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Saturday, October 8, 2011

60

HI ALL
As i enter my 61st birth day as per birth star today ((8/10/11)(Yes Sadhaya NATCHATRAM has begun in late after noon on date and will last till 12.54 AM tomorrow(9/10/2011)i am reminded of the best gift that i got from my son , last year when i entered my 60 th year.it was a blog post, spontaneous and splendid , for its sequence of events and the description of details of my journey over the 59 years to 0ct ,11,2010.While i can not takecredit for many superlatives that have been used in the said blog, in reference to me (which could be understood by any reader as expression of love of a darling son to his beloved father) i would stioll commend the post as one of the most honest attempts to describe how a son has portrayed his father..ACTIONS, MOODS AND feelings.
I am reproducing the post by my son which apperared in his blog on oCt 11, last year for the benfit of readers of my blog, as possibly the post details even the details which i have forgotten my self.(at the end of this post)
And my birth date as per English Calendar falls on 11th of this month. As it normally happens in our customs, there had been enquiries all over time and again as to why i am not going for celebration of 'Shastiapthapoorthy".
There existed two reasons for the same earlier.
1) I really do not think that it calls for a celebration of sorts.2)And a celebration looses its meaning when your near and dear son is not around.
My daughter might pick up a quarrel with me as to why i should not celebrate when she is around.And the answer is that she is now queen of another house hold and as such her priorities , even if i wish, should not be allowed to change because of me.
The strongest possible reason , as it emerges now is that i have lost one of my very close and dear friend Venkatraman, (a batch mate of mine who retired in APRIL 2011) to the killer decease cancer, on the day of Saraswathi pooja.And few of my friends from the opposite gender are not around whose presence would have made a definite impact on the whole proceedings. In fact the series of mishaps which I encountered earlier(loss of my brother in the beginning of 2010 and that of my maternal son in late October 2010, and that of my nephew in June 2011) have completely wiped out the charm of such celebrations .
And hence the decision not to celebrate it on a big scale and instead confine it to a Kalyana Urchavam at Nanganallur Anjaneyar temple. And Lord Anjaneya happens to be my “ishta deivam.”A deity which stands for confidence, humbleness and self awareness. It will be a small gathering of my /my wife’s sisters and their families (except the one form Bhopal), my eldest cousin brother and his family and my dear daughter and her husband. I wanted to make it clear thru this column that by not inviting the rest, no offence is meant to anyone. Perhaps this time we were not destined to meet and rejoice for reasons stated above, but sooner than later there will be occasions to meet, when I am confident that we can make good the lost times.
I am sure my friends and well wishers who happen to read this blog will be able to appreciate the sentiments expressed herein and am sure that i can count on their wishes/blessings depending upon which side of the age group they belong to as i count the number of days to my superannuation.
As my son's post would depict it had been a long journey. Not a journey of bed of roses, but one full of challenges. The fact that my forefathers and teachers have taught me how to handle life when it becomes toughest and the guidance which I have always received from the Supreme Power above whenever it was most needed had kept me going all along and am sure that these will stand by me till the end.
And to fill in the gaps , i.e between the time when I turned 59 and sixty,here are the tidbits.
a) I finalized my last full year balance sheet for my bank as on 31/3/2011 and is already busy with the finalization of half yearly results.(My last responsibility to my beloved bank)for 30/9/2011.
b) I discharged one of my life’s most important responsibilities ..Getting my daughter married to the person whom she liked.There are moments which called for greater understanding, appreciation of each other;s perspective,anxiety and tension but always under control thanks to those around including my friend son, few relatives from wife's side and some of my office colleagues who helped in their own inimitable style to take it forward proving the proverb that ll is well that ends well.My sincere thanks to each one thru this blog.
c) I saw one of my dreams of my son going abroad coming true..The starting point for the long innings that he is destined to play as a research scholar abroad to win laurels..
d) I have seen that time and again life keeps its surprises in store for you, some of them pleasant and some of them spelling disaster and thereby making one understand that is the essence of life..Its unpredictability.
e) I have few questions to ponder..Most important being what next?
f) I am sure that as it always happened time will tell me the answer and in the words of one of my best friends TRC , “THE answer is already there but it is waiting for an opportune time to be made known to me”
I sign off with gratitude to one and all and with prayers to almighty as I enter my sixty first year recalling the following from Bhagwat Geetha.WHAT HAPPENED HAS HAPPENED WELL
WHAT IS HAPPENING IS HAPPENING WELL
AND WHAT IS TO HAPPEN WILL HAPPEN WELL TOO.
