JOIN USGrandfather and grandmother: a memoir
Among my earliest memories are those of sleeping at night between my grandparents on their double bed, and not with my parents, with whom my younger brother, Tilak, used to sleep. And of my grandmother nagging and not allowing my grandfather to sleep to get what she wanted, which I dimly recollect at that time was, more than anything, to set up an ashram for the syncretic Muslim-Hindu religious guru and group she followed. My grandparents loomed very large during my childhood and early boyhood, almost eclipsing my parents.
Grandfather, K N Guruswamy, was a strongly built, muscular, if short, stout man with broad, powerful shoulders and limbs. His was the body of a wrestler and bodybuilder, an outdoorsman, a shikari and a horse rider, who had a variety of physical exercise gear in his rooms. His personal servant, Ramaiah, would give him his daily bath, and my younger brother and I used to have our weekly oil bath every Saturday with him.
I grew up very close to my grandmother, Kadiramma, an independent-minded, strong-willed, capable, if an earthy and unlettered woman, who lacked the graces and refinement of an educated, urban society. I used to lie with my head on her lap as she sat on the floor rug, chewing tobacco and holding court in a small, triangular side room in the front of the house. She used to take my side and try to shield me, not always successfully, from my mother’s wrath. In the last years of her life, she did manage to build the ashram on a four-and-a-half-acre piece of land which grandfather bought for the purpose in what was then the outskirts of Bangalore. She would go there in her small, black Wolseley car driven by her driver, Krishna Reddy. Besides the usual activities, she used to oversee the annual aradhana that was held for the devotees there. She died in 1965 when I was a teenager. She was buried as she had wished in the ashram land and not in the family graveyard where grandfather had built grand chhatris on the samadhis of his father and mother. When he died 25 years later, grandfather too was buried as he had desired next to her and not next to his parents as he would have originally envisaged.
‘True to his word’
Grandfather loved children and they in turn loved him too. He was on the same wavelength as and delighted in playing with them. Childless, he adopted his younger brother’s son, my father, whose mother had died of TB when he was still a small child. He brought him up with great love and care. He arranged my father’s marriage to my mother who was from a rich family in Hyderabad and Nizamabad. “My everything is for him,” he declared, which was reassuring for my mother’s parents to hear. And inducted him into his newspaper company as Secretary, which was something like Chief Operating Officer today.
Later, despite some tensions and misunderstandings that had arisen between them, when my father died at the relatively young age of 47, he was utterly devastated. Regretting his actions and courageously disregarding his long-time business associate Venkataswamy’s fierce and unyielding opposition, he made sure that his newspaper company’s shares were transferred to his three grandsons and oversaw their induction into the business. He also ensured that after he died what remained of his wealth was also transferred to his three grandsons equally. In this as in many other things, he was true to his word, which was a key tenet of his.
When we were boys, he used to take my younger brother and me to the vanam (forest) where he would oversee work in the palm tree plantations from which the sap which becomes toddy liquor was extracted and to distribute salaries to the workers. For this purpose, he had a specially built bus which was driven by his driver, Muniswamy. We used to stay in a large hut with a thatched roof and hardened mud floors smeared with cow dung which stood at the head of a clearing on either side of which were rows of smaller huts of the tappers. Neither my brother nor I could ever get used to the smell of the toddy which used to be collected in large barrels and loaded onto the trucks to be sent to the shops in areas where grandfather had got the right to sell toddy by bidding in excise auctions conducted by the government.
