R. Srinivasan: A Profile (Part 2)

Please see yesterday's post for Part 1 of this profile of my great-grandfather.

PART 2
Prof. R. Srinivasan
(1887-1975)
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Patron & Promoter of Music
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[from L to R] My grandmother, her father
(Prof. Srinivasan) and her mother

Father was equally, if not more interested in music, as in studies. He did not have any formal training in music from any guru. But purely by his own effort, he acquired a vast knowledge of the subject. During utsavams and processions of deities, great nagaswara vidwans like Semponnarkoil Ramaswamy Pillai used to perform. He would follow a procession till it did the rounds of the four streets and the deity returned to the temple precincts and only then come home to bed. This must have been the main influence, but, of course, he must have had 'poorva janma vasanai' [karmic influence] too, enough to overcome my grandparents' apathy. My grandparents were the kind who would ask: "What is the price of a tola of sangeetam?!!"

Father was a very contented man. He was just not interested in making money, though he earned very well for those days. He had a number of job offers, but took up teaching as Assistant Professor of Mathematics in a college in Tiruvanantapuram. The standard pay was only 100 rupees a month, but the Dewan of Travancore, who personally canvassed Father's services, increased it to 150 rupees specially for him! Father took up the post in 1910, I think. He was known as 'Professor Srinivasan' even after he became Principal, which was the position he held when he retired. He stayed in Tiruvanantapuram till 1948.

In Tiruvanantapuram, all the people -- in college, in the palace, in the Government -- has great respect, love, and affection for Father. There were only seven or eight students in his B.A. Honours class. he would teach them in such a way that they barely noticed the passage of time and were astounded when they realised how much they had learnt! He was also feared and respected as he was a very strict disciplinarian. Even though I am his only child, he used to be very strict with me too. He used to say: "If there had been more children, each one could be different, but you, as an only child, should have all the good qualities."

Father was also an actor. Even in his school days, he was conducting dramas with some of his friends. Though he was himself not conducting such programmes in his Madras days, he used to attend many concerts and dramas there. In fact his uncle was concerned that he was not paying enough attention to his studies. When questioned, he would retort: "You see my marks and then question me." And, as he always stood first, there was not much that anyone could say! The love for drama continued in Tiruvanantapuram. He organised a drama troupe with some of his friends; I think it was called the Amateur Dramatics Club. He would take up any role from beggar to king. He mostly took female roles. He used to wear a sari very gracefully. When he selected saris for my mother, he would consider whether it would be suitable for his female roles too! Sankara Subbier, who later became Justice Sankara Subbier in Tiruvanantapuram, was a very close friend of his. In the drama 'Manohara,' Subbier used to be Padmavati and Father Vasantasena. I have many photos of scenes from his plays and also of his lady-part roles. [See photo on front cover shown in Part 1]

Since Father used to sing well, he also would take roles in which the actor had to sing. In one play, there was a scene in the king's durbar and Father gave a regular kutcheri! In fact, I remember that the scene required a fat bhagavatar and Father tied pillows onto his middle to appear bulky!

Father was connected with various other activities as well. He was very active in the scouts movement and was the Scouts Commissioner for some years. He was also connected with the YMCA, the YWCA, and the Tamil Sangam. He was, too, one of the trustees of the Sanatana Dharma School in Alleppey. He worked a great deal for theosophy too. In those days, many regarded theosophists as non-believers who had no faith in our religious traditions. Father worked towards removing this misconception. He used to explain: "Theo means god; it is not that the theosophists have no faith in god, but they reject superstitions. They keep the essentials and do away with the meaningless rituals." The theosophists' motto is: "There is no religion higher than Truth," and they believed in "universal brotherhood." Father propogated this theosophy all over Kerala. he was also a great admirer and follower of Dr. Annie Besant, whom he knew personally. Every year during the annual conference in Madras, my parents and I used to come to Madras to attend it.