May the almighty enable me to enlighten my life as hither to.
*********************************************,
Reproduced is the text from my son’s blog ‘Myriad Joiurneys”
Monday, October 11, 2010Sampath at 59 # Timeline (for my father as he enters his 60th year):
Prefatory Note: They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Not that I have ever believed in it but I thought it was better to come up with a "reliving" kind of post for appa's birthday similar to the ones appa had written for me last month and after sister's birthday earlier this month. This act of imitation, however, is no flattery. They are a proud son's third person account of a great father's life!
1950s:
11 October 1951: A male child is born to Mr. Kodasvasal Srinivasa Raghavacharry (a name that has been the subject of much legacy and humour) Mrs. Vedavalli Srinivasa Raghavacharry. He is the last child in the family (but would by no stretch of imagination turn out to be the least); is more than a decade younger than the other son in the family; and 47 years younger than his dad. He is named Sampath Kumar.
After some joyful years of schooling in Vizhuppuram, commuting often by the nostalgic Austin car from the family’s village Asokapuri, with the company of green fields, Prathap uncle and chithappas and perippas making it an enviable experience (especially for a 1980’s lad like me!) he travels North to Madras to live with his eldest sister and brother-in-law. Two of his sisters are also there. But for a boy so young, moving away from his parents and the delectable languidness of village life is probably painful and gives him the first inklings of the fact that not everything in life comes out of freewill and choice.
[Aside: The pictures that appa paints about life in those two-roomed little “portions” in the T. Nagar of the 1950’s and 1960’s are amongst the most authentic accounts of personal history I have heard about Madras as it was immediately after independence.]
The 1960s
At the onset of the decade, he sees his eldest sister, under whose guardianship he is, give birth to their second daughter, Subhashini, who would become his wife two decades later almost to the date (more on that later). But the period is mainly characterised by a young boy’s will to tide over the inconveniences of dingy personal space and having to share it with too many people, the sometimes temperamental and oftentimes ‘jolly good throaty’ nature of his brother in law, the emotional battles triggered by being away from folks and rustic surroundings, and yet do something in life.
Family lore – particularly through the mouth of my maternal grandfather (who is also the aforementioned brother-in-law, a gregarious and generous man for all his mood swings) – has it that in studies the boy found both his calling as well as distraction. Sampath’s determination to take charge of his life was evidenced nowhere better than his readings under the streetlight after the entire house settles into rest and darkness.
[Aside: And when I think of some of the facilities, not to mention all the emotional support, love and the tag of being THE boy, I have had in my life, I wonder if I have achieved anything at all. That is not to compare myself with dad but to put his own efforts into proper context].
Later in the decade, the late hours with books bear fruit as he tops Ramakrishna High School (all branches) in English and Tamil (first signs of his linguistic excellence!) and the North Branch, if I am right, in Mathematics with his SSLC scores. He is grateful that he has had the best teachers (a fortunate that his son continues to share years later!) But there is no triumphalism for there seems to be no compelling reason to justify it. If anything, the high school topping experience proves two things: he can come out on top even under non-optimal conditions and can turn things passed onto him by force to transform himself – a leitmotif that pretty much tells the story of his life.
No sooner does he join Vivekananda College for a Bachelors Degree in Mathematics and pay the fees than he gets the money refunded through the government merit scholarship. For a boy from a decent but not overly strong financial background – who to keeps one part of the ten paisa pocket money he is given so that he can buy some groundnuts and walk back home rather than take a bus – the scholarship is a huge encouragement if not a shot in the arm.
The 1970s
He excels in among other subjects Astronomy and Calculus. But for a slip in the final semester, he would in fact have crossed the (what in those days was a magical) 90% bar. As things stand, he received a B.Sc., in Mathematics with a distinction (one of life’s little anticipatory ironies, I suppose, as his son would turn out to be a dud in that subject although born in the same month as Albert Einstein!!!) His literary taste gets kindled and he grows into quite a fierce debater as well (although amma would say he took the need for fierceness in debating a little too literally).
He feels that teaching is his calling and wants to do a post-grad in Mathematics en route to becoming a college lecturer. Once again life shows him an unanticipated path at the crossroads, the direction – rather the instruction – this time coming from his chithappa (uncle), an affluent bank manager and arguably the most influential of the five brothers in the family, who asks him to do CA. Sampath lands in Hyderabad – a place where his son would commence his journey towards becoming an academic several years later – at the place of a “romba dhoorathu sondham” (lit. very distant relative) probably knowing only that CA stood for Chartered Accountancy. (Little would he have known then that this design was yet again going to take him places). After a brief stint at his relative’s, he shifts to a small room near LB stadium. Studies, occasional movies, like-minded friends, Birla Mandhir (or the place where it stands now) and (the now old) MLA canteen become part of his life’s already rich tapestry. He shows a remarkable ability to adapt – and adapt quickly – to new places, something that would fast become a feature of his life although emotional quandaries lead him back to Madras overnight after two years.
