The Gopalan Anna I Knew The other day Gopalan anna told me,’ What Amritha? You are not writing nowadays. You should continue to write'. Now I am writing, but isn't it an irony that the article is about the person who wanted to read my article, but who is no more with us! I first saw him when I was 11 years old. My father was posted at Kancheepuram. Gopalan Anna visited us and spent 3 days with us. But he spent most of his time with Anna playing chess or roaming around. My sister Choodakka was working in Secretariat at that time and was staying with Pankajam mami. I went with her to Madras for the half-yearly vacation. Since she had to go to office, I used to spend most of the time in 25, Vedachala Gardens where my (would-be) in-laws lived. Gopalan Anna was very affectionate to me and took me to the zoo, museum and aquarium. I can never forget how affectionately he explained about all the places. He used to have a pet-cat also at that time. Thanks to him, I had a very nice vacation. After a year and a half we came for good to Madras as our father had his promotion and was posted outside Tamilnadu. We were staying at a house in Mandaveli street which was just opposite Vedachala gardens. I attended his marriage with Vijaya manni. By that time we had also shifted to Vedachala gardens. I used to meet them once a year when they come during summer. I came to know about him much after I got married in their family. We had visited them once when they were in Nagpur and many times when they were in Bangalore. He was obsessed with yoga, dog and reading. He too visited us 2 or 3 times when we were in Baroda. I can never forget the way he asked,' did it rain?', when there was actually a strong cyclone with 8 trees falling from our compound alone. Harish, Partha and I were very scared by the sound of the wind and falling of the trees and came to the hall and sat after midnight, whereas Gopalan Anna who went to sleep by 10 PM didn't respond to our knocking nor was bothered by the cyclone. Our house became an island and then in the morning after seeing the water he asked that question! Such a sound sleeper he was. When we were in Bombay, he visited us many times. My mother-in-law was with us for an year after my father-in-law’s death. Anna made it a point to sit by her side and talk to her and listen to her. After retirement he became very pious and showed a lot of interest in Vaishnava sidhantham and divya prabandham. He was very happy that I too had interest in them. We became very close when we shifted to Madras. Since my mother-in-law was staying with us, he used to come at least once in 10 days to see her. His visits gave her immense pleasure. He used to sit by her side and ask her to recite Thirupavai, Thirumalai and Pallandu to which she respond like an obedient student. Just after 2 days of his visit she would say "Gopalana 10 naala kaanum, eno theriale". Whenever she fell sick, the frequency of his visit doubled and when she was hospitalised, he went regularly in the early morning to the hospital and used to sit there with a book. Some days he made an evening visit also. In fact he didn't visit his son and daughter-in-law when they were in Dubai or Egypt just for the sake of his mother. He used to tell me that as the eldest son he should be available to do the final rites of his mother. Such a dedicated son was he. Of course, after his mother's death he visited Mohan and Geetha in Indonesia. He thoroughly enjoyed his stay there and told me that he was blessed to have a daughter-in-law like Geetha and son-in-law like Murali. I felt that they were also lucky in having a father-in-law like Gopalan Anna. His grandchildren were all very fond of him and he always spoke very highly of them. He had a soft corner for all the elders in our family circle. He used to tell me that those people would fell happy if they are visited often and talked to. He made it a point to visit Vanajakka, his sister, Mettur mama, his cousin, and my mother who was also his cousin and Sunda mami, his mami regularly. My mother was crying the whole day on the day of his death. Such concern for the elders, you rarely see nowadays. He had a healthy attitude of enjoying life. After retirement, he only travelled by AC Class in trains or by flight as he used to say that there was no point in saving money without enjoying life. I recall an interesting conversation he had with Vanajaakka. When he was about to retire, Vanajaakka asked him about his post-retirement plans. With a serious face, he told her,' I have very big plans.' On being queried further, he said,' I shall buy a house with a big hall. I won't keep any furniture in the hall. During the day, I'll keep some 'norukku theeni' (snacks) and frige water and roll in the hall to my heart's content.' All of us laughed when Vanajaakka said,' you make big plans for this.' But contrary to his plans, he was the most active in his post-retired life-- taking care of his mother, pleading court cases for the needy, visiting his children and grandchildren, learning and using computers, visiting elders and so on. He was an open-minded person, wanting to learn whatever he can. After reading the newsletters at our place, he asked my husband whether it is possible for him to learn computers. When he got a nod, immediately he learnt the basics and about accessing internet by joining a class and got the computer too. I was astonished by the number of messages he was sending everyday from his cell phone. We jokingly used to tell him that his name is not S.Rajagopalan, but S.M.S.Rajagopalan. After getting the computer, he was a regular contributor to the newsletter. We'll be definitely missing his articles as the ones he wrote had subtle humour and were about his experiences. In the last three months he was going on diet spree and sometimes we felt that he was overdoing it. He lost his weight considerably(the last article of his was about this). Though he was looking all right till the day previous to his death, we had a feeling that he had some sort of premonition about his end because he left the estate dealings with my husband on the eve of his mother's first annual ceremony. Just a month back he went to Bangalore and Mumbai to see his two children's families. I believe he told God at the Srinivasa temple in Mandaveli that he had finished all his duties and it was for the God to decide when to take him. One should have courage to think on that line. My husband was to leave for Berlin on 19th and the previous day we had been to Gopalan Anna’s house to show the photographs taken at the book-release function and to give a copy of the book. His photo was there too with his other brother Raghunathan. Incidentally, that was the last function he attended. I still remember how he was talking to the singer Mr.Seshagopalan with a beaming face, full of praise for his brother. My husband told Seshagopalan that his brother was no less brilliant having won a Gold medal in SSLC and that he studied law when he was over 45 and came out with flying colours getting a gold medal! My husband and I were very happy that we visited him before his death. When my husband got the message at Berlin, he was shell-shocked. He advanced his four-day trip by a day and reached here on the 25th. Though, bodily he is no more he lives in all our hearts and whenever I open the Nalayira Divyaprabandham book, he smiles at me from there. Amritha Parthasarathy (From the family e-Newsletter for October 2004)