[continued in Part 3]

R. Srinivasan: A Profile (Part 1)

I mentioned my great-grandfather in a previous post. My grandmother had given me a photocopy of a magazine called "Sruti," which bills itself as "India's premier music and dance magazine." It is focused on classical Indian music and the cover story in May 1995 was all about my great-grandfather, Professor R. Srinivasan. Yes, that's him on the cover (if you read the article, you will discover that at the turn of the century, women were not allowed to act on stage and so men had to play women's roles. That's him in some play!). The article is based on an interview with my grandmother (his daughter) and is quite detailed in its profile. As part of my desire to archive and make easily accessible information about my family history, I have transcribed the entire article below exactly as it appeared in the magazine, errors and all. I even checked on the magazine's web site and found the issue is not available to buy or read online. So, at the moment, this seems to fall under the "fair use" guidelines. I'll get the whole thing online in multiple parts (it's quite long). So, without further ado ...

PART 1
Prof. R. Srinivasan

(1887-1975)

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Patron & Promoter of Music

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Prof. R. Srinivasan was a connoisseur, promoter and patron of music and a gracious host to musicians when he was living in Tiruvanantapuram. His daughter Kamala Krishnamurthy, now living in Bombay, recently recalled to Sruti, his multifaceted personality, activities and achievements, in an interview conducted -- and later translated from Tamil -- by GAYATHRI SUNDARESAN. Excerpts:

My father, the late Prof. R. Srinivasan, was a versatile person. He had interest in many different fields. It was usually more than a passing interest. Whatever he took up, he had to do it thoroughly and as perfectly as possible. He was very fond of two dicta, which he would often repeat. One was: "One need not do extraordinary things, but do ordinary things extraordinarily well." The other was: "Trifles make perfection, but perfection is not trifle." He followed these in all that he did.

An example of this would be photography. He was a very good photographer. He started this hobby only in 1938 [when he was 51 years of age], but he did well right from the start. He would not only shoot the pictures but also develop and print them himself. He would do each step himself, beginning with developing upto the framing of the photograph. He had bought all the equipment needed for this -- the chemicals, trays of various sizes to wash the negatives, huge bottles for the chemicals, enlarger, and so on. He used a small room next to the bathroom as a dark room, for much water was needed for the process. He would cover the windows with black cloth and do his work after 7:30 pm. I used to be his assistant.

I remember that he made a set of "smoke pattern" photographs during the Kattigai festival, in which the smoke rising from the lamps lit for the occasion were captured by him on film. He sent them to the Illustrated Weekly of India and received a prize for the same. His subjects varied, and included birds, animals, and flowers. Secenery too. Let me tell you to what extent he went in his mad love for photography! He did not know swimming. He would not even take a 'samudra snanam' [a dip in the ocean] which is considered auspicious. Such a man, in order to capture the Kanyakumari temple at an angle from the sea, went on a catamaran to position himself properly for the shot.

This is how he would do everything, perfectly, not neglecting even a minute detail.

Father was born in Srirangam. He studied in the school there and later in Tiruchi. When he was studying in St. Joseph's College, his teachers concluded that an outstanding student like him should go to Madras where he would have more worthy students to compete with. In Madras, he stayed with his maternal uncle in Triplicane and was given admission in mid-term, considering his high grades. He stood first always, and B.N. Rao [Bengal Narasinga Rao, who later became Sir Bengal and served as a diplomat] would come second. He stood first in the Presidency in M.A. (Mathematics). He got a gold medal and a scholarship to study for the ICS examination. In those days, one had to go to London to take the ICS examination. The parents had to give their consent but my grandfather refused to do so, saying that he could not bear to be separated from his son for such a long time. Father never complained that my grand-father spoiled his future. He would say" "I always wanted to become a teacher. So God made this happen; my father was only an instrument." He also felt that, although he might have acquired name and fame by joining the ICS, he would not have been able to work on music or theosophy.

[to be continued in Part 2]

Great Grandfather Thoughts

One of my more vivid memories of my Great Grandfather (my mom's mom's dad) is the annual holiday greeting cards he used to liberally distribute. I used to read these quotations that were contained in the cards (labeled "Helpful Thoughts."

A scan of one of his cards, probably from the 1960s?

Only recently I realized that (a) many were really thought provoking, and (b) it's amazing how many of these have significantly influenced my beliefs. In fact, even before I found this one copy of the card in my "memory box," I could probably have recited a few of the quotes for you verbatim. Here is a transcribed set of helpful thoughts from one of his cards. I love the cover of the card that includes his theosophical society logo that proclaims "There Is No Religion Higher Than Truth" - I agree completely. My favorite ones are in bolded text.