A house full of trophies
He was also there for shikar, the sport of kings. Accompanying him would be a man we knew only as Ranger who was a forester with experience in Burma. For this he had a wide range of guns, the most prized of them was the double-barrelled .375 Holland and Holland Magnum rifle. He also had a .470 bore double-barrelled rifle with which he had shot and killed an elephant after it was declared rogue. Sometimes his motorboat would be tugged along for duck shooting in lakes. We were witness mostly to the shooting of small game — belwas and other birds, flying foxes, wild goats and the like. By that time his big game hunting days were behind him due to his age and also because of the clearance of forest land and loss of wild animals. But our house was filled with trophies of earlier hunting trips — heads and skins of tigers and other big cats, gaur, bear, sambar, deer horns. There were also the large tusks (which were mounted upright on a wooden base with my great grandfather’s photo hanging in the middle), trunk (as a walking stick stand), and feet (as stools) of the sole elephant. Sometimes he would shoot and drink the blood of belwas, a kind of pigeon-like bird, after mixing it with some spices and go to sleep to recover from the warmth in his body.
Never placed a bet, ever
Grandfather loved horses, horse riding and horse racing. He had his favourite horse, Panchkalyani, which he had named in Sanskrit for its five large white patches — one on the lower part of each of its legs and one on its forehead — at home. Initially, he would take us for a ride in the compound of the house, and as we grew older sent us riding in the neighbourhood. As young boys, he would take us to the riding club early in the morning where we would ride in the enclosures and open fields. And to the Gymkhana races which were for amateur horse riders and later to the thoroughbred horse races. He held many senior positions including Steward and Chairman at the Bangalore Race (later Turf) Club and was linked to other turf authorities nationwide. For him, horse racing was the sport of the aristocracy. Though he was an enthusiast, he was proud of the fact that he never placed a bet in his whole life.
The office of his toddy and arrack (country liquor) business was in a building adjacent to our main house. He had his room there and in adjacent rooms sat his trusted, long-time assistants and managers — Shanmugam, Ashirvadam, Govindappa, Ramachandra Rao, among others. And as we grew older, we were taken to the excise auctions where he with his partners used to bid for the right to sell toddy and arrack in shops in certain areas. He had inherited this business from his father, K Nettakallappa, and it was based on our traditional caste occupation, toddy tapping. Most of the partners in his businesses were close and wider family, caste-fellows and friends associated with the family across generations.
A relationship that came at a cost
In all his business activities, grandfather depended on K Venkataswamy, who, according to family elders, was the son of a man whom my great grandfather had made a supervisor in his toddy business after rescuing him, as someone of his own community, from the law and rehabilitating him. Fearing he may go astray great grandfather had taken Venkataswamy under his wing, and impressed by his sharpness, encouraged him by giving him some assignments for his advancement. In boyhood, he had been a playmate to grandfather and his brothers. He was a somewhat lean man of quick, sharp intelligence, Chanakyan cunning, strong likes and dislikes, iron will and great ability who ruled by playing off one rival against another. I recall seeing him do business with a small notebook in which he would write down and score out the day’s tasks after completing them and a rotary dial landline telephone which he would be constantly dialling.
He was a foil for and complemented grandfather well as he had many capabilities that grandfather lacked but required. They got along well and formed a long-standing and mutually fruitful business relationship. Since grandfather was not interested in the nuts and bolts of running the business, Venkataswamy became indispensable to him. Grandfather also used him to interact and lobby with the Government. Over time grandfather made him a partner and gave him a share in his liquor business which increased gradually until, in Venkataswamy’s last years, it became equal to grandfather’s own. He also gave him a share in the newspaper company and involved him in the management as director from the start. My hunch is that this worked like present-day ESOPs and giving Venkataswamy a stake was a key factor in grandfather’s success in business.
But this relationship came with a cost. It aggravated tensions in grandfather’s relationships with his younger brothers and the joint family was divided amidst recriminations over the distribution of the family business and even led to inter-sibling counterbidding in auctions. Though there was reconciliation some years later, things between the brothers were never quite the same again. It was the main cause of extreme strain to the point of near breakdown in his relationship with his beloved son, which issue was resolved only after my father’s death. But in Kadiramma, Venkataswamy found his match — she barred him from entering her house. On his death, his children approached us to buy his shares in the newspaper company as they were in dire financial straits. Long-time partners in the arrack company wondered in amazement, “where did all that much money go?”