Madras finds him doing his article-ship at R. G & Price and Co, a stint that entails much travel and one that would augment his unique appreciation of every place, its people, culture, food habits etc. On the academic side, after falling short in one subject despite achieving the overall aggregate – Managerial Economics I think – in the first attempt, he proves his credentials (and in equal measure his life’s inherent sense of humour) in the second attempt by scoring his highest marks in the subject he failed last time which is sufficient to get him an All-India Rank (below 30 if my maudlin memory serves me right).
[Aside: Now you know where my pronounced feeling of personal mortality comes from!!! Wink wink!]
In his late twenties, being the first Chartered Accountant in all of the extended family – and it probably feels like the world itself (but he is a man whose feet judiciously prefer to stand on solid ground rather than flirt with thin and flattering air) – may slightly tempt him to set up his own private practice. But bearing in mind his own nature, his family’s position, his penchant for steadiness over adventure and a number of other things – typical of his remarkable ability to summarise future trends in no time – he decides to get employed. HMT International (Bangalore) and Allahabad (Calcutta) wind up what is an eventful decade – one that has taken him from being a good student to a promising professional in his field.
The 1980s
Two irrevocable things happen during the first year of the decade: he gets appointed by the Indian Overseas Bank at Madras (and gets posted BACK to Calcutta in another of life’s teasing gestures!) and gets married to his eldest sister’s first daughter on May 12, 1980. The first three years and a part of the fourth get spent in Calcutta. Personal life is difficult with mom undergoing two miscarriages – one almost fatal – but his literary life reaches an unprecedented high. The Tamil Cultural Association in Calcutta becomes as much a part of his life as Accountancy and earns him among other things an award from the hands of Kaviarasu Kannadhaasan for his commentary on the novel Marapasu (by Thi. Janakiraman).
On November 11, 1984 amidst unprecedented floods the boy from Asokapuri – who would learn some years later that he had been shortchanged with regard to his property rights in the village – inaugurates a new home as a man of 33. Four months later almost to the date, after several months of penance (sometimes I wonder if my parents would have been better off without it because it yielded me! What a pity;)), they have a son who is named Raghavendra by the maternal side, Prasanna by the paternal side and Srinivas officially after the rich Lord of the Seven Hills and his (I mean MINE, not Lord Srinivasa’s) paternal grandfather.
[Aside: Now that I have done enough to make ‘my own birth’ seem like a historic and histrionic occurrence, let me get back to dad’s life! :D]
On October 3, 1986 a little angel – with eyes which used to be everyone’s envy apparently even when she was a child – is born. It is mainly his choice to have a female child and theory has it that his son - all of one year and a half and some crankily incomprehensible syllables (yup! I have not changed you see;)) – suggested the name with which she is called at home “Abhilasha”! (Indeed, she is the convergence of all our wishes).
Further, his latent aspirations to be a teacher get fulfilled when he is transferred as a faculty to the Staff College (earlier situated in Mount Road, now in Koyambedu) where he gets accolades galore for his behavioural science classes even though he has had no prior expertise on the subject. The Staff College experience also brings him in touch with a number of brilliant minds. Mr. S. Ganesan (now retired G.M), the Principal at the College, is particularly an inspiration and turns out to be his mentor in many important matters years later.
Just as night follows day, so a young family’s first strides in a new world are interrupted by an occurrence that leaves everyone hurt and a dignified man in Sampath humiliated.
The 1990’s
The decade starts with what is in his son’s mind one of the most enduring memories of his father – seeing him cry his heart out for the death of his father almost as if his heart depended on it.
[Aside: The jolting death of my grandfather who suffered just for one night with a passing sickness probably taught my father about the extemporaneous nature of all our lives and the need to be stoical in triumph and disaster. To this day, I hear the echoes of dad’s crying and tears on that August morning – I was five and to be honest a little scared!]
