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It's a small world

It was overwhelming to realise that not only is it a small world but also populated by progressive thinkers
Last Updated 15 February 2023, 21:07 IST

During our childhood, when the shiny black ambassador car turned the corner into our lane, we siblings looked forward to receiving the elderly figure clad in a cotton dhoti. Reddiar, our father’s friend and mentor, always intrigued us with his simple appearance and powerful aura. Both Reddiar and my father passed on some years ago, yet their names pop up in unexpected places in our lives.

Once, my sister’s next-door neighbour, Ranganayaki, recalled her childhood and how a patron saint was instrumental in changing the course of her life. A school teacher’s daughter, she grew up in Madurantakam, Tamil Nadu. When she passed out of class 8 at the government school in 1952, her elder sister came home for confinement. To help out her overworked mother, the family decided that Ranganayaki would stay home and lend a hand with household chores.

After a few months, a well-dressed gentleman visited Ranganayaki’s home to meet with her uncle, who was an official in a cooperative society. When he saw the girl at home on a school day, he chastised the girl’s uncle and insisted that she be brought to his high school in Madurantakam to be enrolled in class 9. By then, it was already four months into the new term of the school; nevertheless, Ranganayaki got a second chance in her studies, all thanks to this educationist.

Though she successfully completed SSLC with a good rank in her new school, her family got her married to a teacher within a year. Domestic bliss eluded her because of her perpetual hand-to-mouth existence and her ever-expanding family. After she had two children, on a sudden epiphany, she applied for a clerical post in the Defence Accounts Department, for which an SSLC was the minimum qualification. She prepared hard and wrote the competitive exam. She qualified for the interview and successfully secured the job.

Ranganayaki recalled with immense gratitude the timely appearance of her benefactor, Muthulinga Reddiar, without whom she would have been a school dropout. We were thunderstruck to hear the name of our father’s mentor.

Muthulinga Reddiar was the founder of the National Girls’ High School in Madurantakam, and our father was a board member of the school. It was overwhelming to realise that not only is it a small world but also populated by progressive thinkers like Reddiar, who in turn were influenced by our national poet Bharathiyar’s vision of girls’ education.

The postscript to Ranganayaki’s story is that she raised four girls and a boy, gave them all good education, and remained a government servant till her superannuation at 60 years of age. She died peacefully as a pensioner at the age of 75. Even today, a framed picture of Muthulinga Reddiar (a gift from my sister) finds a proud place in her son’s home.

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(Published 15 February 2023, 17:44 IST)

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