An unlikely founder
Grandfather seemed to me, and many who knew him, to be an unlikely founder of newspapers considering his personal, caste and business background. But I never got around to asking him nor did he tell me or anybody I know why and how he decided to start Deccan Herald and Prajavani. Clearing his papers some years back, I chanced upon a letter dated 8 December 1938 written to him by a prominent public personality, leader of the Brahmin community and businessman of Bangalore and Mysore State of the time, B K Garudachar, who writes: “I write to acknowledge receipt of the sum of Rs. 2500-00 so kindly sent by you in connection with the proposed Kannada newspaper…I shall be glad if you could kindly arrange to be present at the next provisional committee…and extend your kindly cooperation.”
In his self-aggrandising booklet, The Story of Deccan Herald, written in 1975 to proclaim his total victory over my father in their feud, Venkataswamy claimed that he was responsible for starting the newspaper at the suggestion of the then Diwan of Mysore State, Arcot Ramaswamy Mudaliar, in 1948. He claimed that he went straight to his “boyhood friend and partner,” K N Guruswamy, and proposed a 50:50 partnership. According to him, grandfather, recalling that he had lost substantial money publishing a Kannada newspaper called Mathrubhumi, pleaded with him that “You should build this up for me only.” So, he writes, he acceded to grandfather’s plea.
In his memoir “Deccan Herald — the first five years” written in 1996, the first news editor of Deccan Herald and a Bangalorean, E V Scott writes, “Deccan Herald would never have appeared had it not been for C G K Reddy. As general manager and my trusted confidant he played a crucial role in convincing the directors of whom K N Guruswamy was the motivating force, that an English newspaper could succeed.” “CGK knew he [Pothan Joseph] was unhappy with Ramnath Goenka, the proprietor of the Indian Express, so a feeler was put out…It did not take much persuasion on CGK’s part…” Scott makes no mention of Ramaswamy Mudaliar in his memoir. In his foreword to Venkataswamy's booklet, O Pulla Reddy ICS (Retd.), recalling his decades-long friendship with Venkataswamy and grandfather, writes, "When I held a top position in the erstwhile Mysore Government from 1944-46, I noticed a glaring void in the public life of the State...I mentioned to my friends the idea of starting a first-class English daily in Bangalore...my two friends were naturally nervous of venturing into a field to which they were total strangers. Apparently, under the dynamic guidance of Sir A R Mudaliar, the idea took concrete shape." These different claims bring to mind the proverb, “Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan.”
In his foreword to Venkataswamy's booklet, grandfather writes, "I have carefully gone through this account. The booklet makes interesting reading." After stating that Venkataswamy and he were “lifelong friends”, he adds, “Thus it was that when the idea of starting an English newspaper in Bangalore crystallised, he and I decided how it should be organised and effectively run.” Further, he continues, “I gratefully recall the readiness with which Sri Venkataswamy agreed to actively associate himself with the direction and management of the firm since the dark days of September 1950, when the papers were facing acute problems, financial and other.” By writing that it was a joint decision, grandfather implicitly questions Venkataswamy’s portrayal of himself as the sole driving force behind Deccan Herald from its origin to 1975. Further, he does not follow the other five foreword contributors in vouching for the correctness of Venkataswamy’s account of its origin. In fact, he makes no mention of A Ramaswamy Mudaliar at all. Unfortunately, he does not elaborate on how the idea crystallised. Maybe it was not the appropriate occasion for that.