Recovering from the depression after his father’s death and the stinging humiliations of the last part of the previous decade, he picks up the pieces of his life with newfound equanimity (and a son who irritatingly or endearingly never leaves his side when he is on unofficial grounds). During the middle of the decade, he spearheads a professional protest against the bank’s delay in promoting professionals, a clogging period of about twelve years that cost many men who joined with dad their enthusiasm for the job, sanity and everything else that comes with these qualities. The promotion eventually arrives in 1996 (after a wait of more than twelve years!) and takes him to the country’s capital. Eleven months later, his stint at Delhi ends with a posting to Hong Kong during what is the last year of British governance in that country.
[Aside: Reporting to work, if I am right, in June 1997 dad gets the first taste of the difficulty of his name – and surname;) – for Chinese among other things. His local colleagues deliberately (and fondly) refer to him as Samba (which sounds rather like a nice African name or the start of Calypso or African song but not like a Tamil iyengar’s name by any stretch of the imagination – mine, yours or the world’s!) and the immigration department accidentally refers to his extended initials Kodavasal Srinivasa Raghavan as kodvasri – now you know where the man’s email id comes from – with the icing on the cake being this: his name in the HK id card actually sings the praise of his father, his place of birth, his “khandhaan” and all the rest of it with his own name abbreviated to an initial. It reads: Kodavasal Srinivasa Raghavan S(ampath Kumar).]
1998 is another autumnal year for the family as his aunt and mother walk into the sunlight. At the centre of doing what needs to be done is his able-minded wife who does a remarkable job under pressure (something he remembers indelibly and even thanks her for awkwardly years later!) He returns home for a week for his mother’s death and returns to Hong Kong to his first accident abroad, homesickness and other issues. But the summer vacations bring relief and the company of his wife and children who spend a couple of months with him. In 1999, he spends some part of the summer in Hong Kong with his family and returns to Madras for his son’s upanayanam.
Returning to Hong Kong, he receives the Presidency of the Tamil cultural association, a responsibility he revels in given his love for the arts in general and anything related to Tamil in particular, and not a post he uses to pump his chest unnecessarily. He spends the last day of an eventful millennium at office waiting anxiously for Y2k and to check if the attendant threats are any real. During the wee-hours of a wintry morning, he welcomes the new millennium with a couple of his colleagues quietly in his office as the city outside goes delightfully berserk with fireworks along the South China Sea.
The early noughties
Four remarkably asymmetrical set of occurrences set the decade in motion. First, he needs to handle the newfound misery his son experiences with studies in general and Maths in particular in his tenth standard. By handling it both emotionally and intellectually – even though from a long distance – he keeps the word he had given his son during the summer of 1999: “tholukku minjinaal thozhan!”, whence the friend-dad and friend-son signatures. Second, he and his friend-son come high and dry in the summer of 2000 on discovering the loss of the latter’s passport after the volcanic relief of his delayed arrival is celebrated even by the skies. Third – on an October evening in 2002 – he receives an email from his homesick son in Bangalore saying that he cannot take anymore of law or this college – a pirouetting act from a usually steady-minded boy that must have stung him hard. But true to his nature which entails keeping his emotions below the decibel levels of his heartbeat, he never shows his hurt. But to balance it out (if such balancing out is possible at all), his daughter does herself, the family and everyone she knows proud by turning out State Second in Economics at the Class XII board exams in 2003.
[Aside: My sister is the 2000’s avatar of Sampath Kumar. Version 2.0 if you have watched Endhiran! ;) Second factor behind why I feel a pronounced sense of mortality! :D]
On the official front, he returns from Hong Kong for good after a few months short of five years and is posted to the Accounts Department in Madras (which has become Chennai by now hopefully, forgive my absent-mindedness!:D) in arguably his toughest assignment. The very first balance sheet the bank brings out under his stint demands every sinew of his body, every smidgen of his mind, every shade of his interpersonal skills and above all – although hitherto kept hidden – every ounce of his convictions. Burning the midnight oil becomes a routine in the months of April and May but within a period of two years he transmutes the image of the department from being just a tough (and sometimes tiring) one to an important one with a team that inspires him and he inspires. Although every now and then, the team gets splintered leaving him the onus of training newer people, he manages the transition with consummate professionalism reserving even a bit of the wit he receives from his experiences for his children at night.
In 2006, both his son and daughter leave for different capital cities – the former to Hyderabad and the latter to Bangalore – in their bid to form their own future. There is an unmistakable sense of loss but there is also pride probably in the way they take charge of their lives. He admits from time to time that he regrets not having been with his children during their teens but that his wife has moulded them into fine, independent and conscionable human beings.
