There’s a little known story about Sir C P Ramaswami Aiyar, corroborated by a piece of furniture. It stands plain and tall, so tall in fact that it keeps the writer on his feet and denies him the luxury of a chair. “So he wouldn’t nap,” explains Nanditha Krishna, Sir CP’s greatgranddaughter, “It had been predicted that the child, CP, would never pass an exam in his life, and it was to counter that forecast that his father had the table built.”
It continues to stand long after its prodigious student’s passing, preserved in a corner of a suite on the first floor of The Grove, CP’s house on Eldams Road. Arranged alongside are a day bed, a writing desk and a few of his personal effects. The house itself is a monument to his life — of professional ambition, political fervour and common domesticity. Built in 1885-86 by CP’s maternal and paternal grandfathers, it was erected on a plot of land that was part of an expansive property called The Baobab, after an eponymous tree. The land had belonged to John Bruce Norton, whose son Barrister Eardley Norton was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress.
Norton sold part of his property in 1875 to P Chentsal Rao Pantulu (first Registrar General of Madras), who in turn offloaded part of it to Conjeevaram Venkatasubbaiyar, CP’s maternal grandpa. He had the house built in the colonial style with a colonnaded front porch, but suitably adapted within to house the practical and cultural exigencies of south Indian living, like a ‘kalyanakoodam’, a hall reserved for marriages.
The house structurally is as it was, even though it has lately been put to alternate use — as the office of the C P Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation, lecture hall, research centre, library and art gallery. Although old rooms have found new purpose — the C P Art Centre was originally a cowshed; the Venirul Art Gallery once housed a boiler, saunas and massage rooms; the kalyanakoodam made for a convenient lecture hall; three big suites upstairs have been absorbed into the Indological Research Centre, and a bathroom is now part of the library.
The foundation has adopted a ‘use as is’ approach, fitting in modern amenities without compromising the original form and material. “I refused to put in a false ceiling in the kalyanakoodam just to accommodate a few split ACs, so I had about eight split ACs installed around the hall, kept the old ceiling fans and added a few new ones and replaced the CFLs with LEDs to keep the place from overheating…,” says Krishna, director of the foundation, walking us past Burma teak pillars, Belgian ceilings, and Venetian floors still in impeccable condition.
The foundation spends `2-3 lakh every year on maintenance. To save the couple of hundred photographs and prized art collection (including an 8-ft Roerich portrait of CP), it has sheathed the backs and sides of the frames in transparent plastic. It’s a historic house that has welcomed all rank and file of man and beast — from Ramsay MacDonald, to Mahatma Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, Annie Besant, Indira Gandhi and “any dog in Madras that wished to make it their house”. Political visitors apart, little else has changed.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Joeanna Rebello Fernandes , TNN / August 22nd, 2014
The boy took a lock out of his pocket, fixed it to the grill and turned the key. He closed his eyes, prayed and left. “He has relinquished all his troubles here,” said Nawaz, the khadim-e-dargah (caretaker). “The Pir will now take care of them.” He added that people also consigned ill health and those possessed by spirits to the locks. Everything was possible in the saint’s durbar. All you need is faith.
Faith is what drove Bahadur Khan, the Killedar of the Bangalore Fort, to defend it with his life on March 21, 1791, during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Like his fellow soldiers, the fort Commandant fought for Mysore and its freedom.
The former Faujdar of the Krishnagiri Fort had been recently shifted to Bangalore under Tipu Sultan’s orders. Tipu himself was busy fighting a determined and desperate General Lord Cornwallis. He trusted that Bahadur Khan, assisted by Muhammad Khan Bakshi and Sayyid Hamid, would be an able protector of the oval Bangalore Fort. The ancient mud structure had been reinforced in stone around 1761 by its erstwhile Killedar, Hazrat Ibrahim Khan, Hyder Ali’s maternal uncle and a Sufi pir of the Shuttari order.
Close to midnight, the English army stealthily attacked the fort. They crept along its walls (now busy KR Road), scaled its ramparts and cut soldiers down quietly by moonlight. A popular conspiracy theory whispers that the Mysorean army was betrayed from within and that the breach blown through earlier by English cannons was deliberately left unguarded. Bahadur Khan and a handful of soldiers fought fiercely till he died of a gunshot through the head. His body was stabbed repeatedly by bayonets.
