A student and son remembers I was perhaps the only son who had the privilege of being taught in school by my father. I studied English and social studies for 2 years (1956-57 in IV form) and (1958-59 in SSLC) under my father. As an English teacher his flow of language was excellent. He was a teacher par excellence in grammar, idioms and usage of English. He never resorted to reading the book. As History and Geography teacher he would ask the students to get on to the rathina kambalam (magic carpet) and would take us to far-off places like Arabia, Persia, Mesopotamia etc. He used to take special efforts to get us to mark the various places in India, Asia and world maps. I still remember how he got us to trace the train route from Madras to Bombay and Madras to Delhi on the map. A measure of his greatness can be seen in the fact that even somebody like me who has never been good in Geography can tell the various stations on the train route from Madras to Bombay or Madras to New Delhi effortlessly even after 49 years. My father never resorted to punishing students either by caning or even verbally. In fact he would tell the students after marking attendance that those who wanted to go out of the class could do so. But I cannot remember anybody doing that in our Sanskrit section and there used to be pin-drop silence in History / Geography classes taken by him. Our relationship was always distant but he was a very good father and catered to all our needs. Of course a teacher is never rich, but since my father had an excellent reputation as a teacher, he was in great demand for tuitions. Some of the famous houses where he used to go for tuitions were Hindu Srinivasan’s house, M.V.Arunachalam’s house etc. We (the four brothers) all studied in P.S.High School and since my father used to come home for lunch, all of us also used to come to the house for lunch after school. I was a reluctant student during my elementary school in SKPB Patasala near Kutchery Road (known in those days as Dhadi school as the headmaster had a beard). Later on I studied in PS High School (on free scholarship being a teacher’s son) and Vivekananda college (on 50% scholarship). Since I did not get a seat in B.E. after pre-university, I continued in Vivekananda college. Later I studied AMIE but Engineering and drawing was never my cup of tea. I joined Enfield India and after 3 years returned to Chennai. I owe my return to Chennai to my father. That was perhaps the only occasion when father requested a relative (my cousin’s father-in-law) to get me employed in TI cycles of India. After my marriage in 1971, my father insisted on my wife Kalyani joining M.A (Economics) correspondence in Venkateswara University and helped her with her M.A. lessons. After my brother-in-law purchased a house in Ambattur in 1973, we decided to move to Ambattur from Mandaveli since I was required to go to the factory at different times and it took me more than one and a half hours each way. My parents were initially upset, but after traveling from Mandaiveli to Ambattur a few times, they understood my difficulty. Father was very fond of gardening and in No. 25, Vedachala Gardens where we resided from 1939 to 1968, he used to grow bananas, ladies-fingers and flowers in the space that was available at the back. He was initially reluctant to buy 12, Vedachala Gardens as there was very little space for planting anything. Moreover he was not very keen to move into a two-storey house. I have seen my father becoming emotional only a few times. One was in 1963 when my brother-in-law, Jagannathan (Vanaja’s husband) died at a young age leaving two daughters - 2 years and eight months old. But he put up with the hardship with a great heart. Another occasion was when the whole family of my elder brother Sampath perished within a space of four weeks in 1995 in Calcutta. Since I was performing the ceremonies of Sampath (my brother) and Shyam (my nephew), my father, at the age of 87 years performed the Abdigam of Choodamani (my sister-in-law). One prominent factor to be mentioned is that father never imposed his values on any of us and we chose our fields of study ourselves. An instance of this was when my eldest brother Gopalan (Rajagopalan) left the mines in Talc her before finishing his apprenticeship. And as a co-guarantor, my father had to repay his stipend fees, but never once he questioned Gopalan about his decision. Similarly my second brother Sampath left Central government employment to work as Cost accountant in private sector but father never interfered even though he was upset. He was a religious person and must have visited temples but I do not remember any of us (brothers) going with him to any temple. Father was a great scholar. He used to write manuscripts for LIFCO English and Tamil dictionary in the nights sitting in the loft in No.25,Vedachala gardens since there was no furniture in our house. His social studies book for Orient Longmans was a best-seller at that time. He had also written books under the pen name Jenkins. Till his death in 1998, I performed Avani Avittam, Sampath’s ceremony etc along with my father in Mandavelli. Just a few days before his death in June 1998, I had gone to see my parents on my regular weekly visit. My father told me to look for a Vadyar (priest) to perform Sampath’s yearly ceremony in Ambattur. I told him there was no need for that and that it could be done in Mandaiveli as usual. But on his insistence I met my family priest and fixed the date. On Adi Amavasai day, when I was in my factory, I received a phone call that father was no more. Probably he had a premonition that he was nearing his end. He was stubborn in many of his personal views. Till the day of his death he insisted on using Indian toilet only in Mandaveli house walking nearly 60 feet but never used the western toilet fixed by Ranga mama in the hall. He traveled only by bus to visit Ambattur till his last days but he never said a word to others using auto rickshaws or hired cars. Though he used to eat outside earlier, he stopped taking outside food after his Samashanam. Jayam used to bring prasadam from Anantapadmanaba Swamy temple in Adyar, but he would not take it as it was from iyer temple. But when I started going to Sabarimala from 1980 he participated in the pujas. Father’s Sasthiabdha Poorthi was celebrated in Vedachala Gardens in 1968 and his Sathabishekam was performed in our house in Ambattur in October 1989. As both my parents were popular, the attendance in the Sathabhishekam was more than four times the expected number. He lived for 9 years after that and was quite healthy till a week before his death. May his Soul rest in peace S.Raghunathan