In 2007 he joins his son in Hyderabad after getting promoted as Assistant General Manager. The adventures of two men in the kitchen (one who is a half-decent cook and the other who is a half-decent aspiring cook!), the Sunday morning car drives, the Birla Mandhir trips and watching cricket matches in that small TV in a palatial house fill his life with quiet contentment. It also reminds him of the similarity of his and his son’s life – his professional life had begun in the Pearl City and here he is, celebrating the beginning of his son’s own life in the same city.
But he has to handle surprises – or probably shocks (yours truly will never know) – in an otherwise smooth year. First his son’s confession: that he is in love. Then his own battles (I assume) to come to terms with his son’s decision for he has obviously never been the “love” person. Together, they come through as friends! By and by, he starts being called a “cool father”, a “one in thousand father” and such like by his children’s friends, tags his children feel become a remarkable man, a loving father, a witty friend and a sensible and sensitive human being!
2008-2010
Mid 2008 feels utopian as it gets! He, his wife, son and daughter are back together in their hometown for the first time in two years and for three solid months at that! But the latter half beckons separations and in more than one way: as often with their lives, his son and daughter are both set to leave Madras at the same time – within a space of 48 hours. Yet before his son’s departure, he hears that his son has already suffered a separation – from the relationship he spoke of earlier this year – which would either make this separation less painful or aggravate the pains out of it!
[Aside: I request people to exercise restraint when interpreting these lines for these form a son’s gratitude to his father and are not, I repeat, NOT intended to liberate the ghosts of the past laid to rest]
In an admirable, why even Herculean, task of healing his son’s heart he lives through pains and anxieties himself, questions his own emotional dealings in the past – given that he is a believer in God and a man who feels that there IS something called the karmic cycle – prays and fasts for his son and talks to him and emails him through the day, week and month notwithstanding the pressures on his health and mind from work. In November, he visits him in Mumbai for a weekend. As he sits on the return flight, he finds his eyes moisten for the first time in nineteen long years: the tears of his twenty-five year old son that wetted his shoulder earlier this day and the words he had spoken, seemed to come from the edge of a life and shake the very core of his being
[Aside: I am not too sure if I can ever convey my gratitude or my apologies in full measure to my dad! But then I hope I can do to the world what he did to me].
During the months that it takes for his son’s emotional storm to pass – a storm that because of his hypersensitivity, recklessness and foolishness threatened to engulf the whole family’s peace – all his foremost qualities are brought to the fore. In his attempts to find a solution, he never veers away from his peaceful nature. But he still makes the right decisions, speaks the right words and even earns the unstinting respect of the arbitrator who his son’s best friend and probably others as well. He says, “Your father is a remarkable man! Any other person in that position would have at least been harsh. At least for his sake, you should claw your way back into normalcy!” All through he still fears “the worst” only to be consoled by wife who keeps quipping: “I believe in my children and he will be back.” After June 2009, sunshine slowly returns to his son’s life and to his as well. He may never admit it or talk about it or consider it great – he may even call it his duty as a father – but the truth as his son will hold it as this: “Amma gave me my first life; you gave me my second.”
He has himself ascended a scale higher in the bank where he has spent thirty-one remarkable years with those thick-rimmed glasses, that short almost frail build, a mind that is sangfroid although it does like to think that it gets tensed from time to time and a commitment to quality that may put his son’s cheesy “workaholic ph(r)ases” to shame. Symptoms of diabetes have made him walk around like he is on a mission at night; he takes it so seriously that his children and wife fear that walking may be his latest ailment. He has lost his only blood brother and bemoans the fact that he did not get to see his face during the final painful moments of a life lived in pain but in uncompromising honour, perfectionism, self-possession and endurance. He still reads a Jeyakanthan or a Balakumaran novel for a half hour before bed even if he comes home at 11 p.m. He still gives new short names to his children (who are in their mid-twenties), irritates his wife by trying to be funny in talking incorrigibly fast, can give most stand-up comedians a run for their money if the mood strikes him, gobbles a simple sambar-idly with a delightfully familiar Tamilian appetite and remains the boy from Ashokapuri at heart. Experience has made him smarter and stronger. Life has made him accept alternative viewpoints but not change his own principles. Opportunists have made him wary; the few friends he has had have made him understand that there is life outside of family; but nobody has been able to taint, mangle, distort or exploit that Libran fairness in which he finds shelter, support, clarity, freedom, his conscience, God and almost everything that is dear to his life.
As he walks into the 60th year of his life, here’s a humble son wishing a magnificent father Many More Happy Returns of the Day!!!
rated 5.0 by EVERY READER.

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