Approximately 2,000 men lost their lives that night. The prosperous town of Bangalore had been laid siege to earlier, and now the fort had fallen. A victorious Lord Cornwallis commended his bravery and wrote to Tipu asking him where his noble Killedar should be buried. Tipu is said to have wept publicly, and replied that a soldier must be buried where he fell. He requested that the Killedar be handed over to the Muslim population of Bangalore who would ensure that his last rites were attended to appropriately
Bahadur Khan was buried near what is now the KR Market flyover. Flags flutter high over his green domed mausoleum at the corner of Avenue Road and SJP Road. It is revered by local populations and also called ‘The Lock and Key Dargah’ of Hazrath Mir Bahadur Shah Al-Maroof Syed Pacha Shaheed. Other warrior-saints sleep inside the Pete’s labrynthine streets. They create a sacred landscape that is interwoven with this densely commercial area.
The seventy-year-old Killedar was described by historians as a majestic figure, “a tall robust man… with a white beard descending to his middle.” The prophet-like reference only adds to the shrine’s reputation. People of all faiths walk in and out all day. They petition the saint and pray quietly amidst jasmine flowers and incense sticks, while buses ply and frantic commuters run to and fro outside. At dawn, the shrine is surrounded by roses in buckets, as wholesalers from KR Market squat outside its door. Sometimes, I find musicians with harmoniums and percussion instruments singing devotional songs as offerings. There is no courtyard or wall. Its doors remain open for the busy world to take refuge within. The custodian of Bangalore’s historic fortress continues to watch over the city’s population, centuries later.
The writer is a cultural documentarian and blogs at aturquoisecloud.wordpress.com
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Columns> Other / by Aliyeh Rizvi, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / August 03rd, 2014
This innovator made a kit that frees women in many parts of the world of the threat of infection during childbirth.
Zubaida Bai at the production facility of ayzh, 30km from Chennai. Photo: Nathan G/Mint
Freedom from risky childbirth | Zubaida Bai
Growing up in Chennai, a young Zubaida Bai wanted to study further after completing class XII. A reasonable request, except that in her family, nobody—male or female—had made it to college. The women in her family were usually married in their teens. Plus, Zubaida’s father did not have the finances to put her through college.
Undeterred, she decided to fight fate.
At 33, Zubaida Bai was the founder-CEO of ayzh (pronounced “eyes”), a low-cost women’s healthcare company based in Chennai and Colorado, US. Her biggest achievement: JANMA, a birthing kit sold and distributed through non-governmental organizations and healthcare companies.
JANMA (birth in Hindi) kits consist of six things: an apron, a sheet, a hand sanitizer, an antiseptic soap, a cord clip and a surgical blade. They meet the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines of “six cleans” during childbirth—clean hands of the attendant, clean surface, clean blade, clean cord tie, clean towels to dry the baby and wrap it, and clean cloth to wrap the mother. A jute purse in five colours contains the kit and and it can be used as a purse after delivery.
From mundane struggles with a traditional Muslim family to being a successful innovator, Zubaida Bai’s journey has been one about exercising the right to free choice although that involved selling her jewellery to get ayzh off the ground.
Soon after school, Zubaida took a year off, selling retail banking services door-to-door for ABN Amro, cold-calling customers and earning her first pay cheque when she was 17. Soon she was in college, studying mechanical engineering, and went on to become the first graduate in her entire family. After graduation, she dreamt of designing cars, but ended up at auto-parts company Sundram Fasteners. “I was the only girl on the entire floor, all I did every day was change the dimensions on a CAD design or take printouts. I was getting fat from all the thayir saadam (curd rice),” she recalls.
She was soon planning her escape. Scouring the Internet for a master’s degree, she secretly applied to various universities. After an acceptance letter for a fully funded scholarship to an M.Tech programme at Dalarna University, Sweden, arrived, she told her parents. Her father thought this was one of those infamous scams that promised you a job and ended up hiring you as domestic labour. But finally, Zubaida left home.
In the summer of her first semester in college, she took a road trip, was part of a students’ exchange programme, visited Poland and, during a period of self-discovery, she decided to start wearing the hijab, though no one in her family did.
Back in Chennai before her second semester ended and coaxed to meet a potential suitor, Habib Anwar, she feared the worst. “(But) he said that he was looking for an educated girl, who he would like to work rather than sit at home and squabble with his relatives,” says Zubaida.
Anwar supported Zubaida’s plan to study further as well. Soon they were married. Much later, he would be instrumental in providing the necessary support to make ayzh a success.