The sage does not talk, the talented ones talk; and stupid ones argue. (Chinese proverb)

To say the right thing at the right time, keep still most of the time. (J.H. Raper)

The greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. (Goldsmith)

Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, virtue is doing it. (D.S. Gordon)

Genius does what it must, talent does what it can.

The secret of life is not to do what you like, but to like what you do. (Henry Davidoff)

"The greatest saint is not one who does extraordinary things, but one who does ordinary things extraordinarily well." (Dr. A. Maclaren)

Sow an act, and you reap a habit,
Sow a habit, and you reap a character,
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny (J. Locke)

"God will not ask thy race,
Nor will He ask thy birth;
Alone will He demand of thee,
'What hast thou done on earth?"

Nothing breeds fatigue like inactivity. (O.A. Batista)

"Rules are for when brains run out" (I have a whole essay I can write on "zero-tolerance policies" that emerge from my belief in this quote)


If man owns land, the land owns him. (Emerson)

Whenever science makes a discover, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it. (Alan Valentine)

People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges. (J.F. Newton)

Fire tries gold, misery tries brave men. (Seneca)

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men.

He has a right to criticise who has a heart to help. (Abraham Lincoln)

There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us.
That it ill becomes any of us,
To look down on the rest of us. (C.W. Leadbeater)

Pray as if everything depended on GOD, and work as if everything depended on man. (Spielman)

Troubles like babies grow larger with nursing. (Lady Holland)

Self-confidence is the first requisite to Great undertakings. (Samuel Johnson)

So, which of these are your favorites?

May 3, 1939: Wedding of the Week!

My Grandparents Wedding was the "Wedding of the Week" in 1939

NOSTALGIA

Here is the essay I referred to in my post from yesterday. I wrote it approximately in 1984 (or, it could have been 1985) I just discovered my handwritten version of this that actually dated it to February 1987. I was approximately 18 20 when I wrote this. I found the typewritten sheets in an old box and decided to transcribe it to digital form. I was tempted to make some corrections to grammar, word usage, and punctuation, but I resisted. This is using the exact same words and form as the original.

Original typed manuscript from the 1980s

NOSTALGIA

Is this why I have rushed through all these years of my life? To reminisce about the past? I never took a moment more than 52 weeks to complete each year of my life, as if in a hurry to shake the years off as a swan shakes drops of water off its feathers. But now I feel myself being drawn back into youth. The mysterious haze beckoning, taunting. And I try desperately, rubbing my eyes, to get a clearer picture of my past. I see a hazy vision of myself energetically cranking my HMV gramophone, eager to hear how Elvis sounds on his latest release. A blue cloud lifts to show me a boy skipping school to stand outside the airport and gaze awestruck at those magnificent flying machines.

And I look at myself. Or is it really me? How much I have changed. How bravely I had faced the world then. The exuberance of youth now gone forever. Nostalgia never leaves us. In my childhood I spent hours on end with sanguine thoughts of my utopian future. Thinking … about the cars I would have… The day I would actually travel in an airplane… my own family… When was the switchover? At what stage did my day dreams of the future become day dreams of the past? I long to pinpoint the stage at which the suffix “Uncle” was added to my first name. Or to put it bluntly, the stage at which I became “legitimately old.” Perhaps it was gradual. Maybe at some point, I spent equal amounts of time thinking of my past and my future. I can’t recall now. But I can, now, think of some indications of this change. The day I actually felt a sting of satisfaction when I met a long lost classmate of mine and found that he had lost more hair than I.

The blue cloud descends and the scene is lost. I try and look further back. My eyes trying to push away the fog and pull the past a little closer to me for a clearer view. I hardly notice the clearings which reveal the not so pleasant memories. My first broken leg. The first ‘F’ on my report card. The death of my pet cat… I wonder… am I pulling the past closer to me… to prevent the exchange of a certain past with an uncertain future? The human reflex to clutch on to familiarity and shun risk, personal risk.

Today, with my white, thinning hair and wrinkled face, I find it impossible to be hopeful about the future. I spend hours looking back with nostalgia but the future is always looked upon with awe – and sometimes – dread. Why do we humans assume death to be something terrible? Is it because it is in the future? Something we have never experienced? Something we know nothing about? Then why is it that a youth looks upon that same future with hope and with a cheerful face while I look upon it as inevitable and try so very hard to accept it?

