics rather early – even as a
schoolboy at Erode. Thanks to a plague break out in Coimbatore, the District
headquarters was shifted to Erode and Cheziyan’s father who was District
Board Secretary had to shift to a house near EV Ramaswami Naicker’s resi-
dence.

Cheziyan, used to accompany his father on visits to the illustrious EVR where
he met other budding leaders of the dravidian movement – CN Annadurai, M
Karunanidhi and others. That was when the Justice party metamorphosed
into the DK. Cheziyan used to say, “thanks to the plague, I am in politics and
now we plague society”. He was a fine orator in his college days at Coimba-
tore and was virtually hand picked by Annadurai for party propaganda and
meetings.

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Later on when MG Ramachandran parted ways with the DMK, Cheziyan was
the first to join the ADMK (not as yet AIADMK). And when MGR formed the
government he was made deputy chairman of the state planning commis-
sion with cabinet rank. At the crescendo of his own status in the party he left
protesting against MGR’s infamous norm that every partyman tattoo the
party’s name. Cheziyan bid farewell with biting sarcasm: “we are not cattle
to be branded and herded”. He must know coming as he did from Kangeyam
– known for a breed of cattle carrying that name! Last I saw him was at the
wedding reception of my son in early 2000, he died soon after.

There was a colleague of mine looking after the Bangalore office of

Somaiya’s who was 85 or so, by name Kala Bhairavan. He was a Sankhethi –
a community which perhaps migrated to Karnataka centuries back from
Shencottah. The Tamil they speak is as corrupt as what is spoken by the
Saurashtra residents of Madurai. They are a traditionally orthodox commu-
nity well versed in Sanskrit. In fact, in their native village of Mathur in Hassan
district, Sanskrit is still the lingua franca for all - from postman to purohit.

This gentleman retired from Mysore government service and joined

Somaiya’s. Quite possibly he must have put in more years in post retirement
at Somaiya’s than when he was in the government. A pleasant and a good
looking man with chaste English and steeped in good old British sense of eti-
quette and courtesies. Whenever I was in Bangalore, I used to get him
‘Kunda’, a delicacy sweet from Belgaum, where I normally boarded the train.
At Bangalore for lunch we would go to Hotel Ashoka, where his bite was club
special sandwiches preceded by a lace of gin and tonic. Many an interesting
incident of yore he would tell me in his well honed and sized syllables with-
out transgressing limits of decency and absolutely no sign of scandal mon-
gering though some were just that. He knew the happenings in the Maha-
raja’s household (he started his career as stenographer at the time of Krish-
naraja Wadiyar), and would narrate snippets on some of the bigwigs in our
own organization. Often he would speak of the few pleasant days he was at
close quarters with the Mountbattens during their visit to Bangalore.

While at Kattur I had a lasting friendship with Prasanna Reddiar. He was

nearing 60 then, nearly 35 years older to me. He came from an illustrious

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reddiar family of Lalgudi who had made name in politics, local administration
besides being one of the few big landed gentries. Prasanna Reddiar, though
not educated in a formal way, admittedly was well up in matters that matter
– like etiquette, partying etc. Short and stocky, looked like an ageing Prussian
general in Crimean war. He lived in Manakkal, near Lalgudi, and his house
was a miniature palace with long corridors lined by a colonnade of solid teak
wood pillars. He was an excellent host, so too his wife, daughter of Thotti-
yam Zamindar. Once I was casually mentioning that I found it very comfort-
able sitting on the chairs in their drawing room. The two chairs, very artisti-
cally designed in a semi-circular fashion, by Curzon & Co, I was surprised
were carted to my house.

He dabbled in film production, shifting to Madras under the banner Jubilee

films along with another mirasdar, G Venkatesan from Thanjavur. They pro-
duced the classic in celluloid, ‘Parthiban Kanavu’ starring Gemini Ganesan,
Vyjayanthimala, Saroja Devi and SV Ranga Rao. They also produced ‘Anbu
Engay’, Balaji’s first film. Along with monetary remuneration, they had given
him an ambassador car, which for sentimental reasons he held on to. And
this car MSV 963 was always featured in future Balaji’s movies a la Hitch-
cock! These two mirasdars turned producers were so lavish in their ex-
penses, I understand Gemini Vasan had to send a fifth columnist to find out
how they did it. They, sad to say, fell into bad days and left the film world,
unlike SS Vasan, who came the hard way by money, to be a cine mogul after
a humble beginning as a worker at Mangalambika Lodge at Thanjavur.

Prasanna Reddiar told me once what a noble woman, actress Savithri was.
Realizing film production was not the cup of tea for mirasdars, it seems she
persuaded him to go back to Manakkal to his family and the fields – booked
the train ticket and hid rupees one lakh - the advance she had received, in
the tiffin carrier, which formed a part of the luggage of Reddiar.