In 2006, Zubaida gave birth to the first of her three sons, Yasin. It was a painful experience. She needed surgery, was forced to rest for two months and took close to a year to recover fully. In her childhood, she had witnessed the lack of healthcare facilities for her mother, close relatives and community, and the lack of financial resources to pay for these if they did happen to be available.
Sometime in 2009, as part of a master’s in business administration in global social and sustainable enterprises at the University of Colorado, US, Zubaida came to India to research ideas that could be developed into products. She worked with Chennai-based non-profit Rural Innovations Network (RIN), making the JS Milker, a vacuum-driven cow-milking machine, low-cost and commercially viable. In Rajasthan, she met a village dai (midwife) who had just delivered a baby with a grass-cutting sickle.
This was her a-ha moment. She started reading up on institutional childbirth. She stumbled upon a clean birth kit (CBK) while attending a tech event in Denver, US, promoted by the non-profit healthcare organization PATH. The kit had a plastic sheet, a Topaz blade, a piece of thread, a small square of soap, and a plastic coin. All this was wrapped in a box with instructions. She then travelled halfway across the world to Nepal, where a group of women was assembling the kit.
Unimpressed with the quality of the kit, she searched for more samples, but found none that matched her expectations. But she knew she was on to something, and started building her own improved version, using off-the-shelf components and assembling them.
By 2010, she had put together a rudimentary clean birthing kit called JANMA, which she tested in Bangalore, through her gynaecologist. The innovation won the Global Social Venture Competition for business plans at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad in March 2010, and followed it up by topping the Camino Real Venture Competition at the University of Texas at El Paso, US, later that month.
Zubaida Bai also received a 2010-11 fellowship related to maternal health from Ashoka, an organization which identifies and invests in social entrepreneurs. At one event, she met the who’s who of the world of maternal health. “They were folks who were shaping the future of maternal health. These are people I would have found impossible to meet, especially Wendy Graham, who does research on how clean birth kits prevent infections,” she says. Her interactions confirmed her belief that a product such as JANMA would have a market.
By 2011, they had sold 2,000-3,000 JANMA kits, priced at $2-5 (now around Rs.120-300), in India and had made some inroads into the US.
After the initial success, though, Zubaida Bai hit a wall. Ayzh needed funds for operating costs, scaling up and distribution channels. Forced to return to India after completing her course at the University of Colorado, Zubaida and Anwar had two MBAs and two children between them, and no jobs. Those were trying times.
Even as friends and family advised one of them to get a job, Zubaida and Anwar calculated that they needed $300,000 for one-and-a-half years for ayzh to get off the ground. A social impact firm assured them of $50,000 if they could raise $100,000 and $20,000 if they raised nothing. Everything hung in the balance till the end of 2012, when they were awarded the $80,000 Echoing Green fellowship. They also got a Canadian government grant for another $100,000, while an individual investor put in another $100,000.
This was the turning point. In 2013, they clocked $100,000 in revenue, and sold 50,000 kits in India, Haiti, Laos, Afghanistan and Africa.
The JANMA kit’s relevance is irrefutable. According to the UN, India’s maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births reduced by 65%, from 560 in 1990 to 190 in 2013. But that still means 50,000 women die every year in India while giving birth. Seventeen per cent of the women die from preventable infections. More than 300,000 infants in India die the day they are born, according to the report “Ending Newborn Deaths, Ensuring Every Baby Survives”, by the non-profit Save the Children and Joy Lawn, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.
Zubaida’s goal for ayzh is three-pronged. She wants women to have power over their health by introducing new products for post-partum haemorrhage, a new-born kit, maternity pad and other innovations in reproductive health and family planning. Instead of creating products from scratch she wants to leverage the ayzh distribution platform to aggregate and sell products already available in the market. And, finally, she wants to launch an innovation lab for low-cost healthcare products, so that an entrepreneur with an idea does not have to go through the same grind that they did.
To realize this ambition they are currently in the process of raising $3 million in funding—a huge sum for a social enterprise selling low-cost products to bottom-of-the-pyramid customers—from social impact investors.
“We want to build a corporate entity, with a group of companies that will focus on women’s health and empowerment. Habib saw his mother struggle doing sewing and embroidery and I saw my mother struggle as well. They always brought in money, but were not appreciated and treated as an asset,” says Zubaida.
Nelson Vinod Moses is a Bangalore-based freelance journalist who writes on social entrepreneurship.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Lounge> Business of Life> Indulge / Home – Leisure / by Nelson Vinod Moses / Saturday – August 09th, 2014
With a rusty trunk in hand and a plethora of instructions in mind, Anna Jacob boarded SS Franconia from Bombay to Liverpool to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse. “It was 1947. There were 3,500 passengers on board, and most of them were Britons returning home,” says Jacob, 67 years later.
