A Cottage in Swami Hills - 11. Ramanathan

A Cottage in Swami Hills *

11. Ramanathan

The Native High School in 1962 was dominated by boys from the western side of the school. When I joined sixth standard, I could find more boys who belonged to Soliappan Street, Melakkavaeri, Kottaiyur and Thimmagudi. Most of them brought their tiffin boxes with them. They formed a group. I never carried tiffin box and walked home for my lunch. i could find only very few boys for company. Sudhar (Stamp vendor Sethuraman's grandson) and Babu (Kalki Mani" s son) were two I can recall. One tall and fair boy used to come but he remained aloof from this group. He was one year older to me. I some how liked him and made friends with him. He did not talk much. I learnt that he was very intelligent and invariably topped the class. He lived in the house- opposite the Kalahasthiswaran Kovil- which was called as "ammangudiyar house". His grandfather Shri. Krishnamurthy Iyer was a landlord. This boy was his grand son through his daughter. 

He was S. Ramanathan. (His father was Shri Sankaran and he was running a publication house in Chennai called The Malligai Pathipaagam). Ramanathan  attracted me as he was very composed and gave sensible replies to all questions. He  was also interested in writing and participated in all the competitions in school. But, he had a very quiet way of interacting with all.  He  spoke with a purpose and never laughed or shouted like other boys. 

I waited for every opportunity to speak to him and discuss with him many things happening in the country. When I joined in Native High School, I was ignorant of even the basic information like the names of ministers etc and it was Ramanathan who taught me to take an interest in the world around us. 

Ramanathan was studying Hindi. Every year, he passed one examination. I think he passed up to Visharadh which is equivalent to B.A in Hindi. I did not follow his path and so my knowledge of Hindi got limited to carrying out simple conversations.    

I used to go to his house the day annual exams were over and get all his books ( he was one year senior to me). I started studying the books in the summer vacation time. I would obviously read only English and Tamil as I was very interested in languages as compared to sciences. We had two non-detailed texts those days. In English, it could be a drama or a compilation of short stories. In Tamil, it could be essays by writers like Ki.Va.Ja. Ramanathan lent me his books and notes and also guided me to focus on some lessons.

As I wrote earlier, he was fair and lean. (I was dark and somewhat heavily built). but, on one occasion, stamp vendor's mother called me from her house. "Come here, you are Melattur Bagyam's grand son. isn't it?  ஏண்டாப்பா நீ மெலட்டூர் பாக்யத்தோட பேரன்தானே? and started talking something. Apparently, he mistook me for Ramanathan. Some how, I felt happy that I looked like Ramanathan. I did not realise that the old lady had almost lost her eyesight and anyone could have looked like anybody else to her.  

In 1967, his grandfather passed away. I remember one night when a passerby shouted in front of our house, "Sarma sir,Ammangudi Krishnamurthy Iyer passed away just now" and went. (This was a very common way of communication those days and no one took offence at such abrupt announcements). I started shivering as I could not take that shock. It took ten minutes for my grandfather to comfort me and restore me to normalcy. 

In my PUC days,  I went to his house to take part in the meetings of Carrom Club. Ramanathan ran this club from the first floor of his house. Though the name was carrom club there was more of discussions on contemporary Tamil literature and authors like Jeyakanthan and Savi than playing carrom. He also ran a manuscript magazine. I was at home with such magazines  because I had earlier run a manuscript magazine called Veera Bharatham written on the brown colour envelopes. I had the custom of going around and reading it aloud to others in the house as no one bothered to read it.  But in carrom club, the magazine was read by at least its members. For the first time, I learnt that you could discuss so much about the authors because earlier to that I had read only religious texts which were not open for discussions. This came in handy for me in my B.E when I became the Cultural Secretary.   

In 1974, when I was in VJTI doing my M.E, I ran into Ramanathan who was doing his BTech in Dyes Technology in UDCT which was bang opposite VJTI. Inspite of doing B.Sc in Kumbakonam Govt. College he must have got very good marks to get admission in sich a prestigious Institute, This was a lesson to me as I was always blaming Kumbakonam College for my debacle in PUC. I learnt that good students study well in any college. He was staying in hostel within the college campus and I visited his place often and we used to have lengthy discussions (at times one Swaminathan also joined) on the current trends in Tamil cinema. He appreciated Aval oru thodarkathai released around that time(அவள் ஒரு தொடர்கதை). He said K. Balachandar understood the society much better than any one else and dared to picturise those aspects like the employed women very well. He spoke with the same calmness and delivered his statements as if they were to be recorded by some one in a note book. In that aspect, he was like my Professor Dr Krishnamoorthy, very logical. He was affectionate but in a distant manner. No demonstration of love for him. No loud welcome shaking hands or patting in the back and exchanging some absurd words as greetings. Every meeting was as diplomatic as a meeting between two Heads of State would have been.

He passed out in 1975. I finished my M.E in 1976 and I heard that he got a job somewhere in U.P. I lost track of him and today I am not able to locate him in Facebook or google. Malligai Pathippagam probably does not exist now in that name.

If I miss one friend now, it is Ramanathan.

* Cottage in swami hills refers to the house in which we lived in Kumbakonam. This phrase was used once by my grandfather when I asked him that as some  people go in summer to Kodaikanal and Ooty where they have a cottage whether we would also be able to go and stay like them one day. My grandfather replied that he already has a cottage near swami Hills (swamimalai) and he referred to his house as the cottage.