Thanks to him, I was also privileged to have had the friendship of

MKD Natarajan, a senior DMK leader and MLA at that time. He was also
from a local village called Pudhur Uthamanur, and had been in the party
right from the DK period. A man with a keen sense of humor and native intel-
ligence – he spent more money on the party than other way about. Quite
many a guidance on strategic matters I have received from him which stood
in good stead in managing the sugar factory.

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At Kattur, with dwindling cane area, thanks to alternative crops which were
galore in the delta area where we were situated, I had to explore possibilities
in adjoining Thanjavur dist. where there was no sugar factory excepting Thiru
Arooran in east Tanjore. Most of them were still holding on to paddy despite
water in Cauvery progressively dwindling. I therefore thought we should
make a foray into such areas and convince them about planting cane. This
brought me in contact with Nallamuthu Nattar from a village called Marud-
hur, near Samayapuram coming in the command area of Kotharis. He had lot
of contacts especially among his community, Kallars. He himself planted a
little cane in his farm and was quite convinced of the economics. He hailed
from a very respectable and a leading family at Marudhur and I believe his
father was the first to bring generator for electrical lights in their huge pala-
tial house. For some time during the DMK regime, Mr. Nalla Muthu Nattar
was a Trustee of the Srirangam Temple. He was a short statured, fair gentle-
man with a red namam on his forehead which was heightened by the chalk
white khadi shirt and dhothi he was always on. A very helpful man despite
his age and busy schedule and hardly a visit of mine to his house has gone off
without my having lunch with him. A great host – he was also a friend of MK
Thyagaraja Bhagavathar through thick and thin and it seems when chips
were really down for MKT, having lost all his property and pitiably reduced to
straitened circumstances, Nallamuthu Nattar bought his furniture and the
white horse which MKT used in one of his films – ‘Haridas’, purposefully for a
fancy price to enable the great star to line his purse. I used to have vicarious
pleasure of having lunch at the long dining table, which could easily accom-
modate 10 on either side, once used by MKT.

With Nallamuthu Nattar and Prasanna Reddiar, I recall the 2 or 3 days of con-
tacts and canvassing at Thanjavur dist. I remember many names of mirasdars
like Kangeyar, Soliar, Andali Krishnan, Madukkur Pappa, and even Thangavel,
brother of Sivaji Ganesan, who had a big farm at Soorakottai near Pattukot-
tai. The respect with which all of them received Nattar and their agreement
to plant cane without a murmur indicated the kind of venerable hold com-
munity leaders had. Recognizing this and tapping it, to be dove-tailed to the
regular run of the mill PR was a delicate and yet exhilarating experience. Af-
ter all our efforts in persuading farmers in that area to plant cane, the areas
were demarcated to a new sugar factory in Cooperative sector which came
up near Thanjavur.

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Across the Cauvery was another sugar factory at Pettavaithalai belonging to
Parrys. The GM then was Group Capt. VM Radhakrishnan – He had been a
fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force in World War II and was attaché at the
Indian High Commission in London. He was a good tennis player and had also
won the Victor Sylvester (famous orchestra for fox trot) award in ball-room
dancing while at London. He closely resembled Anwar Sadat of Egypt. He was
a determined man. As principal of the Air Force Training College at Jabalpur,
he refused to heed Morarji Desai’s word (as premier of greater Bombay
province) to introduce prohibition in the college campus.

Raju who was my domestic help was almost my ‘man friday’ for me. He
hailed from Periyakulam. He was a good cook too. My two children still talk
of how he had brought them up. Although he had many relatives who were
well placed in life like poet Vairamuthu, his cousin, he would never drop
names. He was very fond of both my children and when we heard that he
was no more they broke down much as my wife and I were inconsolable.

Rangarajan was another driver who hailed from nearby Manakkal village,
(which incidentally is home of the famous Vaishnavite Saint “Manakkal
Nambi” and MS Sadasivam, consort of MS) was very hardworking and sin-
cere. He never tired of driving the car. All that was required was periodic cof-
fee and a tank full of petrol. Before joining Kothari’s he was personal driver
to TMS Mani ICS, Chairman of Neyveli Lignite Corporation and would talk
high of his ‘personal integrity’. For instance, he would fill petrol for his per-
sonal car only from outside bunks and never once used the bunk inside the
corporation. Well, such species like Sir M Visvesaraya (of candle fame) and
Mani are almost extinct now.