The journey lasted three weeks. “There was a badminton court, a swimming pool, a live band. Many of them were upbeat as they all were returning home at last,” says Jacob, her face breaking into a wrinkled smile.
Jacob, who will turn 100 this month-end, was among the first batch of students who completed the higher grade nursing course from Christian Medical College, Vellore, in 1936. In the city to attend the centenary celebration of Women’s Christian College, where she did an intermediate course in 1946, she recounts her days with Dr Ida Scudder, founder of CMC, and Vera Pitman, her nursing tutor.
Jacob, fondly called Annamma by her family and friends, surprises people with her sharp memory. “I still remember the day Miss Pitman came to our school in Tiruvalla, Kerala,” she recalls. “She was really tall and graceful, but what drew people to her was her passion for what she did — nursing. Fifteen minutes into her talk on the need for dedicated nurses in the country, I had already made up my mind to join her team in Vellore.”
Her family members were aghast as “Nursing was looked down at that time. No woman from a good family would get into the profession.” When I broke the news to my family that I was moving to Vellore, they were aghast. News spread fast and my father received condolence letters,” said Jacob, who was the third among five sisters. Undeterred, she went on to be among the first batch of nine students under Pitman. “It was the best move I made in my life,” says Jacob.
After completing her course three years later, Jacob moved on to work in Delhi, before she got a scholarship in 1947 to do a bachelor’s in Canada. “A month later, I saw myself on board SS Franconia and later made my way from Liverpool to Montreal,” she said. She returned to Vellore two years later, where she was made the Nursing Superintendent. She worked there from 1949 to 1974.
Pitman continued mentoring her through letters from London. “She said it was up to me to now to pass on what I was taught. And that’s what I did and continue doing,” says Jacob, who stays on her own in Vellore and continues mentoring young nurses.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Ekatha Ann John, TNN / July 20th, 2014
(From left) President of All India Pingalwara Charitable Society Dr Inderjit Kaur, Director of Tibet House, New Delhi, Geshe Dorji Damdul, Sankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam Sri Jayendra Saraswathi and Samani Shri Shruthnidhiji of Shri Jain Poushadshal, during the inauguration of the sixth Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair in Chennai. On the second row are columnist S Gurumurthy and danseuse Padma Subramaniam | Albin Mathew/Express Photo
Chennai :
The 6th Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair, showcasing the extensive philanthropic activities of diverse Hindu organisations, was inaugurated by the Sankaracharya of Kanchi Sri Jayendra Saraswathi here on Tuesday.
Describing the coming together of over 200 organisations at the week-long Fair as a Hindu renaissance and awakening, the Kanchi seer chanted Sri Kanakadhara Stotram composed by Adi Sankara and explained the importance of charity and service to the poor and downtrodden. “Manava seva is Madhava seva (service to man is service to God),” he pointed out. “Protect dharma and dharma in return will protect you,” he said.
Noted columnist S Gurumurthy said the Fair was a demonstration that Hindu spiritualism and lifestyle was based on the principles that conserved forest and wildlife, preserved ecology and environment, fostered women’s honour, promoted patriotism and inculcated family and human values.
Drawing a parallel to the situation in the West, where the elderly, infirm and disabled were the responsibility of the State, Gurumurthy, who is patron of the spiritual fair, said in India they were looked after by their families. Charity was never institutionalised because every individual and family was an institution. “However, we found that the whole country was qualitatively not seen as compassionate, that we were lacking in philanthropy,” he rued.
“Hence, we decided to organise the Fair to showcase the service activities of Hindu organisations.”
Quoting statistics showing the extensive contribution of the organisations in the education and health sector, Gurumurthy said the efforts were now directed towards integrating Hindu spirituality to contemporary challenges like pollution and ecological and environmental degradation.
Earlier, eminent danseuse Padma Subramaniam said the Fair, which began in a small way with 30 organisations putting up stalls, was seeing the participation of 260 organisations this year. Besides, thousands of school children were taking part in various competitions. Traditional games like Pallankuzhi were also being revived.
