JOIN USThe Trichy connection
I had the opportunity to visit Trichy (Tiruchirappalli) a few years ago, a place I’d never been to. And since I had a lot of time on my hands after work, my hosts offered to show me the sights. So I was taken to the famous Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam, the island on the River Kaveri, where one of the priests insisted that their temple was higher in the hierarchy than even Tirupati. Not one to argue over matters beyond my realm, I just admired the phenomenal architecture and the twenty-seven feet long idol of Sri Ranganatha (Lord Vishnu) and let myself be taken for the extra-special darshana that overwhelmed me. I haven’t figured out why. The Kaveri and Kollidam rivers flow around Srirangam Island. Since I had already been to the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangapattana, I now had only the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Shivanasamudra left to visit of the three major temples built on islands on the River Kavery. Fascinating.
Then we proceeded to the temple of Lord Ganesha in the Rock Fort on top of a hill where I was treated to an ethereal view of the sunset. That was when an imposing set of buildings with a huge campus was pointed out as St. Joseph’s College (established in 1844), the very one Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had studied at. I had read somewhere that he had studied at St. Joseph’s College, but hadn’t realised that it was the one at Trichy.
Anyway, when I got back to Delhi, I informed my father about my trip. Incidentally, I had learnt from past experiences that it is best to inform my father about a visit to any place only after the visit. Or he’ll invariably try and get the place scouted in advance. He’d send someone to check on the hotel, the loo, the kitchen… Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the picture.
I thus found out then that my father had spent a few years himself at St Joseph’s College as a student in the hostel, while his father was posted at Thanjavur. With my grandfather having been posted all over the erstwhile Madras Presidency at short intervals, I’d lost track of all the places my father had lived in. The two years at St. Joseph’s had left him with fond memories in a great hostel.
Could it be that Dr. Kalam and he were at St. Joseph’s College at the same time? I wish I had checked with the Ex-President at the Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2015 after his filled-to-capacity talk when I had the chance. Now it is too late.