I fondly remember my numerous get-togethers with farmers also while at

Sameerwadi. One evening some of us were at the field of Parappa Muthap-
pagol, a rustic with a great sense of humor. The gentle breeze which made
the dense cane crop sway, took away most of the pains that a tough sched-
ule of a sugar factory operation brought about. We munched on freshly
roasted maize, called gunjala thine in N Karnataka. I casually asked Vijay Sin-
dur, a leading artist based at Jhamkandi in N Karnataka, if he could work on
capturing the goodness of the dusk and the happy ambience of this friendly

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chat. Within a month he did a beautiful oil painting on canvas. I could recog-
nize me in my favorite green Italian T-Shirt nibbling corn on the cob, my host
in his tattered shirt, happily puffing a chilume – a clay pipe (See cover page
for the painting). What struck me most was a curious young girl peeping
through a half opened door of the hut. This painting I named as madura
kshna (meaning ‘sweet moment’ in Kannada). Incidentally this painting was
dedicated to the cane growers and opened by my good friend Siddhu Nyama
Gowda, MP and Minister in Narasimha Rao’s Cabinet. He is well known for
the minor irrigation scheme. It is across river Krishna at Chikka Padslagi, be-
yond Jhamkandi and built by the farmers. Nyama Gowda is known for having
defeated the redoubtable Ramakrishna Hegde for the Bagalkot MP seat.

Kalidas, affectionately called Kali, MD of a leading engineering concern

based at Trichy wanted me to look after one of the new units for enzyme
production to be set up at Chennai. When I told him I was back home from
Sameerwadi, to enjoy retired life, he said “not yet. I have something for
you”. I was President at his office for a while after my first stint with
Somaiya’s. This organization was founded by VD Swamy (father of Arvind
Swamy of ‘Roja’ film fame). Initially it was a small time fabrication company
and grew in stature thanks to its efficiency and integrity in catering to the
requirements of boiler plants, offshore drilling etc. Kali was a great host in
Trichy and for many soirées, his house was a virtual oasis especially during
prohibition.

Rotary

I was inducted into Rotary in the early 70’s by Rtn. PDG T.S. Rajam, Chair-
man TVS group and a well known figure in Rotary circles. In years to come I
became a Paul Harris Fellow, led a group study exchange team and even
staked claim for governership, unsuccessfully, though. My quest for interpre-
tative and imaginative Rotary projects saw me deeply involved in quite a few
novel ones on behalf of Rotary and Rotaract. One such was the Rotaract Con-
ference at a remote village called Puthanampatty, where the only signs of
civilization was a well run college by a visionary called Mooka Pillai. He had
gone as an ordinary man to Malaysia and made it big, which he wanted to
share with the community he came from in the shape of a contrivance which

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will help younger generation to come up. He was already 100 years when
this seminar was done in mid 70’s. Though blind in both eyes, he was present
for best part of the seminar. His son Ponnambalam, has been running this
institution very well.

At this seminar which came under career guidance, I had invited Prof. PS
Mani Sundaram, Principal REC Trichy (later on he became the Inaugural VC
of Bharathidasan University), Dr. Stella Sundararaj, Director of Collegiate
studies, Mrs. Ahluwalia, GM Front Office,Chola Sheraton as guest speakers.
They focused on the various avenues and opportunities, job wise, available
for the young ones as they came out of the college. Many were amazed at
the potential, hospitality industry had and also the one which is close to it,
namely Tourism. It must be appreciated hotel industry was called just that,
with not so much of respectability going with it, like what it enjoys now, with
a new appellation of hospitality industry. Similarly Prof. Mani Sundaram’s
prognosis that India, one day will be a major player in the IT Industry, in a
world perspective was prophetic. Computers were not as yet a common
place contraption as it is today, but viewed in awe as a distant object then.

Another project which was done for Rotary was the Inter-city at Pudukottai.
The theme was ‘Need for Innovative Rotary Projects’. Along with me other
notable young Turks in this were Rtn. Chandrahasan, (brother of cine star
Kamal Haasan; father of ‘Coffee with Anu’ talk show host – Anu Haasan),
Rtn. Mayandi (for a long time, President of Trichy Chamber of Commerce),
Rtn. Majid Khan, Regional Manager, LIC, to name a few. The new fangled
need sank in well with the member clubs and they quite appreciated the phi-
losophy of creating MS’s and Krishnan’s out of young local talents instead of
whiling away time and energy on recognizing those who had already arrived.
Rtn. Past District Governor Ravindran, whose brows raised initially on re-
ceiving invitation for this Inter-City, was all praise at the end of it.

Curiously almost within a week of this Inter-City, there was a big Rotary meet
at Trichy involving 3 or 4 clubs there to give ‘For the sake of Honor Award’ to
MS on her getting Magsasay Award. This was spearheaded by Rtn. Subbara-
yan (a mirasdar from Sirghazi, CEO then of Simco Meters and a well known
nationalist who was booked by the Britishers in the famous Coleroon bridge
bombing case). He was a very pleasant man who never lost his cool and I had

146
great respect and regard for him. When I ran in to him at this function, he
never showed any rancor that our views with regard to projects were on dif-
ferent course.