Religious leaders of different faiths also spoke at the gathering. The Fair, which is being held at Sri Ramachandra Medical University Grounds in Tiruvanmiyur, will be open to the public from 9.30 am to 8 pm till July 14.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / July 09th, 2014
It was the day freedom fighters Subramania Siva and V.O.C. were found guilty of sedition
July 7, 1908 is a date no patriotic Indian of Tamil origin could afford not to know for it is on that day Madurai-born freedom fighter Subramania Siva became the first patriot in the whole of Madras Presidency (encompassing much of present day southern India) to be found guilty and imprisoned on the charge of sedition in British India.
Coincidentally, it was in July 1996 that his birthplace Batlagundu (Vathalagundu in Tamil) was taken away from Madurai district after the latter’s bifurcation to form Theni district. Therefore, it is only apt to recall this July, the history created 106 years ago by Arthur F. Pinhey, the then Additional Sessions Judge of Tinnevelly (now Tirunelveli) district.
A copy of his judgement available with The Hindu, reads: “It seems to me that sedition at any time is a most serious offence. It is true that the case is the first of its kind in the Presidency, but the present condition of other Presidencies where the crime seems to have secured a foothold, would seem to indicate that light sentences of imprisonment of a few months or may be a year or two are instances of misplaced leniency.”
He goes on to state: “The first object of a sentence is that it shall be deterrent not to the criminal alone but to others who feel any inclination to follow his example. Here we have to deal with a campaign of sedition which nearly ended in revolt. The accused are morally responsible for all the lives lost in quelling the riots that ensued on their arrest.”
Though Siva was the prime accused in the case and his mentor V.O. Chidambaram, popularly known as ‘Kappalottia Tamilan’ for having started a shipping company to compete with the British in 1906, was only the second accused, the judge had surprisingly ordered a comparatively lighter sentence of 10 years of transportation on Siva and that of transportation for life on V.O.C.
“The maximum penalty that the law permits would not seem to be too severe for such a case. I think however some discrimination may be made in favour of the first accused. It seems to me he was a tool in the hands of the second accused… Subramania Siva also had the grace not to make vile and baseless allegations against the district authorities.
“For the conduct of the second accused I can see no extenuation. He is evidently disloyal to the core and a man of a type most dangerous to society,” Mr. Pinhey said.
A careful reading of the judgement also exhibits how factors such as the social background, community and caste of the accused as well as those of the witnesses were taken into consideration by the judge while testing the genuineness of their statements.
The two accused were convicted under Section 124A (punishment for sedition), a provision which continues to be in the statute book even in independent India, of the Indian Penal Code in connection with four public speeches delivered by Siva at Tuticorin on February 23, 25 and 26 and March 5 in 1908. V.O.C. was accused of organising those meets though he did not participate in all of them.
Describing the background of Siva, the judge says: “The first accused whose original name was Subramania Iyer, is a relation of the Palayamcottah Inspector of Police, P.W.7 (Viraragava Iyer) and a native of Batlagundu in the Madura district.
“In 1902, he seems to have obtained temporarily the appointment of Mochi in the office of the Special Assistant Superintendent of Police, Sivakasi. Later, it would seem he went to Travancore, and after completing his education there, assumed the garb of a Sannyasi, called himself Subramania Siva and started to tramp the country as an itinerant preacher.”
In the later part of the judgement, while speaking about the most important prosecution witness, Jaffir Hussain Sahib, Tuticorin Police Inspector who reportedly took notes of the Tamil speeches in English, Mr. Pinhey says: “He was a fine specimen of a Mohamedan gentleman.
“His demeanour in the witness box was perfect and he was unshaken by cross examination and I have no doubt he spoke the truth throughout… His notes are in English as he thinks in that language in preference to Tamil, though thoroughly conversant with the latter, and writes English with greater facility.”
On the other hand, rejecting the evidence adduced by Head Constable Kaliyugarama Pillai, the judge says:
“He is certainly the least satisfactory of the police witnesses and it has to be borne in mind that he is a Vellala like the second accused. It seems he was transferred soon after that note was taken.
“The circumstance that he broke his pencil directly the second accused began to speak and consequently lost that speech is I think significant. It possibly explains his transfer.”
The fact that the judgement, penned by a British national, consciously identified every other individual in India by their caste and community is also evident from its following lines: “When it was suggested to the witness that an Iyengar, like the Sub-Inspector and a Smartha Brahmin like the first accused, would not have taken food together at the same hotel… and the circumstantial facts on which the prosecution rely is that Subramania Siva though a Brahmin lived with the second accused at Tuticorin.”
The judgement known as ‘King Emperor versus Subramania Siva and V.O. Chidambaram Pillai’ is a classic piece of document that gives a fair idea of social conditions that prevailed in the country a century ago.
