Unruled Notebook

[After I wrote Part IV, my cousin Ramesh visited me. I remember he came to Irving, Texas, straight from Srirangam. So please read the LHS of the equation I proposed in Part IV, for those who agree with the predicted downfall of Srirangam after the building of the Raja Gopuram, as (Everybody in 1985 minus two).

Wait a minute, I even spoke to Bharath, my schoolmate from Srirangam. He is now in Atlanta. And there is Mrs. Bhu, Mr. Li, Mr. G.... All within the USA, all from Srirangam! For the time being, please change the LHS of the equation as (Everybody Circa 1985 minus Their Sons and Daughters). Proceed.]

If you are presently inside Srirangam and don’t agree with the predicted downfall of Srirangam in part IV, you are probably one of the retired newcomer with his pot of Gold, who came after the 1985 census.

You should now be sitting in an easy chair, sipping decoction-coffee, in the mosaic-floored hall of the third floor of an Apartment, built over the culture of Srirangam. You read The Hindu and not The Express – they are extremists. You probably were in the crowd watching the famous cricket match in the 1960s, between Srirangam and Tanjore ‘A’ Team, as related by Sujatha, a worthy relic from the Glory Days of Srirangam, in his Srirangathu Devathaigal (Angels of Srirangam).

Aren’t you one of the lamentable Believers of Srirangam (or what ever is left of it) as a Short Route to Vaikunta, who has the son in Chennai, grandson in Cincinnati and eventually, a great grandson in Mars?

As an additional curiosity, the apartment complex you live in is probably named Jayashree Gardens. If not, some such “Gardens”. I wonder what will a kid of Srirangam answer around 2010, for the question “What is a Garden?”

If it is a ’5 mark’ big-question in his/her muzhu paritchai (Final Exam), the answer would begin something like this. A Garden is a tall, compartmentalized structure made of concrete and brick. It has lots of people and cloths hung for decoration. It is protected by a wall with arranged kids over it. A small grill gate covers the entrance, the floor of which is usually one-half in steps and the other half as a ‘slope’. There will usually be people on the ‘steps’ half of the entrance, most of who are from the next Garden. The wall-corner of the ‘slope’ side of the entrance would always remain chipped, by the nervous two-wheeler traffic, in and out of the garden. There is an old watchman – the common maatru-pen (daughter-in-law) for all families residing in the garden – who switches-on the common light by 6 PM everyday and who is scolded for not switching it off in the morning.

To sober the situation from the above technically incorrect description, I implore the Apartment Builders to have at least a Tulasi chedi (Plant of the auspicious and curative herb called Tulasi or Tulsi) planted inside these Jayashree Gardens.

Else, before my next visit to these Jayashree Gardens, at least make sure to grow (reside) inside them, a good-looking dame of age twenty to twenty-three, christened Tulasi.

[For those who skipped Part I through III: Its better that way. With such a title, I have digressed far away in Part I and far away from Part I, in Parts II & III - in the opposite direction. As I am more or less, back to where I began, I will try again to stick close to the title. Proceed.]

I shouldn’t have spoken about those auto-rickshaws and its drivers either. I dislike them. I don’t want to have any bad memories about them turning worse, by sharing the bad ones with you all in the first place.

What I planned to write about, happened long before the cycle-rickshaws and longer before the auto-rickshaws. A time when the dust that sticks to the sole of your chappal (footwear), while you walk today along South Devi street, was still gravel beside the road. Along with the green-veined crystalline pebble, soon to be claimed by the boy-me.

A time much before my father learnt his first big BASIC program from me (ascending/descending sort) and soon after, started making piles of money. Out of shame, I became a Mechanical Engineer and in the process spent most of it.

It was a time when A. R. Rahman was a kid, listening to Ilayaraja, who was in turn listening to the LPs of J. S. Bach and Mozart. MSV was wondering what went wrong. I for my turn was singing varaveena mrithupani the traditional South Indian Classical introductory song. Sitting amidst a group of fledgling (only in their voice) singers in the rickety, leafy, first floor (roof garden!) of the house opposite to ours in Tatham Street. Later I became a guitarist, mostly to forget my singing, including the partners.

By the way, the ‘opposite house’ belonged to a Professor of Physics – at least, that is the title he went with. My father learnt most of his mechanical engineering from him, along with a good amount of mathematics and politics. Seeing my fathers plight, I opted safely for physics teaching from him (O’ to those dreaded problems in Irodov and those IIT aspirant days). Some years later, I came out from him thoroughly humbled in physics, with a good working knowledge on horticulture and clay molding.

If you still are not sure of how long before it was, it was the time when the Raja Gopuram (King’s Tower) of Srirangam Temple at the South Gate, stood just as a simple, squat, rock structure, without those present-day thirteen stories. Ilayaraja was still making that Money for donating to build a floor of this thirteen-story structure.

I shall present my research paper “Life and Troubled Times after the Gopuram” as a separate essay. For now, I present merely the (only) major conclusion from the study.

That this Vaishanvite Ziggurat was completed in 1987, marking the Beginning of the End of Srirangam Civilization.

Everybody in Srirangam knew it then.

“Everybody” is equal to the “population as per the 1985 census of Srirangam Municipality”. It is yet to be renewed. For the benefit of a doubt, I agree, now the LHS is probably (Everybody in 1985 minus one), as I am in Dallas.