Another Rotary project that I was privileged to do for the Clubs in Trichy was
on Employer – Employee relationship. My good friend Rotarian Bihari Bajaj,
President of one of the clubs approached me for this and I was able to fix up
a galaxy of prominent men in this field like Mr. DC Kothari, NS Bhat
(Chairman, Binny and Co.), Panikkar, Director of Personnel, Tata Sons, An-
thony Pillai and Gurumurthy both Labor leaders of quite some standing etc.
We also brought out a valuable souvenir, in which I had arranged an article
from P Chidambaram, who was then a lawyer in the chambers of Nambiar,
and also from M.R. Narayanaswamy and Gopalan of King and Partridge, well
known labor lawyers.

There was even a case study presentation having a bearing on the seminar
subject which had to be solved by the constituent clubs for an award.

Talking of Rotary projects of relevance, soon enough an opportunity arose to

get into a project in a hands on way which was helpful to take it out from the
limbo of mere lip service. There was a communal clash at Kattur village and
the whole economy and otherwise peaceful situation in that place and
nearby ones were seriously affected. The Police and the Collectorate could
not do much to bring about normalcy. One afternoon I got a message from
the Collector’s office that both the communities would be amenable to sit
for discussions if I got involved. I availed this opportunity and initiated dia-
logues with the leaders of both community through the good offices of the
Rotary Club of Kattur. After near 3 days of continuous talks (24 X 3), both the
communities agreed for peace. It was a great vindication of the pet thesis of
mine that Rotary Projects should address itself to the needs of the commu-
nity around. Peculiarly or topically, the Rotary International theme that year
was ‘World Peace’. In hindsight I feel thinking locally and acting locally also
has its own charm!

Similarly, availing the out and out rural ambiance of where we were situated,
our Rotary Club worked on an exchange program of young and enterprising
farmers with an agricultural area called Narayanpur near Nasik. Rtns. Bal

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Dharap and Sane were of great help.

In the year 1977, I was privileged to lead a team of 5 young men (two from
Sri Lanka, one from Kerala and two from Tamil Nadu) on a Rotary exchange
scheme to Southern California. This involved duration of six weeks and home
stay in as many as 15 – 20 hosting points.

Besides affording rich experience and useful exposure in their respective

fields for these young men I daresay the insight into way of life in a familial
perspective which was available in abundance in home stay, was equally sig-
nificant personally so for me, as I spent more of the leisure time with the
hostesses. The chats in spells I had with them at the kitchen and dining hall
while dish washing or laying the table were quite helpful in getting to know
and appreciate the family fabric and equally so the societal situation, values
etc.

For instance, the stay for 2 or 3 days at Hansford – a dairy town, where the
hostess was a second generation immigrant from Portugal, her father having
stowed away to the USA on a ship to start life afresh in his trade – carpentry.
Despite the liberated atmosphere and ambience of the new world, he had
stuck to the near oriental trappings of Portugal in the upbringing of his chil-
dren with discipline all-round. He even had a say in the kind of movies his
children went to. But then this did not happen that way with her own chil-
dren. They all went out and came back home as they pleased, especially one
of her three children, I never got to see. She explained he was given to late
nights and getting up late in the afternoon. Her despair was poignant when
she said “earlier I used to tell him to come home early, and now I tell him, try
and come back home”.

In another hosting point while I was looking out of the kitchen one after-
noon, I saw a bunch of school kids returning home – the usual giggle of girls,
boisterous boys, all in the age group of maximum ten years. Two of the boys
were more aggressive in their interaction – almost a scuffle. When I winced,
the hostess noticed it to bring some more home truths when she said
“Raghu, year’s back I also reacted like you and went to the extent of separat-
ing the two boys – 5 to 6 years of age, in a fight. Both of them stopped the
fight only to remonstrate in unison that it was none of my business. What

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more, in the course of the day the parents almost hauled me up for this
‘misdemeanor’. “this is the kind of personal liberty we are experiencing in
this country” she said sarcastically.