And it is a matter of history that though the conviction imposed on the two great freedom fighters were confirmed by the appellate courts of those days, the punishment was reduced considerably.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Madurai / by Mohamed Imranullah S. / Madurai – July 07th, 2014
Former President APJ Abdul Kalam on Sunday asked parents to have a small library at home to encourage their children to read books.
“Every home should have a small library with a minimum of 10 books to inculcate the reading habit in children,” Kalam said at a function to mark the sesquicentennial (150 years) of Bishop Cotton Boys’ School here.
Citing the importance of education, he said parents should take sincere steps to increase the collection of books every now and then. “And they should make their wards refer to the books at least an hour a day,” he added.
Paying a tribute to his science teacher Siva Subramaniam Iyer, Kalam said he was inspired by him to become a rocket scientist. “When we were in Class 5, he took us to Rameswaram beach to show students the birds’ flying pattern. He also had a model aircraft to show us the similarity. This eventually inspired me to become a rocket scientist,” he added
Hailing the significance of the Bishop Cotton Schools, the former president said: “One hundred and fifty years is a long time for a school. In astronomy, it’s equal to the number of time taken by the Earth to orbit around the Sun. But most importantly in its every orbit, a star is born.”
Earlier in the day, Bishop Cottons Girls’ School, founded in 1865, celebrated a Holy Communion service on St Peter’s Day at its Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton auditorium. Archbishop of Dublin Dr Michael Geoffrey Jackson, Bishop Cotton Boys’ School principal John K Zachariah and Bishop Cotton Girls’ School principal Princess Franklyn presided over the service. The day was named after the school’s patron saint and inspiring role model.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> /City> Bangalore> Namma Metro / TNN / June 30th, 2014
Panagal Road – the arterial road connecting Goripalayam with Sivaganga Road is named after Panagal Raja, eminent politician of the state from erstwhile Justice Party who was chief minister of Madras Presidency from 1921 to 1926. The road got its name during British rule.
Sir Panaganti Ramarayaningar (1866 – 1928) known as Panagal Raja was a noted politician in British India instrumental in starting Justice Party and raising the issue of caste based reservations. He was also the man behind educational reforms and municipal development of then Madras. As tribute to his reforms, there is a park in T Nagar, Chennai and the road in Madurai was also apparently named after him, says residents.
Colonial rulers who were living inside old Madurai city till Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 started shifting their establishments and residences in Northern Bank. Though Rajaji Hospital was established by theBritish way back in 1842, it was taken over by Madurai municipality in 1872 and the hospital came under state administration by 1918. Sir Arthur Hope, Governor of Madras inaugurated the full-fledged facility as seen today, in 1940 as per the stone tablet found in GRH.
Former Madurai East MLA, N Nanmaran said that Panagal Road could have been named after popular Justice Party leader since the Dravidian movement and parties evolved from it had its roots from that party. Government Rajaji Hospital earlier known as Erskine Hospital was very significant landmark since it was one of the biggest government hospitals for entire southern districts even today, he said. However N Pandurangan (74) an elderly Congress party man residing in the area says that the road was christened after Panagal Raja even during British days. Madurai city ended with South Bank and entire northern part was villages. The present day Panagal Road and Shenoy Nagar were Mathichiyam village, he recalled.
“In those days entire area was mostly wilderness and few houses situated here and there. But Panagal Road was still an important road with Rajaji Hospital and Collector office established in colonial rule”, he said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN / June 29th, 2014
Considered the Father of Geriatrics in India, he provides holistic medical and psychological cures for the elderly. Interestingly, his foray into medicine was not a long-cherished dream.
Graduated: 1964, Tanjore Medical College
First Call
Medicine was never a childhood ambition for me. I had perfect scores in my PUC and naturally got an admission into a good college. It became an ambition since then.
Looking Back
I have never once felt bored about working around the elderly. They need extra support and care, medically and psychologically. I want my patients to be cured as early as possible.
Turning Point
It’s a wonderful feeling to know that I have given back to my society. Once when I visited my village, the people recognised me as one of their own who is doing well in medicine. Since I was the first doctor in my family, the recognition and love I received will be cherished forever.
Obstetrician and Gynecologist Dr Kamala Selvaraj
Ever since she commissioned the first test tube baby in 1990, Kamala Selvaraj has been in the limelight for her contribution to gynaecology.