At a certain age the dread and awe are replaced with the “brave” smile of reconciliation. I seem to take pride in the fact that I am closer to “the end” than you are. “See how brave and cheerful I am” I call out quietly to everyone I meet. The superiority I feel is reflected in the pat on the back I give to the young I meet. Every action of mine in their presence seems to tell them “you’ll get here soon. Let’s see how brave you are then.” “I am brave” I assure myself. The fact that I need to reconcile myself to my fate implies that the end is something undesirable. The eighteen year old boy who just walked across the street doesn’t seem to be struggling to accept the inevitable confrontation with his uncertain future. Perhaps this is the wisdom that comes with age. Perhaps it is my wisdom that convinces me that I need to resign myself to the “terrible end” that it reaching out for me. The black hand stretching out to squeeze the breath out of my body. If wisdom means nothing more than an awareness of the mortality of man, I want no part of it. How lucky fools are!

But I worry. My wisdom incessantly reminds me of my glowing past and dim future. Nostalgia overcomes me. I know. Every single day I spend moving towards my bleak future obscures, erases totally one day of my glorious past. A day I can never look back on. The mist thickens. One more day of my life is lost.

**           **           **

RAJIV VAIDYANATHAN

Address:   C – 6/57, S.D.A

                 New Delhi – 110 016

[Written circa 1984 February 1987]

Back to Blog

I predict that this blog is going to go through a sudden burst of activity. At least for this burst, the posts on this blog will shift from random thoughts to a focused stream. It will remain consistent with the overriding theme of my doing this for me and me alone. But now, this blog will also serve as an online "cloud" repository of historical documents and writings that are important to me personally.

Looking through the box, bald spot and all!

What triggered this? Going through an old box of stuff from my youth. In this box, I found a variety of things that drowned me in nostalgia. Several of the items relate to my great-grand-parents (e.g., biographies from magazines) and I felt that some of this deserved to be accessible online for anyone to access - though it will probably be primarily of interest to our vast family. As far as I know, none of this material is available online anywhere else.

I also read an article in the paper today about research showing that Google is changing the way our brains work (Science, 2011). We tend to allocate our information processing capacity towards things that are important and relevant to us. As Google makes a vast trove of information easily accessible so that we don't have to actually remember all this stuff any more, our brains are diverting their cognitive capacities towards other things - like where stuff is stored (as opposed to WHAT that stuff is).It's true. All the materials I found in this box brought back a flood of memories and I wondered why this information wasn't more easily accessible. I would like to offload some of my memories to the online world so it can be easily accessed by myself and my friends and family in the hope it will keep these bonds through time rather than just when I stumble upon an old box of knick knacks.

Already, Facebook has enabled me to connect with several of the people dusted off from within the box I opened yesterday. What a world! Coincidentally, I watched the movie "Social Network" this weekend. I really believe now that social networking sites like Facebook (or whatever other incarnation happens to dominate in the next decade) are stunning achievements in their ability to connect people not just across space, but across time. Sure, enough has been written about the problems with sites like Facebook, but on days like this, I just marvel at its ability to connect people over the years. I found one person from my past and found he was connected to just one or two other people. Each of those people had connections with just one or two other people from my youth. Within a few hours, I had connected with people from my school, college, and acting group based in different continents.

Then, there is my own stuff. I used to love to write and I found notebooks and typed pages of stuff I wrote in the early eighties. Now, that by itself is not so interesting. What stunned me is that some of those brief essays are astonishingly well written even with my jaded professor's eyes of today. Truly, I am quite stunned at what I wrote when I was 18 years old. Surprisingly, some of the content still seems contemporary and appropriate even today. For example, I found this short essay I wrote called "Nostalgia" which is written from the perspective of an old man looking back at his past and his youth. Now, what could an 18-year-old possibly know about old age and nostalgia? At the "ripe old age" of 44, I am reading this and still can't find much fault with the perspective. And, it seems so well written. I remember writing it, but can't emotionally connect with the person I was when I wrote this. It just seems to be better written than anything I could come up with today. What happened to me?