There are also other silences. In their respective forewords to the booklet, A Ramaswamy Mudaliar and B V Narayan Reddy both endorse Venkataswamy’s narration. However, at an Arya Idigara Sangha function on Saturday 22 April 1967 to felicitate Venkataswamy and grandfather, though Venkataswamy does thank Ramaswamy Mudaliar for his crucial help during the starting of Deccan Herald, neither Mudaliar or Reddy say anything about this in their addresses as reported in Deccan Herald and Prajavani. In fact, the newspaper reports themselves also are silent on any link between Ramaswamy Mudaliar and the Deccan Herald. On Pothan Joseph’s death, the report in Deccan Herald Friday 3 November 1972 merely states, “After Independence Mr Joseph was offered the editorship of Deccan Herald which task he took up with fervour.”
Though in his 1992 biography 'Pothan Joseph’s India' T J S George quotes profusely from his utterances, letters and writings to family, friends and the public, there is no quotation from Joseph himself relating to the founding of Deccan Herald or how he came to join the newspaper. George’s narration on this matter is largely similar to Venkataswamy’s account without any attribution.
Also, in the inaugural issue of Deccan Herald dated 17 June 1948, a copy of the message from the Mysore State Congress President T Siddalingaiya is displayed at the top of page one. At the top of page 5, there is a report of the inauguration function which at the beginning states that the Dewan of Mysore was among the dignitaries who were in attendance. But the name of A Ramaswamy Mudaliar does not figure in Venkataswamy’s speech on behalf of the directors which is quoted at length, in the long editorial, “Ourselves,” in Pothan Joseph’s column “Over a cup of tea,” or anywhere else in relation to the newspaper’s launch.
Finally, Arcot Ramaswamy Mudaliar was an important leader of the non-Brahmin Justice Party which had a substantial following in the Tamil-speaking areas of the erstwhile Madras Presidency and which, fearing Brahmin domination in a unified, independent India, was during the last years of British rule fighting for a separate, sovereign Dravida Nadu nation and state comprising the Dravidian-language speaking areas of South India. It is widely believed that at Independence he advised the Maharaja of Mysore not to accede to the Indian Union, which if true would be in line with his commitment. But it is not clear what interest he could possibly have had in suggesting that he start an English newspaper to someone who although non-Brahmin and Dravidian-language speaking did not, like most of the people of Mysore State, share his political ideology and agenda. In fact, it can be argued that considering their indifference to non-Brahmin and backward classes politics pre-and post-Independence and their commitment to a unified Indian nation and state, Venkataswamy’s and grandfather’s idea of what constituted the public good and service was in this very important respect diametrically opposed to that of Ramaswamy Mudaliar.
A famous editor on board...
Another intriguing question: how did grandfather, a businessman in Bangalore which was at that time at best a small city and a backwater, manage to get a nationally famous editor like Pothan Joseph who had held top positions in major newspapers in Bombay, Delhi, Karachi, Madras? The most likely possibility seems to be that Ramaswamy Mudaliar suggested Pothan Joseph’s name in order to find an assignment for his friend who was exploring journalistic opportunities in Madras at the time. It is not difficult to imagine that grandfather, who had been involved in failed newspaper projects earlier, would have seized an opportunity to get a famous editor. All this is not much more than a speculative reconstruction on my part of what might have happened based on an analysis of the available evidence, including the mutually incompatible claims made decades later by different persons each with their own motivation and agenda. This is probably all that can be said until some other related private or public record of the key persons or their associates, particularly from the time of the founding, comes to light. That Pothan Joseph, then in his prime, for whatever reason not only took up this assignment as editor of a new newspaper with at best uncertain prospects but continued in that post for a decade, was undoubtedly an important factor in the success of the new venture.
Besides, the timing was propitious. Grandfather had the wherewithal, interest and commitment to execute and sustain such an ambitious project. According to his managers, during World War II, he had made unprecedented profits in the toddy business because the government had called for bids for longer periods. This enabled him to be the majority shareholder by far and control the new company. Independence had just dawned and the nation had embarked on the path of democracy. It was the first full-fledged English language journalistic venture in Bangalore and the state of Mysore, later larger, unified Karnataka. Bangalore was just starting on the path of transformation into becoming one of the nation’s large metropolises and the nation’s IT and innovation capital in a globalised world.