Graduated: 1969, Kasturba Medical College
First Call
When I finished school, my father asked me if I wanted to get married or study further. I chose to study and become a doctor and since then, there was no looking back.
Looking Back
I have earned enough to can sit back and enjoy life, if I choose to. But when I look at the pain writ on every patient’s face, it is heart wrenching.I feel they need me and with all my experience, I can treat them like no one else.
Turning Point
Something that keeps striking me is that I have never faltered in my profession, nor have I advertised myself. The fact that the junior gynaecologists idolise me and consider me their role model is a testimony to my work.
Admin Acolyte Dr V Kanagasab
The ever-present Dean of the Madras Medical College till he retired recently and the Director of Medical Education for a brief period, he has spent his life teaching and practising in government hospitals across Tamil Nadu. He is one of the people who contributed to putting MMC on the map during his tenure here.
Batch: 1980/ MMC and Stanley
Origin Story
It was a two way thing. I wanted to be a doctor and my parents were quite happy with my decision. My father tried to become a doctor in his day, but he wasn’t able to get in and settled for the agriculture department — so I still have the tag of being a first-generation doctor in my family.
Service Trip
Every single day, it was a lesson to go to whichever college I was at and not only serve people, but also spread knowledge to students. It is a great boon to be able to serve people who are oppressed, poor and often without education. That is a lesson that I had been trying to impart to my students in the 31 years of service that I’ve put in – to teach and serve people who require it. I gave up a lot of monetary benefits when I quit private practice and entered hospital administration, but I have no regrets today.
High Point
It was in 2010, when the MCI and the Government of India delayed the permits for the Dharmapuri Medical College, that we prepared a case and went to fight it out in Supreme Court. It was tough and we had doubts, but we had already admitted 100 students and their futures depended on it. Winning that case and laying those students fears’ to rest, is something that stays with me.
Eye Enigma Dr Amar Agarwal
Chairman and chief surgeon at Dr Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals. He has been responsible for taking the group global and providing affordable and high quality eye care for people of all economic strata. His life is an eye-opener.
Graduated: 1983, Madras Medical College
First Call
I always knew that I wanted to be a doctor. When I was nine, my parents, who were eye surgeons themselves, would make me practice how to do sutures on the leaves of an onion, because it was very close to a human eye. I loved it then and knew that this is what I wanted to do.
Looking Back
At any point of time, I am in my scrubs and I’m always thinking of ophthalmology. I have never wanted to do anything else. You see, when you live and breathe and love what you do, it is not work. That way I can proudly say that I’ve never ‘worked’ a day in my life!
Turning Point
One thing that stands firmly implanted in my mind is the day my parents died. Three hours after I grieved, I took their eyes and transplanted them myself into a poor patient who had been blind for ages. When he opened his eyes and looked at the world with my dad’s eyes, I looked at his wife’s face — the happiness I saw there, will stay with me as a reminder of why I do this every single day
Diabetologist Dr Vijay Viswanathan
Dr Vijay,carrying on the family lineage, is a diabetologist at the M V Hospital, Royapuram. Becoming a doctor was an ambition instilled into him since the age of 11.
Graduated: 1982, Stanley Medical College
First Call
My father was a doctor – a diabetologist. I was inspired by him and since I was a student of class six, I wanted to follow his footsteps
Looking Back
I’ve been a doctor for 24 years, and I have been living my dream ever since I graduated. I am completely content with whatever I do and never have I stopped to think of options.
Turning Point
Patients from far flung areas such as Arunachal Pradesh come here to get treated for diabetes. It is a huge responsibility on me and my hospital. To know that I have to do my best to treat them is something that I cherish and this makes me feel content. The knowledge that patients can bank on me, and that I can do justice to it, makes me feel I am doing the right thing.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Chennai / by Daniel Thimmayya & Aparna Deiskan / July 02nd, 2014
Singeetam Srinivasa Rao remembers Dikkatra Parvathi, his first film in Tamil, based on Rajaji’s story
Singeetam Srinivasa Rao’s first film was in Telugu, a 1972 comedy named Neeti Nijayiti. It flopped. For his second film, he wanted to do something different. “At that time, there was this big art-cinema movement,” he told me last week. “We were very inspired by the neorealistic films, and by Satyajit Ray. That’s how Dikkatra Parvathi happened.”
A still from Dikkatra Parvathi / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Ray’s Pather Panchali had become the touchstone for young filmmakers, and Rao followed its lessons scrupulously. Because Ray’s film was scored by a classical musician (Ravi Shankar), Rao brought in the veena maestro Chitti Babu to compose the soundtrack for his film, which turned 40 this month. And because Ray’s film was based on a classic work of literature (by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay), Rao too decided that his film would be based on a literary story that had fascinated him: Fatal Cart.
