"Papa" As I Knew Him by Indira Gopal

“Papa” as I knew him

“Papa” was quiet and withdrawn almost to the point of being shy with strangers. But to those who knew him, he was kind and thoughtful and always had encouraging and positive advice. He would use anecdotes from his cavernous memory and sometimes humor to make the point. In his later years, I thought Papa related better with children than with adults, whom he generally shied away from. He loved the uncomplicatedness and innocence of children. He loved talking to children and was able to elicit a line or two of humor that reflected their innocence.

Papa used to have regular conversations with the servant maid’s son called Anniyappan. He found him absolutely fascinating. Every morning he used to ask him what he had eaten for breakfast. Anniyappan was just 5 or 6 years old and used to repeat the same answer everyday- pazhaythu, which means left overs. He listened to it for a few days and one day he finally asked him, “when are you ever going to eat the fresh food that your mother just cooked?”.

Papa really tried to make light of everything through humor. When I think about this I wonder whether this was one way of his facing the relentless and unforgiving problems that were dished out to him. He had lost his siblings, his first child while he was still in his Twenties. He had two strokes before the age of 46 and was left with partial paralysis. These were more than what one person could handle. Luckily he was married to “Mummy” who could share them and somewhat lighten the burden.

It was always a wonder for me how he handled his literal “falling from the heavens” when he was hit by two strokes at the height of his career in the ICS. It was one thing having to give up the ICS with all its trappings but yet another to be saddled by physical problems, not even being able to balance his gait without a stick. This must have been most humbling. He somehow managed to hold his head high and keep his dignity despite the adversities.

In his latter days he had made himself a routine with Mummy’s help to get up early in the morning, finish his bath, do his pranayamam for three hours. As far as I can remember it included Lalitha Sahasranamam, Soundarya Lahari and Durga Saptha Sathi. I think Mummy`got him started in this direction but he took it to a whole different level. He had read many original religious texts including the Koran and many versions of the Bible. His skills with languages as far flung as Arabic and Sanskrit helped him become a scholar in these areas. At one point I had heard he had contemplated comparing the Valmiki Ramayanam in Sanskrit, Kamba Ramayanam in Tamil and the Ramanayam in Telugu.

With all that learning and scholarship, he had become spiritual rather than religious. He did not seem to believe in rituals. All he did was light an ooduvathi (incense stick) before he started his parayanam. This could have been a symbol ism for the almighty or for the cycle of birth and death which is the philosophy of Advaita. This had resulted in our late friend Sundarajan, who himself was a religious scholar, commenting that Papa had become “Pure intellect personified”. Watching Mummy and Papa , I realized this was a great way to find peace in our own lives. We feel fortunate they came to America and spent time with all of us.

I feel proud to think back of the stories my father and Papa used to tell us about their Presidency College days together in Madras and their days in London of 1930 sharing digs in Mrs. Paterson’s house. They both did Chemistry together at Presidency College and later met up in London, my father studying and competing his accountancy exams and Papa completing his ICS exams. They had a lot of funny stories to share with us about their mutual friends Mohan and Ramanujam. From their accounts it seemed that they had quite a fun time in London. It must have been quite a bold adventure on their parts to go to London for further studies in those days. They must have been some of the early pioneers in this regard.