The initial years were very difficult financially and organisationally, even if the circulation of Deccan Herald and Prajavani, which was started four months later on October 15, was growing slowly and steadily. This was partly because grandfather was new to this business. Besides renting out his personal property on Mahatma Gandhi Road to the newspaper company for a nominal rent, grandfather pumped in more and more money as interest-free loans for some years. I was told by senior journalists in our newspapers that even when at one stage everyone, including Venkataswamy, advised him to cut his losses and shut the newspapers down, he alone overcame despondency and decided to persevere. Even though things stabilised after the first decade, it was another 20 years before the company started to make substantial profits. By that time, the newspapers and Kannada magazines, Sudha and Mayura, which had been launched in the mid-1960s, had achieved pre-eminence in the city and state. By the time of his death aged 89 in 1990, grandfather had guided the newspaper company as its Chairman and Governing (later Managing) Director for 42 years.
Born to command
In his businesses, grandfather stuck to some principles. He pulled out of the toddy business in the late 1960s because he did not want to mix the chemical chloral hydrate, which had been considered injurious to health, and hence became uncompetitive with other bidders. He was used to paying his government auction bid dues and taxes on time regularly and so could not bid competitively in a situation where others were able to delay payment and/or get waivers. So by the mid-1980s, very old and Venkataswamy no longer with him, he had to exit the arrack business.
When I told him that a major partner had asked me to ask him again whether he would, as I had suggested to him earlier, like to exit his ancestral business to which he might have a sentimental attachment, he brushed aside any such considerations and reiterated his decision to withdraw from the loss-making arrack company.
Working with him I found him clear-sighted in business and management matters — clarity in setting his goals and clarity in giving decisions, directions and orders. He was born to command and to have his orders obeyed. He was fully aware of the power of the press and directed his newspapers accordingly. “The press is a very powerful instrument. One can divide a nation with it,” is how he used to phrase it. Taking leave on his retirement in 1980, the editor of Deccan Herald, V K Narasimhan, reassured him, “You have sound business instinct.” This was, in my assessment, the secret of his success in business over a lifetime. When in the mid-1980s I told him we were planning to use the substantial profits we were making in the newspaper business to diversify into new businesses, he mocked me saying, “let alone starting a new business, even if the three of you [brothers], without quarrelling, are able to carry on what I have built that will be a big achievement.” He was prescient.
Into the public arena
Grandfather did foray into the public arena as such when he played a major role in organising his Idiga or toddy tapping community for its socio-economic and political upliftment and advancement. He was the founding President of the Mysore Arya Idigara Sangha in 1944. Later as President, he was involved in organising state-level conventions in 1958 and Mysuru in 1961 in the newly unified Mysore/Karnataka state to highlight the problems faced by and present the demands of the community to the authorities. At these meetings, links were forged with the toddy tapping communities in neighbouring southern states. Among the important demands was the provision of livelihoods to toddy tappers who it was feared would be badly affected by the impending prohibition policy. He also had the Sangha build students’ hostels in Bengaluru and Ballari. However, though the Idiga community would be considered as part of the backward classes, he did not get involved in the emerging backward classes movement from the 1920s onwards in the Mysore state. Nor did he get involved in the politics of the State pre- or post-Independence. By outlook and inclination, he was averse to modern-day politics. His other social involvement was in freemasonry and he was master of Lodge Star of the South no 101 in Bengaluru first in 1934 and then in 1971 and 1972.
He deeply admired and identified with Tipu Sultan as a great warrior and fighter against the British and prominently displayed four lithographs depicting key stages in his life high up on the walls of the large upstairs dining room of the house. He had great respect for Mahatma Gandhi as a holy man but had doubts about whether non-violence was the suitable and effective path for governance and worldly affairs. He had great admiration for the royalty and strove to lead the life of kings.