Apart from such experience I collected quite a lot of recipes which formed a
useful part of scrapbook (not necessarily to convey to my wife, I was active in
a useful way and out of any mischief). There were also quite a few embar-
rassments laced with hilarity. I was staying in China Lake with the
Dinsmores’. He was a mathematical scientist at the Naval Weapons Research
Center which was one of the collaborators for the famous or infamous atom
bombs that were dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He knew Mahalano-
bis, the famous statistician in India during Jawaharlal Nehru’s time. He had a
great regard for him. One evening Joe Dinsmore took me to another Rotar-
ian’s home on our way to a Rotary club meeting. This Rotarian and his wife
were both immigrants from Greece with heavy accent and the whiskey they
served, perhaps of Greek origin too was equally heavy. Before long my
tongue was loose and I was waxing eloquent on the gracefulness of saree on
the Indian woman. Shortly I found myself explaining pallu, pleats and all. Be-
fore I could realize, the woman who had disappeared for a while came back
with a stuff that resembled a saree. She was insistent that I drape it on her,
quickly getting out of her skirt to reveal her pink chemise covering her mod-
esty. Before I could fumble further in words more dangerously so, with the
dressing part of it, Joe, who resembled, James Robertson Justice, the British
actor of ‘Doctor’ series, came to my rescue. He exclaimed “Raghu is a theo-
retician and in any case we all have to go to the meeting on time”.

Another one was San Louis Obispo where I was staying with a kabalarian mo-
bile home dealer. He and his family were strict vegetarians, even milk prod-
ucts were no go. Another team member Bala (Balakrishnan) was also staying
with us. He was given to long discussions on Indian philosophy at the drop of
a hat. One evening, after wrapping up a Rotary meeting we were ready to go
home along with the host, Burt Sinclair. Bala sedimented to his usual discus-
sions with a group of Rotarians. Burt and I waited at the car for some time
but there was no sign of Bala. Burt went to the hall to find Bala in crescendo
of philosophy. So he came back and asked in sheer exasperation “Raghu
what do we do with this fellow?” I thought for a while and replied “Burt – do
one thing. Go inside and shout at him “Bala – vaa polam’”. This man Burt was

149
an articulate speaker and a great actor especially at bringing about expres-
sions in his face in a trice. He reminded me a lot of Gilbert Roland of Holly-
wood with his clipped moustache, brown and brawny frame or for that mat-
ter in a distant perspective Douglas Fairbanks. He delivered the simple dia-
logue in tamil as told and resultantly came back with Bala on tow tamely. I
am sure the Rotarians in discussions in Indian Philosophy must have thought
what Burt said was another mantra or a nuance in philosophy.

After six weeks of stay at California I returned to India at Trivandrum as I had

to meet the Rotary Governor, who sent me on this trip, stayed at Alleppey.
At Trivandrum I was staying at Hotel Tara which used to be Kanahakunnu
palace of Travancore Maharaja on a small hillock. Soon on reaching the hotel
from the airport, before entering the room I could recognize actress Lakshmi.
I accosted her and asked her if she could pose for a picture as I was keen in
trying my new camera I brought from USA. We went to her room and before
I could take the snap along with my wife and Veda Ramanujam, wife of an-
other Rotarian who had come to receive me, I asked her if she could wear a
bindi. She readily obliged without any fuss which we normally associate with
popular cine stars.

I must mention RTN. Gov. Revi Karunakaran. He selected me to lead the

team. A very knowledgeable Rotarian and a very effective District Governor.
He was a leading name in Coir Industry. During his numerous business trips
abroad, he had collected rare and valuable items. His dynamic and able wife
Betty has built a superb museum at Allepey, considered Venice of South In-
dia to house these artefacts – a tribute indeed in memory of her husband
who had taste for fine things in life.

Peculiarly prior to departure on this assignment I had to give an undertaking

to the Rotary International that I will not be accompanied by my wife. But
every where we went we were asked about the status of women in Indian
society, which I felt would have carried conviction had there been a woman
or the wife of the leader in the team. On coming back I wrote a letter to the
Rotary Foundation giving my views. Promptly, came the reply from them
that they could not accede to my suggestion. But years later they included
women members in the team and also allowed the team leader to take his
wife.

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Rotary has enabled me to enlarge my circle of friendship. I must make a
mention of Rathnam of Karur. Though he was a successful bus operator, he
never forgot the humble beginning of his father as a driver. An excellent
friend and a host, with a very large heart. Once I mentioned to him the need
for rotary clubs coming up with a polytechnic exclusively for women, which I
was toying with as a project at Kattur. He immediately wrote out a cheque
for 5 lakh rupees, which of course I could not use as the requisite land I ex-
pected from Kotharis did not materialize, thanks to the formalities of finan-
cial institutions. I also cherish the friendship with Ramakrishna Raja, a lead-
ing chartered accountant from Rajapalayam, a very simple person who could
not even hurt a fly. Similarly the couple, Ramanujam and Veda from Kulitha-
lai. He was a leading lawyer, specializing in Land Ceiling act and I have never
seen their house devoid of guests. Also, Ravindran, Chief of TVS Trichy and
his soft speaking wife Saroja, daughter of Rajam, then chairman of TVS.

