PADMINI MADAM, THANKS FOR BEING MY FRIEND!

 PADMINI MADAM,

THANKS FOR BEING MY FRIEND!

5.7.2017

(This an article or rather an open letter written by me in the year 2017. Thanking Padmini madam for her enriching friendship. i feel like sharing it here.

_ Latha Ramakrishnan

Dear Padmini Madam,

Today morning when I opened facebook it informed me that we have been friends for two years in facebook.

I couldn’t help walking down the memory lane (though as a rule I don’t) and share some warm thoughts about you (not that there are cold thoughts too! There aren’t) for you are one of those very few persons who treat your fellow humanbeings with real concern and courtesy.

Also, I want to write this as there may not be another occasion. (I don’t refer to death here. You know that. Incidentally, both of us never like Memorial Meetings!)

I know you won’t like me writing about you, but, I can’t help it. And you do know that I never admire anyone with some ulterior motive or with vested interest.

‘When everybody was going ga-ga over the movie ‘Sirai’ I wrote an article in Kanaiyazhi, writing against the then prevailing tendency of painting the protago nist’s husband black for refusing to accept her after she was raped, but condoning the rapist, You came to see me (I was then in a small tenement in Abhiramapur am) appreciating my stand and writing and there began our friendship. I am amazed at the way you have been a seeker always, going to the depth of the chaos and controversies of human existence.

I know your immense reverence for Mahathma Gandhi and your vow not to tell any lie which you follow till date.

I remember the incident shared with me by one of our common friends that when someone asked you why you were not wearing any jewels you simply asked in a matter-of-fact tone ‘why should one wear jewels?’

Whenever we meet you will always have some social concern to share and ponder over. Never once have you spoken of your personal grievances, if any. I remember another anecdote that when somebody asked you regarding some trivial issue connected with your domestic life and you were not remembering, your friend said that you would always be thinking of international affairs and national affairs and hence you have no time to ponder over personal problems! I don’t remember the exact words or incident but people who know you will know how true it is!

Even if someone comes to you with some juicy gossip such as someone’s daughter eloped with someone on the day of her marriage, you would speak elaborately on how much of pain it would have caused to all concerned - so much so that the person who began talking with such glee at the sad plight of others would grow pensive, apprehensive and ashamed of herself!

It was you who told me that if anything troubles our mind we should keep that particular thought outside us and consciously stay away from entertaining that thought. ‘Easier said than done’ I thought at first but all these years this ‘therapy’ has really helped me.

You never like sweeping generalizations. A husband and wife having happy married life for six years and then growing apart means, how can we call the marriage a failure as a whole?’ you would muse often.

More than three decades ago we joined a social movement called SWACHID (soldiers of war against corruption, hunger, ignorance and disease) founded by Mr. Kasthurirangan, writer and founder- editor of Kanaiyazhi and till I moved to Saidapet in 1990 we were being active members of the Movement. And, you have always been doing some social work or other, helping someone or other, with ‘nil’ publicity or pomposity.

And, what you and your friends are doing to the children of the downtrodden families studying in Chennai Corporation Schools is phenomenal. With your focus solely on enabling the children to have the best possible education in their early stage of life, you and your friends have started Sri Ramacharan Charitable Trust and have taken up introducing Montessori method of Teaching in the primary classes in quite a number of such outlets. Despite having to face so many hurdles and adversities on the way, your focus never once shifted and you have motivated your 50+ teachers also to have their focus on the downtrod den children and their well-being. I have often heard you say sadly that the political parties which claim to work towards the uplift of the downtrodden should take more interest in ensuring quality education and quality sanitation to these children.

Your initiative is worth mentioning, to say the least, and I salute your good self, your friends, Trustees and members of your esteemed organization and last but not the least your committed teachers for this visionary initiative of yours.

We have been friends for over 30 years now. When I was 29 years of age you were exactly twice my age. Now I am 59 going to be 60 ( I have never liked writer Shoba De and have always considered her to be superficial but when she observed in one of her articles that in the present day 60 years of age means 40 years of age I loved her with all my heart!) and you must be 88 or so now. But, age has never been a constraint in our friendship and we have never felt any communi cation gap.