That was the English translation of C Rajagopalachari’s Dikkatra Parvathi. “Those days,” Rao told me, “it was easier to get funds from the Film Finance Corporation [the earlier avatar of the National Film Development Corporation] if your film was based on a classic.” He put in fifty thousand of his money, and the rest of the two-lakh budget came from FFC – Dikkatra Parvathi was the first Tamil film financed by the organisation.
Filmmaker Singeetam Srinivasa Rao / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Seeking further financial assistance, Rao decided to shoot the film someplace a little beyond the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border, because the Karnataka government was offering subsidies (up to fifty thousand rupees) for films shot in the state. But when they discovered that Rajaji’s birthplace, Thorapalli, was just seven kilometres from Hosur, where the unit was camped, Rao’s wife convinced him that the film had to be shot there. “The village looked exactly like the one described in the story,” Rao said. “Plus, we got the satisfaction of shooting Rajaji’s story in Rajaji’s birthplace.”
Rao was hesitant, at first, to approach the 94-year-old Rajaji and take permission to film his story. “He hated films,” Rao said. “I wanted to make a film from a story of a man who hated films.” Later, Rajaji assured him that he only hated bad films. Rao remembers the day he met Rajaji: 7 December, 1972. “December 10 was his birthday and there would be a constant stream of visitors. So I went earlier.” Rajaji died soon after, on Christmas day, and the permission letter he gave Rao contained his last signature in an official capacity. More than a year later, his children attended the preview of Dikkatra Parvathi, which was “dedicated to the memory of Rajaji.”
The story is about newlyweds Parvathi (Lakshmi) and Karuppan (Srikanth), whose happy – if impoverished – life is ruined when he becomes an alcoholic and is unable to repay his loans. Two stretches stand out. The first occurs when Karuppan, goaded by a cohort, begins to drink. This is his first time. He asks, almost innocently, if drinking isn’t wrong and if you begin to smell if you drink. He takes his first sip and spits out the cheap liquor. The people around him laugh – we don’t see them (the camera stays focused on Karuppan), but we hear their mockery. And as if to prove a point to them, Karuppan drains the bottle.
This self-destructive male behaviour is balanced, towards the end, by self-destructive female behaviour. Parvathi is constantly hounded by a moneylender’s son (YG Mahendra) who is panting after her, and at one point, he enters her home when Karuppan is away. What happens next? We are kept in suspense, as the film cuts away to the aftermath: a court case. (Rao shot these scenes in a courthouse in Hosur, corralling local lawyers into the cast.) Over the song Enna kuttram seidheno, we get incremental flashbacks that lead us to the climax, where we learn what really occurred that night. It’s one of the rare times a Tamil-film heroine has been allowed to remain human.
Lakshmi was cast because Rao was impressed by the mobility in her face. “She was acting in a lot of ‘glamour roles’ then,” Rao said. “I saw her without makeup one day, and knew she was right for the role.” As for Srikanth, he was cast because he was not “the regular hero.” Dikkatra Parvathi was shot in 22 days by the cinematographer Ravi Varma, who had just finished work on a Malayalam film namedSwayamvaram, made by a first-time filmmaker named Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Rao said, “Adoor used to come by for the rerecording sessions of Dikkatra Parvathi.” The score, though, hasn’t aged well. Over the opening credits alone, we hear the veena, mridangam, morsing, tabla, shehnai, sarangi, flute – the resulting symphony, today, sounds too ostentatious for such a small, intimate film.
Dikkatra Parvathi was censored on December 31, 1973, but the film couldn’t be released due to an impasse. The FFC demanded repayment of their loan before they would issue the release letter, and the distributors insisted on the release letter before they coughed up the funds that would allow Rao to repay his loan to the FFC. When the director ran into MG Ramachandran, the Chief Minister, and spoke about his predicament, the latter instructed his secretary to buy the film.
This was the first time in the Indian film industry that a film was procured by a state – though MGR wasn’t exactly looking at it as a work of art. He had in mind other, more practical uses – as a propaganda film to further the cause of prohibition. Still, Dikkatra Parvathi was back in Rao’s hands. It was released in one theatre in Chennai, Little Anand. It would be almost a decade before he made his next Tamil feature, Rajapaarvai.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Baradwaj Rangan / June 28th, 2014
