The Bandh

The Bandh
Iyer, whose strong pair of legs walked this earth for ninety-three years, was the kind you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and had something positive to say. Asked how he was doing he would reply, "Things couldn't be better". For him, "Life is all about choices. Every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood." The bottom line is "It's your choice how you live your life". Through his brilliant and unexpected ways, he made things happen particularly when others insisted that there were compelling reasons why something could not be done.
Iyer did not begin his career at the bottom rung of the ladder. He began in the basement. A Palghat Iyer, he came to Mumbai when he was sixteen packing all his belongings in a rusty old tin box and indeed boarded at the Olavakkode Jn. with a one-way ticket in hand to GIP Dadar and prayers in his lips. The eldest of eleven siblings, he hailed from a remote village in Palghat, which as per Mr. T N Seshan produced 'cooks and civil-servants'. Iyer proved Mr. Seshan wrong for having equipped with yet another 'C', he became a clerk, a steno and subsequently rose to become the right hand man of a reputed industrialist of Maharashtra (B D Garware; and perhaps the IES officer which S Ganesan refers in his article may recall his association with fond memories) and stuck to Garwares till he retired. Somewhere down the line while still struggling with his Pitman’s Shorthand, he decided to shed that extra growth on his head –the tuft (Kudumai) due to sheer maintenance problems rather than office civility. “When it was so difficult to make both ends meet, where was the cash for Til oil for the tuft?” he would say. His culinary accomplishments would put to shame any house- wife. But his own wife easily out distanced him. "She could at short notice produce seven different dishes", he would say with tears in his eyes, for he lost his wife four years back. “We were in perfect harmony! We both agreed that “Madisaaru podavai” was not a requirement and a five yards saree was good enough for Mumbai’, he would chuckle.
Last year on Aug 15th, he took part in the walkathon for the last time and all his body building exercises at Matunga Athletic Club (MAC) came in handy. He was given the honour of hoisting the national flag at the gathering of the Residents Association, where his son had settled after retirement! Reminiscing his days in the early forties, Iyer was describing in his speech how he got injured protecting his (the then) five year old son from being lathi-charged at Juhu beach where he had gone to hear Gandhiji speak on the 'non-co-operation' movement.
"But that pales in comparison to that unforgettable incident in seventies when I got broken ribs after being thrashed to a pulp and left to die by the striking workers on a dharana, when I went pleading to restore order amongst them" he said.
“What happened?" queried his friends in unison, sipping tea at the flag hoisting ceremony. “Nothing much. I remembered that I had two choices. I could choose to live or die. I chose to live. The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was fine. When they wheeled me into the emergency room, the nurse asked me if I was allergic to anything."
I said, "Yes." The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, “Bandhs, dharanas and hartals- that's what I am allergic to". Over their laughter I told them " I want to live at least till my son comes from the border area where he is posted". Iyer swooned but survived thanks to the doctors and his own amazing attitude.
I read with a big lump in my throat that brilliant article of S Ganesan here in the Pattar group and I resolved to take on from where Iyer left and try and fill the void left by such great Palghat Iyers with humility and humbleness and of course with the fear in my mind "What if... I do not succeed"? I endorse every word of S Ganesan's article for we have lived through the same. S Ganesan may also know that most of us were perennially on debt from the South Indian Concerns Society/Co-op Bank paying back in installments so that we could remit that meagre amount each month for the sustenance of that distant family at a remote village in Palghat.
Iyer and I have the kind of relationship that I wish every one would be able to experience. It embodies the true meaning of trust, caring, risk-taking and all else that a relationship could embrace in our hurried and harried lives of Bandhs and hartals;(so very nicely brought out by S Ganesan in his article!) I learnt from Iyer that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude after all is everything.
I know because Iyer was my father. And we just performed his seventh Masikam.
Yours most humbly,

V V R (A retired Air Vice Marshal)
12th May 2005.