There would be difference of opinion now and then( like you would say that if a profound statement is made we should concentrate on what is said than who said it and I would say that who says it also matters equally) but we have always agreed to disagree, allowing each other’s right to differ, not like the ‘ever-increasing pseudo progressives’ who look down on all others and take extra care to have a sarcastic smile spread on their countenance, thinking in all ignorance that they alone are right, brave and what not and they alone have the right to speak on certain issues, and, what is worse, decry people of merit by calling them names such as ‘barking bosses’, ‘fiddling fools’ 'middle-class morons' and what not(thereby exposing their own calibre), knowing well how words have the power to cause havoc in a society.

When I am typing this, my mother who is 81 is sleeping. Such a brave lady. She doesn’t read or write poetry but she makes it a point to visit some temple or other everyday. Once(long back) I asked her with the typical sarcasm of a pseudo intellectual ‘ Why do you have to go to temple everyday? After all god is one, if at all there is a god”. She merely said, “What books are to you, temples are for me” and ended the conversa tion. After several days she told me how for a woman in her late thirties (when my father died she was 38 or so) temple is a safe and convenient place to go and sit and that she can sit and talk with other women like her there and when she sees other people suffering in life but going on with grit and determination it strengthen ed her will-power and belief in life and that she went to the temple not to demand anything from god but to thank god for keeping her mentally and physically strong and in a position to look after her two children).

So what if she is not reading or writing poems? My Mother is a poignant poem!

So are you, my dear friend Padmini Madam. Whenever I speak to you and my mother I will be constantly reminding myself that I should not take you for granted just because you are close to me.

You have always been an ardent lover of books - Jaya kanthan, Bertrand Russel, Mani Bhaumik, Bharathiar, Thich Nhat Hanh, Quantum theory, Ramayana, Gandhi's Sathya Sodhanai and many more are your favourites!

And you have also written several real good poems. But, you keep them hidden somewhere, fearing that your friends would publish them! When you were in your seventies you attended a computer class and learnt the basics of computer operation. Now you are quite at ease with computer and android phones! You are never conscious of your worthy lineage. You are never overawed by power, position, assets and all the rest. ‘We should lead a meaningful life and leave without a trace’ you would always say. You should live long and healthy for the well-being of many downtrodden children.

Lots more to write. But, let me finish now with a poem of mine included in one of my poem-collections (மற்றும் சில திறவாக் கதவுகள், (மகிழம் வெளியீடு, 2005) which I have dedicated to you years back.

THANKS FOR BEING MY FRIEND MADAM.

affectionately

latha

THE JOY OF CARING AND SHARING

You introduced to me the Rama who fell at the feet of Akaligai reverentially;

You made me get acquainted with the Rama, the dear husband of Janaki who wandered all over the forest holding her hand all too lovingly;

You taught me the blessed state of floating in the musical space;

The entangled dreams and knots of thoughts and memories that we have untied strand by strand with each holding one end are indeed too many;

We unraveled the directions of several trails

Your ever serene inner voice has provided a sustaining support to me

With each of us burning in one’s own raging fire

We befriended Nandhalala and made him our own.

The way our dialogues would come to a close with three dots….

proving a boon

The ever-swelling ocean

being a gift to you on and on .

நெல்லிக்கனி

அகலிகையின் அடிபணிந்த ராமனை அறிமுகம் செய்தாய்.

ஜானகியின் கரம் பற்றிக் கானகமெங்கும் திரிந்த

காதல் மணாளனைப் பரிச்சயமாக்கினாய்.

நாதவெளியில் மிதக்கும் நற்றவம் கற்றுத் தந்தாய்.

பாதிப்பாதியாய் ஆளுக்கொரு முனையிலிருந்து

இழைபிரித்த கனவுச்சிடுக்குகள், நனவு முடிச்சுகள்

நிறையவாய்.

சிக்கவிழ்த்தோம் சில மார்க்கங்களின் திக்குகளை.

ஒருபோதும் அதிராத உன் அடிமனக் குரல் எனக்கொரு

பிடிமானமாய்.

அவரவர் வெந்தழலுக்குள் கனன்றபடி

நந்தலாலாவைச் சொந்தமாக்கிக் கொண்டோம்.

நிறைமாத கர்ப்பிணியின் எதிர்பார்ப்பும் குறைப்பிரசவக்

கையறுநிலையுமாய்

நம்முடைய கலந்துரையாடல்கள்

மூன்று புள்ளிகளோடே முற்றும் திறம் வரமாய்ப் புரியப்

பெருகுமாக் கடலொரு பரிசாய் உனக்கு என்றும்.

(’பத்மினி மாடம்’க்கு)