So, that should prepare you for what is to come on this blog over the next few days/weeks. A documentation of my past, essentially. You'll hear and see from my grand parents, great grand parents, and even the young me. I'll refer to friends and associates (please drop me a note to have any references/links/images redacted) and hopefully build a searchable online repository of my personal history.

So, let's start, quite appropriately, with an essay I wrote (most likely in 1984 or 1985 at the age of 17 or 18) called "Nostalgia." Wait for it tomorrow ...

What Makes a Best Friend?

I was in a meaningless, meandering online conversation with a friend recently and I started wondering why, at the end of an hour of chatting, I still had this smile on my face. In terms of "productivity" I hadn't achieved much. We had each said several trivial little things and a few  deeper, heartfelt things, and we ended the chat knowing we'd be doing this again soon.

I realized that what made this conversation special was that it was comfortable. I never had to think much before responding because I could be exactly who I am without having to put in the effort to sound clever, thoughtful, or deep. I think you have a best friend when you can just be yourself with them and not have to converse on tenterhooks wondering if some part of the interaction is going to hurt you down the line. You feel comfortable with them because you know they like you for who you are.

It's certainly not that best friends are blind to each others faults (I think those friendships rarely last). Rather the opposite. You acknowledge each others quirks and faults and issues and decide that the good outweighs the bad. When you know that they know your quirks and blemishes and faults and are still willing to spend time with you, you have a best friend. Once you know that you don't have to hide your own unique foibles and hangups from your friend because they're not going to reject you for it, you can just be yourself and have the kind of meaningless conversations and leave happy.

I had someone tell me once about their latest beau, "He's perfect. I just can't see any flaws in him." My thought to myself was "Uh, oh." Best friends, in my opinion, do not see each other as perfect or infallible in any way. The key is not to see no flaws, but to see the flaws, acknowledge them, and still decide that the good outweighs the bad and the relationship is worth pursuing. And, it's not even as simple as magnanimously declaring that you see your friend's flaws and accept them. It requires recognizing and accepting your own flaws. We are all quirky, irrational, and flawed in some way and unless we see that we ourselves have just as many quirks as the other party, there is an imbalance that will never lead to that level of "comfort" with the other party with which I started this essay. You not only have to see and accept your friends' flaws, but have to know that they have seen and accepted your flaws. Then you can relax and be yourself and have the sort of relationship of which dreams are made.

This dream relationship is not without fights, arguments or misunderstandings. In fact, I have got extremely irritated with the behavior of my "best friends" more than once. The flaws don't disappear in a BFF relationship. They often rear their head and lead to frustrations and disagreements. But, the difference with a best friend is that you come back. In the midst of your frustration, you know, in the back of your head, that you're not going to to discard the relationship because of this latest tiff. The good outweighs the bad.

That's why, in my obituary, I hope I don't come across as the perfect guy. I'd know people were lying and pretending that I was who I wasn't. Rather, the most honest compliment anyone could give me would be "at heart, he was a nice guy!"

I Hope We Lose Today!

Most of us involved in psychology research are fully aware of the biases we all carry with us constantly.  What we think and feel about others and our environments is colored by our personal biases and is often shockingly removed from the "truth" as we see it.  We believe we are right and know what's right even though it is probably not true.

Sometimes, these different perspectives we each have on events crash into each other and give us a glimpse of how different our views are from others.  So, last season, I was driving my 8-year-old son to one of his many hockey games and he was chattering away in the back seat.  At some point, he proclaims, "I hope we lose our game today!"  Confident he was being silly and playing an "opposite game" of some sort, I laughed and said something like "Right, as if you want to lose.  You mean, I hope we win big today."

In a perfectly serious voice, he replied "No, Dad.  Today I really hope we lose the game."

"Why?" I asked, wondering if there was some turmoil on his team such that he no longer wanted his team to succeed.

"Because my friend Carter is on the team we are playing and I don't want him to feel bad if they lose," he said with utmost sincerity.

All I heard was the crash of clashing perspectives.

Our son's hockey coach forwarded a great little article to all of us parents today and reading it reminded me of this event from last season.  It is just a fascinating little piece written by a youth hockey coach.  Read through it and tell me what you think:
http://www.truesportpur.ca/en/resources-/stories-6-i-hope-they-didn-t-bring-apple-juice