Grandfather’s friends were mostly businessmen. And some aristocrats and royalty, of whom he was in awe. Some of his friends were senior judges and officials. Sometimes, he would involve them in his businesses. He gave his friend Khan Bahadur Budan Saheb of Hindupur a share in the newspaper company. Though he did have respect for the senior administrators and public figures at the pre-Independence Mysore court and linked representative institutions, he, by and large, kept away from Congress and other politicians before and after Independence. In moments of disillusion with the post-Independence state of affairs, he would sometimes say, “In some ways, British rule was better. At least, they stuck to some rules.”
A life lived on a grand scale
He was a practising and traditional Hindu. The two festivals which we observed at home were Ugadi and Ayudha Pooja. During Ugadi, the house was cleaned thoroughly and new clothes were worn for the new year. Besides pooja to the family deities, homage was paid to ancestors and included a visit to grandfather’s father’s, mother’s and other close relatives’ samadhis where they were buried. During Ayudha Pooja, pooja was done to all the diverse weapons — rifles, shotguns, revolvers, pistols, swords, daggers — in his armoury and the vehicles. A sheep would to be sacrificed by chopping off its head with a single blow of an axe and its blood ritually smeared on the vehicles. He made many charitable contributions to Hindu mutts and temples as also to nationalist educational institutions.
He had his foibles and could be foolish at times. Having been brought up and living in an atmosphere of wealth and luxury and being surrounded by people serving him, he was cushioned against the harsh realities of life. He retained, till old age, a childlike egoism and narcissism and could be easily flattered. Because he had come to maintain a distance from people in society and got used to depending on his immediate circle to interact with the wider world, he was often out of touch with reality. Since he was a poor judge of character, those who had his ear could manipulate him to their own advantage and damage his relationships with family and friends. Despite that, some relationships endured.
He had great joie de vivre and lived life on a grand scale. He drank deeply at the fountain of the diverse enjoyments that life had to offer, but never in excess. He led an intensely social life, had many friends in the elite of society and threw great parties. He enjoyed good food and would get recipes from the houses and parties he went to and get the cook to make them at home. So we had a very diverse variety of dishes of exquisite taste from different regions and communities in our house. He enjoyed his whisky every evening. He was kind, large-hearted and generous to his relatives and friends, and meant no one any harm. He was paternalistic to his employees, most of whom both at home and in his businesses, were with him for life. “At some point, you have to say enough, otherwise you will let envy get the better of you and you will become discontented and unhappy,” he used to tell us. In his contentment, he exuded wellbeing. Even during his most serious crises, he slept well, he used to say. He was blessed with good health until well into his old age.
He was identified by some iconic markers — the very large solitaire diamond ring on his fingers, the white kachche panche or traditional dhoti drawn between the legs, the closed-collar coat, the large white turban, the black Montblanc pen and the long, black Cadillac car.
He strove to uphold his father’s name as the family name and among the public, he was known as Nettakallappa rather than by his own name. He gave his father's name to his son. He had inherited great wealth from his great father and in turn had passed on a great inheritance of wealth, influence and the respect of society to his grandchildren. He was witness to the continuity of the family with the birth of four great-grandchildren to his three grandsons. All in all, he had lived, in his own terms and those of the now largely superseded and vanished ethos and society of a bygone age, a many-splendoured and fulfilling life. But more than that, he had somehow gone beyond the traditional mould of kings and warriors, of business, religion, caste, and family of the society into which he was born and flourished, and founded and nurtured a newspaper company which aimed to serve the public in the new democratic and independent India and which has endured. Whether in the old world or the new, he was at the centre of whichever sphere of activity he was involved in. He had truly been, as he himself recognised, favoured by fortune.
(The author is the former editor-in-chief of Deccan Herald, Prajavani, Sudha and Mayura and former chairman and managing director of The Printers (Mysore) Pvt Limited.)