Raining Dogs and Dogs

Quite putting to pale, my fondness for dogs as a young boy, was what was
displayed by my son and daughter when they were much younger. My son
Arun started talking of dogs when he was hardly 6 years old and gradually
the nag turned into importunacy for one at the house. One day as I was get-
ting into the car, coming near the car window, Arun said ‘it seems some Alsa-
tian pups are available at Vengai Kuruchi’. This was evidently a rejoinder to
the bluff by which I had kept him at bay saying that in rural areas there are
no dogs of good breeds available. I knew at once my driver Basheer must
have been an accomplice with inputs, though with no mischievous intention.
When I turned towards him, he said “yes sir, you remember Ramakrishnan
Pillai with his fierce handle-bar moustache and long minor chain. He has a
litter of 4 or 5 pups” and continued suggesting he could go and pick up one
and come back. Although I was fumbling for words, on this twin onslaught
from my son and the driver, to buy time, I said “well, let us see. This place is
well beyond Manapparai”. My driver agreed but I saw him giving my son an
assuring look. The result was a small cute little pup, reached my house hav-
ing been transported in the cane lorry that brought Ramakrishnan Pillai’s
cane. Only then I realized the walkie-talkie for our field and divisional offices
could cover canines besides cane. This pup was named ‘Tusker’, which inci-

151
dentally was the name of the Sire of the pups which I had brought from Cey-
lon.

The second was a Labrador pup (called Betsy after a popular fiction by Arthur
Hailey), which again was foisted on me thanks to my son’s initiative. He was
little older then about 8 or 9 years. During the summer holidays he had
joined my wife, who had gone to Mettupalayam for confinement. Seeing an
advt. in the Hindu, he seems to have shot off a letter to Selvaraj at Kovilpatti.
It seems he mentioned that I knew him (of course I knew him on the Shuttle
Courts). He belonged to the Kovilpatti zamindar’s family and was married to
GK Sundaram’s (of Lakshmi Mills) daughter. And as a tail piece in his letter,
he has probably asked what price etc. One fine morning I got a letter from
Selvaraj, referring to my son’s interest and rubbishing the portion with refer-
ence to the price. The pick of the pup was mine to collect at the earliest.
Though it came without any price tag, the effort and money I spent in send-
ing my car to Kovilpatti to collect the pup was something I felt I should do
before my son returned from Mettupalayam with my wife and addition in
the family.

The third one was a Spitz which my uncle was having at his village in Koneri
Rajapuram where I used to go for weekends sometimes. On one such visit
with the bond between my son and the dog growing progressively intense,
the return trip found an additional passenger. This dog also was cute called
Bharat, but then the jealousy it sparked in the Labrador was very difficult to
quell. Thankfully my good friend, Gp. Captain Radha Krishnan and his wife
Anusuya, who came on a visit to our house took to Bharat and mutually so
by Bharat to them and happily it was on its way to Pettaivatahallai. For many
days we had to tell my son they would return it soon, which of course did
not happen as arranged by me.

The fourth one was a Cocker Spaniel, – a golden one and a pedigree at that.
My late brother helped him buy the pup from one Harini Ratnam, now mar-
ried to Ramesh Rangarajan (Publisher of The Hindu). I was surprised when he
landed at Lalgudi Station – he had brought his pup along with him observing
all formalities with the Railways by paying extra fare, muzzling it etc., abso-
lutely with no indication to me.

Equally so even my daughter Harini was fond of the Cocker Spaniel whom we
152
called ‘Honey’. As the dog grew old, there were lots of complications health
wise needing emergency surgery I was amazed at the way my daughter han-
dled it – contacting the vet, fixing up surgery at the college in Vepery and
how she affectionately picked up the dog in an auto rickshaw, stayed for the
duration of the operation and resting period and came home.

After a long time, when my daughter and wife had come to Sameerwadi on
holiday, the news of the death of Honey was telephoned by my tenant,
which of course we did not break to my daughter lest it spoil her holidays. I
believe when she realized the loss on reaching the house at Madras, it took
quite some effort to control her.

Mush, mush, aisi

I had a fetish for moustache ever since the age of thirteen when the hazy
hirsute appeared on my upper lip. As years rolled by it was a fixation more
than in a biological way. The profusion of what counts with which I was en-
dowed afforded a flexibility of fashion ranging from pencil thin Ronald Cole-
man to vicious Kaiser handle bar. One should appreciate how steadfast I was
to this coming from a brahminical background where it was a near taboo to
sport it.

Twice however we parted company! One was on the eve of my wedding –

1967 – at the request of my father-in-law to be, who was apprehensive of
the susceptibilities of the purohit lined up for the ceremony and the other
one was when I had an audience with our religious head – Jeer of Ahobila
Mutt. It was in the year 2000. While the former was for the time being, the
latter one was for keeps. In between, as said earlier there were many twists
and turns to my moustache.

