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'If you live long, you are bound to see a lot of deaths,' was what my father told Kausalya when she interviewed him for an article on senior citizens. I don't think I have lived very long, but already five of us siblings have been reduced to just two. Every death has taken a bit of me as well. Even more than the death, the most disturbing sight for me is when I see a loved one lying helplessly in the hospital bed. When I saw Vanaja with tubes and an oxygen mask in Sundaram Foundation Hospital, a torrent of thoughts came to me.
After Vanaja started earning (I must have been 8 or 9), she took me to Kalathi stores in Mylapore and bought a glass of rosemilk for me. The taste and the memory lingrer because it was the first gift that I remember to have received. 30 years later, she took Harish (my son) to the same shop for the same purpose. Though she could not drink the rosemilk in her later years due to diabetes, she was really fond of this rosemilk.
Vanaja was the apple of eye for my father. Ranga mama had written in my father's centenary souvenir,'"... he was so fond of her as a child that my father told him,’neer indha kuzhandhaikku ivvalo chellam kuduthaa pinnaadi kashtappaduveer' (if you pamper the child like this, you may suffer later.) But he never changed himself and Vanaja grew up as a pampered child. Not that he ever neglected any other children, but she was special." But he also had the forethought to educate her. In our colony of 27 houses, she was the first girl to attend college. In the 50s, it must have been difficult for a girl to go alone by bus to college. But Vanaja was never afraid of difficulties nor did she ever shy away from hard work. Though I do not remember her days as a B.A. student, I remember her hard work as a B.T. student. She would make copious notes in consultation with my father and would come back and discuss in the house as to how the day went. This ability to work hard helped her to be a good, conscientious and popular teacher and helped her to get her M.Ed degree when she was about 50. I know how difficult it is to do formal studies when you are old. I enrolled myself for ICWA when I was 35 and never even opened the books that came by post. So I am a great admirer of Vanaja's capacity for hard work.
Vanaja was a great hostess. On one of our visits to Chennai, I reached home by flight at about 9.00 P.M. and had finished my dinner in the flight. But as soon as I entered the house, my conversation with Vanaja went like this
Shall I make a couple of dosas for you?
No, I had my dinner in the flight.
Shall I toast two bread slices?
No, I had my dinner in the flight.
OK, shall I make some hot item - bajji or something?
Come on, Vanaja, 9.00 P.M. is not the time for bajjis
Ok, will you have some bourn-vita? (she knew I wouldn't take coffee in the night)
Just to get out of the AT (Anbu thollai Torture by love), I said yes. But that is typical of Vanaja's hospitality with everyone. Anyone who entered the house could not leave without eating something, whatever time of the day it might be.
Urmila has called Vanaja an unsung hero. It is very true. She has done a lot of philanthropic work like getting scholarships for poor children, getting gold ornaments and silk saris at concessional prices for needy persons, helping the underdogs with those in authority in central or state governments etc. Vanaja built up life-long relationships with people. She would help everybody whether they asked or not. And she had this capability of making the other person feel that she had no other job except helping that person. Often she would volunteer to help somebody and would not hesitate to call or write to Santhanam or Kannan or Sampath or me or anyone who could help even remotely. It was a task from which she never expected even a thanks. She got enormous mental satisfaction from the mere task of spreading some cheer in others' lives. In the process, she would spend on cycle-rickshaw in the earlier days and auto later. My father used to say that Vanaja and Radha could have jointly bought an auto on the money that they spent on auto fares.
She could befriend anyone easily and was always full of anecdotes. In all marriages and other functions, there would be a crowd around her. Some of the anecdotes had been repeated many times, but they never lost their charm and the ability to make the listener smile. There would always be new incidents. She just observed people and could find something interesting happening around her. Apart from telling anecdotes, Vanaja was very fond of writing and receiving letters. Before I left Bombay in 2002, Amritha and I were mostly talking on phone to close relatives. But Vanaja would not be happy unless she received an inland or an envelope. She used to write in every inch of space available in an inland letter. Once something was written outside the inland also. She had visited us in Sholapur, Secunderabad, Chittaranjan, Kota, Vadodara and Bombay (thrice). From every place, she would write at least one letter a day to relatives and colleagues. My parents, would, of course, receive long letters. Amritha and I received long letters from all the places that she spent with Urmila (Bhatinda, Meerut, Pune etc.). Even a year ago, we received letters from her though we were talking to her and visiting her frequently. I think the postal department lost an ardent friend when she fell ill and could not write letters. I had mentioned earlier about Vanaja's capacity for hard work. For me her letter-writing was also an instance of this capacity. But Vanaja felt really happy at writing and receiving letters. Perhaps it was a relaxation for her.
