Srinivasan Mama As I Knew Him It is difficult to write about a person whom one has known as closely as my uncle Srinivasan. I was on extremely affectionate terms with both uncle Srinivasan who was several years older than me and his younger brother C Raghavan who was about my age. Both were highly respected by all the members of our family, as also their venerable father, with whom they had so much in common. My uncle Srinivasan was deeply devoted to his profession. As he observed once,’ it is not highly paid. You give away much more than you ever get in this calling. Yet I don’t want to be in any other profession.’ I have the feeling that my uncle had made up his mind to teach even when he was a student in the P S High School at Mylapore in Madras winning all the prizes instituted in that school and recognized as one of its best products. My earliest recollection is that he was my role model as a student, with his lovely chiseled handwriting, a person who never raised his voice or lost his temper, a voracious reader who would quickly go through every book that he could lay his hand on, had an admirable memory and was a master of critical analysis of all historical developments. I recall that one of his intimate friends was R V Srinivasan. I had the pleasure of working with another classmate of him, Ranganathan, who was deputy secretary in the transport ministry where I also joined as one, in the early sixties of the last century. A third classmate of my uncle was S D Srinivasan who was the Chairman and Managing Director of Life Insurance Corporation when I met him at about the same time. My uncle had no regrets. He was fiercely proud of his job as a school master, like my father who was my uncle’s colleague in P.S.High School. My uncle was a man with a mission, never bothering about wealth or emoluments, about power or pelf. He used to hold like my father that everyone is equally endowed. One is fortunate if his talent is discovered and he derives job satisfaction. One who has no expectations has no disappointments. All that is important is that none of us should do anything of which we are ashamed. That was his outlook. I still remember his reclining on his favourite canvass chair and reading the Ramayana in which he was particularly interested. I don’t remember to have ever gone to Chennai after I left in 1944 without meeting him and my uncle Raghavan there. A visit to uncle Srinivasan was like going to a temple. My uncle had a quaint sense of humour. Once I copied the poem “old familiar faces” when I was a boy and asked him how many marks he would give me for writing it. He read it and said I might get 4 out of 10 marks. When I laughed and told him who the author was, my uncle promptly observed that the marking would automatically raise to 10 out of 10 marks. When I asked him why, he pointed out that this was the way of the world. The valuation depended on the identity of the author. One of my cousins, who had learnt history from him in the school points out that he would keep his classes enlivened sometimes by puns on words. For example, the origin of the name ‘Arabia’ was ‘Are bayya’ when Islam preached universal brotherhood. Uncle Srinivasan as I understand was a professional author, writing school books for the LIFCO, a well-known publisher, I am quite sure that my uncle would have been as facile in his book with his clarity in thought and expression as in his teaching in his daily classes. My uncle was almost a stoic. He never exhibited any likes or dislikes, rarely allowed his emotions or bitterness prevail. He was definitely shaken when his son-in-law, who was in the postal audit died young. I still remember, however, that while I could not help getting upset when I went to the Delhi Railway Junction to receive him when he came on his son-in-law’s death, he managed to remain composed. But I have always been unable to understand why God had to test him by wiping out the entire family of his second son at Calcutta in a very unusual accident. There could not have been a more decent person than my uncle, no lady more devoted to her family than my aunt Kamala, and yet they were required to suffer so much. I must confess I can’t grasp God’s scheme of things. My wife, who had a very high regard for him, points out that my uncle was a great host, fond of entertaining everyone who called on him. On one occasion when she went to see him and Mami, Mami was ill. But my uncle insisted on making Uppuma, in which he claimed expertise. She still remembers how pleased he was when she ate his Uppuma with relish. One of the most lovable characteristics of my uncle was that he never spoke ill about anyone. I can only say that you can see very few like him. I am proud of having been his nephew and shall always cherish his memory. K.Srinivasan (Ramu anna)