At one stage I was sporting what is called a droop made famous by John
Newcombe, the tennis ace seeing which one of my friends who was much
older in age by name Raja Chidambaram Reddiar was rather sarcastic when
he commented, “Tupil, I know in consonance with your ups and downs the
moustache is either turned up or down but I am unable to fathom the ‘why’
of the longish sideburns?”. Not wanting to be browbeaten or should it be
side-lock beaten, I replied “sir, you see the mass of hair in my head, don’t

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you think it needs supports on either side?” He was a jovial kind of man –
MLA for a while during Rajaji’s time and President, District Board during raj
times.

This kind of leg-pulling via my moustache has been experienced even

abroad. The phenomenon of pepper and salt was aplenty in me too. Pecu-
liarly it was distributed. While the salt was confined to the sideburns, pepper
was solely on the moustache. This has been since my ‘30s. I used to make
light of it then quoting Stewart Granger, the Hollywood actor who was
known for his white side locks - “wisdom is funneled into the ears”. In this
perspective, when I was on our Rotary exchange trip to Southern California
one of my hostesses asked me the ‘why’ of this phenomenon. All I had to
reply was “because the whiskers are 13 years elder to my moustache.

In defense of moustache I readily had an invincible list of celebrities in differ-

ent fields John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist, John Steinbeck, No-
bel Prize winner for literature, Sir Anthony Eden, the English Prime Minister
who committed “Suez’ide”, Clement Atlee, an English Prime Minister who
perhaps gave us the freedom also because of the moustache on the Ma-
hatma and the list goes on, the redoubtable range from Mahatma to Maha
Kavi. I was never tired telling how Charles Dickens as a young man sojourning
in Italy wrote a letter to his friend which described how his “moustaches
were simply glorious” (I learnt later that when the entity was separated in
the middle it is called moustaches). What of the repartee of young Winston
Churchill who was fond of two things then – political apprenticeship and a
tender moustache, at a social gathering, to an elderly socialite woman
“madam, I can assure you neither of them will ever come in contact with
you” when she had invidiously remarked, “young man, neither your politics
nor your moustache amuses me”.

Late ‘50s after finishing college I was at Delhi for an interview with Lala
Charat Ram thanks to VS Sundaram, Director at Srirams, a relative of ours. I
was at a hotel at Connaught Place with my host Krishnasamy. That’s when
my moustache almost landed me in trouble. We were having breakfast at a
Madrasi hotel and the neighboring table had two persons, one of whom was
looking at me intensely and talking to his friend. Quite unmindful however, I
was conversing with Krishnaswamy in tamil on the various cultural activities

154
the Council for Cultural Affairs, where he was working was planning to em-
bark on. After finishing the breakfast when we were at the counter clearing
the bills, the two gentlemen were after us to clear theirs. One of them intro-
duced himself as Francis, CID Inspector and when he said, “I will have appre-
hended you on a mistaken identity for Joginder Singh, murderer suspect in
the famous Andhra Bank manager Suryanarayanan’s murder case”. I was clay
allover and not merely feet wise. It transpires, the moustache was the com-
mon denominator between me and Joginder Singh.

Talking of my moustache, I remember how it made me popular at Loyola

grounds at the time of badminton matches. With my powerful smashes and
the moustache, I was a great attraction to the crowd and the Kerala element
among them will exhort me in colloquial malayalam “choutada, malai kalla”
– carried away equally by Malai kallan – the popular movie of MGR then.

Sentinals

Talking of watchmen, I need to make a mention of the gurkhas in service.

They were very loyal, sincere and very affectionate fellows, some of the
names I can still remember – Om Nath, Balram, Bamadev, Chabilal, Tej Ba-
hadur, Durga Dutt, etc. Most of them have been there for many years and
some of them had children who were going to schools with Tamil as medium
of instruction. I recall a letter from Nepal written in chaste Tamil by Parvathi,
daughter of watchman Durga Dutt. Quite a few of them were deployed for
service at my house in the three shifts and were very helpful to my mother in
taking care of my father who was virtually a vegetable for few years. There
was not a sign of bedsore on him credit for which I should apportion 50/50
to this band of helpers and my mother. Likewise they were fond of my two
children who virtually grew up on their affectionate shoulders and laps.
Whenever they went to Nepal in turn and came back there were gifts
aplenty – Nepali caps and even a Khukri once. I was proud of the Nepali caps
which came in different colors and wore them whenever I was on field visits.
Soon I knew there will be ‘Bahadur’ suffix to my name as how it decorated
that of Field Marshall Sam Manekashaw.

A nice bunch of fellows –some 20 to 25 of them, they were very close to me

and my family members. The moment they came to know that I was to be

155
transferred to Madras, they resigned en masse. I prevailed upon them to
wait for a while as A VRS was on the anvil. They heeded my advice and col-
lected quite a substantial packet when they went back to Nepal.