I firmly believe that Vanaja had ESP (Extra Sensory Perception), the ability to sense events in advance of their actual occurrence. Her dreams of prediction rmostly came true. There were a few misses, but the hits far outnumbered the misses. For example, she had said 10 days before Harish's birth that Amritha would deliver a male child on the day of Upanayanam of Ramakrishnan (my cousin). Her prediction came true. There are a number of other instances.
My parents as well as Vanaja were quite popular in the family circle. So when Vanaja and her husband left for New Delhi by Grand Trunk Express in 1959, there were over 50 persons to see them off. After the train left, half the crowd including me went to Sri Krishna Talkies where my uncle was the manager and saw the Tamil film Bommai Kalyanam (Dolls' wedding).. Looking back, it looks prophetic that her marriage was like those of the dolls and lasted just five years. I remember that Pattamma (who had come to our house to help) and I cried on hearing the tragic news. It must have been a traumatic experience - first losing a 6-month old son and after 3 years, losing the husband. But Vanaja had enormous mental strength. I had talked of my father's foresight. Thanks to the education, she had started teaching in Delhi itself in DTEA school (popularly known as Madrasi school) and later in Sarada Vidyalaya, Chennai. She never complained about the sad things in her life. On the other hand, she always looked at the positives - supportive and loving parents, affectionate children, brothers and all other realatives. There is a lesson for all of us that no matter what happens. look at the positive things in your life.
Vanaja was very generous in her praise even if the other person wasn't very desrving of the praise. You can imagine how generous she was, if I tell you that she had praised my singing. My college years saw me getting interested in English songs. Madras ‘B’ of All India Radio used to relay ‘Listener’s Choice’ for an hour on Saturday nights. I started liking Abba, Beatles, Cliff Richard and many others. One day, as the song ‘Bachelor boy’ (When I was young, my father said, "Son I have something to say" And what he said, I'll never forget until my dyin' day. He said "Son you are a bachelor boy and that's the way to stay. Son, you be a bachelor boy until your dyin' day ) by Cliff Richard was on air, I was singing the whole song along. Vanaja was surprised that I knew the whole song and commented that I sang rather well. I thought it was a tongue-in-cheek comment, as the one thing I definitely cannot do is singing. But she was serious and it made me happy.
Towards the end of her life, TV became more important than reading. But till about a year before her death, Vanaja was a voracious reader. Her hunger for magazines was phenomenal. We regularly used to take Tamil magazines for her to read. Every time we visited her, she would ask Amritha whether she had brought any new magazines. Though she never learnt about computers, Urmila used to print articles from the family Newsletter for her to read. She was very proud of my efforts at publishing the family Newsletter and would tell everyone about it. She wanted to write articles as well but could not do it. But she compensated for it by writing a lot on my father fr the centenary souvenir.
Vanaja had difficulty in contolling her fondness for fried items. The only person who could control her on this count was Urmila. Vanaja would say,'I never had a mother-in-law and Urmila has taken her place'. One could detect a pride in her voice when she said that. She was fond of both Urmila and Radha and was proud of their achievements. She was happier than Urmila when Urmila cleared the Civil Servics preliminary exams and was sadder than Urmila herself when landslides in Nilgiris made Urmila miss the main exams..
What memories of Vanaja would I like to carry with me? Her happiness when Amritha and I were on the platform at Bina in midnight when she and Radha visited us when we were in Kota: our playing cards and Thayakattai (a game with brass dice) in Chittaranjan and other places: most of us going to sleep in Birla Planetarium in Calcutta: her happiness when Urmila's marriage was decided when they were staying with us in Vadodara: playing cards in the platform in Madras Central when our train was delayed: her sense of achievement and relief after Radha's wedding which was a grand affair: her happiness at being thanked by her headmistress for the arrangements made by me when a group of teachers visited Bombay: the numerous occasions that all of us have spent in Marina beach ... There are so many of them. But the one I'll keep thinking about is in one of the river-ghats of Calcutta in 1995 after the 10th day ceremony of Choodamani, my brother Sampath's wife who suddenly passed away in June 1995. All the five of us siblings were talking about various things. It was the last occasion that the five of us were together.
Good bye, Vanaja.
S.Parthasarathy, brother
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