Big Brother

My elder brother fondly called TG, in ‘The Hindu’ and the sporting circle had
his tutelage under the famous SK Gurunathan, whose reporting of sports,
especially cricket was quite interesting to read. That was the time when
Chari was also well known in the field of photo journalism capturing some
telling moments, especially test matches. It was great both these gentlemen
were not qualified for journalism or photography respectively, but com-
menced their career in a totally different perspective in humble positions.

My brother also in due course was known for the interesting way he did his
reporting. He was especially considered a specialist in football. He came in
for personal commendation by Neal Fraser when he covered the Davis cup
match between India and Australia at Bangalore.

He was a great believer in the integrity of a reporter in his work. I believe

once the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu telephoned Mr. Kasturi of Hindu
complaining about improper reporting done on his son’s tennis performance
on a competitive match with an innuendo that lop-sidedly someone else was
being projected. My brother on being called by Mr. Kasturi, stood his ground
saying that the player who did well and has the potential to go places needs
to be brought up. Mr. Kasturi understood and I am sure Krishnan going more
than places will have vindicated my brothers’ stand.

Similarly when my brother was President of the All India Sports Journalists
Association, issuing of passes to sports journalists for the Reliance World Cup
for which Madras was one of the venues, was in his gift. When a fairly high
up journalist of India Today was denied this on the basis that India Today had
no regular column for sports, Mr. Salve, President of BCCI seems to have
talked to Mr. Kasturi. Mr. Kasturi in turn put Salve wise on the ‘why’ of this
issue supporting my brother. As a parting shot, he also told him I believe,
“Mr. Govindarajan being President of Sports Journalists Association, and
working in ‘The Hindu’ are two different things”.

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When he was a ‘cub’ reporter he had to do a lot of legging in the journalistic
sense of the term. Considering his ill-health, my father had bought for him a
second hand Bug Fiat. Although it was embarrassing for him to go on a four
wheeler while seniors in ‘The Hindu’ were literally legging or using the bus,
he had to do it to avoid exertion. This car was considerably smaller than the
contemporary Morris Minor or even Baby Austin, Beetle and the current day
Reva. Whenever he went to cover a cricket match many used to shiver at the
prospect of having to push it at the end of the day. Celebrity hands of Gopi,
Kannayiram, Murugesh etc have lent their bit in this exercise. My cousin Srid-
har who played for Railways and also Tamil Nadu used to tell me, “Govi’s
buggy runs more on pushes than on petrol”.

Thanks to my brother, I have been able to listen to famous Jazz orchestra like
that of Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, and Jack T Garden etc. Also connected
as he was with sports, I had the privilege of meeting Jesse Owens and listen
to his touching speech organized by USIS. Though it is well known that in the
1936 Berlin Olympics, he created a record of sorts by bagging 4 Gold medals
and virtually showed Hitler his place deflating arrogance of aryan suprem-
acy, not many know that back in USA, there was not even a whisper of felici-
tation from President Roosevelt. That was ‘racism’ at the most stinging se-
verity. What a contrast, today the country is headed by an African-American.
I had the pleasure of also meeting Emile Zatopek, long distance runner – hu-
man locomotive and also bowled at the nets to the likes of Neil Harvey at
MCC grounds, all thanks to TG.

The End

157
BH and Nina Kothari (above), Walter Davaram, then DIG of Police (below)

158
Letika Dhar, then ASP trainee (above), Vijaykumar, then SP, Salem (3rd from left)
& Sanjeevi (on the right) (below)

159
Swami Chinmayananda at Kattur

160
A nice letter from the Swamiji

161
Dr.SK Somaiya and ST Ramesh, then DIG, Belgaum (above), Patil Putappa at
Kuvempu Centenary (below)

162
With Sivasankari (above), with Khushwant Singh (below)

163
Ranna Stupa at Mudhol

164
Karnataka Shri Sannad

165
Dandiya continues...

166
Award from Kurshid Alam Khan, then Governor of Karnataka

167
Basheer, driver (above), Prasanna Reddiar (below)

168
Gp Capt Radhakrishnan

169
Harini with Honey (above), Vasanthi (standing) with actress Lakshmi (below)

170
The Droop (above), the handlebar (below)

171
 Paul Harris Fellow citation (above),
Composition of the group study team (below)

172
Books and caricatures on Rotary

173
Rtn. Past Dist. Gov. Revi Karunakaran—pioneer in coir industry

174
Revi Karunakaran Memorial Museum (above), in Nepali cap (below)

175
 TG with Rod Laver (above),
with Kapil Dev, Gavaskar and Sivanthi Adithan (below)

176
TG with M.G.R

177