Transformation of a cute little colony!

On my first official visit to Chennai in 1967, I had to visit Sastri Nagar in Adyar, responding to a dinner invitation from the Branch Manager of my company. I remember that we had to cross a narrow one way iron bridge over the Adyar river connecting Gandhi Nagar and the areas beyond with the city. A traffic constable was stationed to allow vehicles from either side to go over the bridge alternately. My Branch Manager’s house was one of the dozen independent houses in the area, with plenty of open space all around. I was told that during the rainy season the entire area would be flooded and Sastri Nagar would look like a lake dotted with houses! I never imagined that within seven years I would move to Chennai and settle down in Sastri Nagar, a beautiful little colony then with lovely houses built by retired bureaucrats, upcoming businessmen and a few professionals. By the time I moved to Sastri Nagar, the area had seen some development, with more independent houses. Besant Nagar, lying between Sastri Nagar and the beautiful Elliots beach , was fast developing, with a complex of Housing Board flats serving different stratas of society. For all our daily necessities we had to go to Besant Nagar or walk up to Lattice Bridge Road (LB Road). Laxmi Sagar, the Udupi Restaurant dishing out delicious South Indian snacks, was the only restaurant serving the entire area and it was located (and continues to exist) diagonally opposite Adyar Telephone Exchange. Today, Adyar has a choice of multi-cuisine restaurants offering Indian, Chinese, Italian, Korean, Japanese and Continental flavours You can get every thing- from `pin to elephant`- in Adyar today. In Sastri Nagar, the streets are not sequentially numbered; Eighth Cross St. becomes 5th Cross St., 14th Cross St. merges with 13th Cross St. and the other way around. 7th Cross St. runs parallel to 12th Cross which in turn runs parallel to 8th Cross St. 11th Cross St. cuts across all these streets! Confusing? Imagine the plight of a first time visitor to Sastri Nagar trying to locate an address without proper directions. He will be totally lost in the maze of ‘cross streets’. In the last two decades, greedy builders have managed to tempt the owners of the beautiful houses to go in for joint development of plots, with the result that Sastri Nagar has become a concrete jungle. Many of the streets are witnessing the appearances of commercial ventures in a primarily residential area, transforming the profile of the locality. My home, which is one of the few independent homes surviving, was a peaceful place tucked inside a small lane facing the colony’s only Corporation playground. Today, we are surrounded by multi-storied apartments on three sides leading to a feeling of suffocation. I will, however, not think of leaving Sastri Nagar because of its strategic location. Just a ten-minute walk from my home to the lovely Elliot’s Beach where I can watch the sun rise and breath fresh air every morning. It is another matter that I go for a walk in my car! This article appeared in Adyar Times issue dt.22-28 August,2020

Cricket and I

As a young boy, I was very fond of cricket. Within the compound walls of the building (chawl) complex in Bombay, where I was staying, we played underhand cricket with tennis balls and stumps drawn on the walls of the building. There would be a lot of excitement when we played matches between teams. Invariably it got abandoned midway since some player would break the glass of a window of one of the houses while hitting a six and the householder would come running after us, cursing. Later on, we moved to the Matunga Gymkhana grounds opposite R.A. Podar College, which had a number of cricket pitches. where we began to play with a proper red cricket ball.. If a pitch was not available, we would fix the stumps in any open space available and start playing. But I had a problem. I started wearing glasses from the age of 11. When I broke the first pair within six months of getting them, my father warned me that he could not afford to buy new glasses every time I broke a pair. To ensure safety he got me an old fashioned frame, the type that Mahatma Gandhi wore, which went round the ears and protruded below the ears. When my friends started teasing me and calling me `Budda`, I stopped wearing the glasses until it became difficult for me to see the ball clearly or read what was written on the blackboard in class.. Because of the ‘spectacle’ issue and my fear of losing or breaking it on the cricket ground, I was relegated to the position of the second wicket keeper, standing way behind the wicket keeper to stop the ball when he failed to collect them in his gloved hands. Over the weekends, there were matches played on the pitches between popular teams. On Sundays alone, there would be so many matches, so many fielders and so many balls that it was difficult for onlookers to know who hit which ball where! It was all great fun! Later on, when I was doing my B.Com. in Podar College, I had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with the likes of Farokh Engineer, Indian wicket keeper (who was my classmate) and other popular local cricketers whose names I have forgotten.. Farokh was a very handsome `Bawaji`, always surrounded by pretty girls. I used to envy him. ( The bloated Farokh today continues to look handsome!. I wonder if the girls still chase him?) In the absence of television, running commentary on the radio was very popular among cricket lovers in those days. Vijay Merchant, Vizzy (Maharaja of Vijayanagaram), Sarbadhikari, Balu Alaganan, Anand Rao were very popular commentators who brought the cricket field to life, with their commentary. In spite of India losing most of the matches, the interest in the game was as high then as it is today. Even if the Indian team drew a match with another team, it was considered an achievement. If a batsman stayed on at the crease for a long time, even without scoring, he was considered a great batsman. If a bowler bowled several maiden overs without taking even a single wicket, he was considered a great bowler. Indian Cricket has surely come a long way since then. Throughout my student days, I longed to watch a test match at the Brabourne Stadium of the Cricket Club of India (CCI), but could not do as I could not afford it. Today even when I am offered a pass for the Pavilion enclosure in the MCC in Chennai, I don`t accept it because my interest in cricket has waned. I only watch a few IPL matches when my favourite team CSK is playing and that too when they are batting. What a comedown for a cricket crazy guy who used to maintain a scrap book containing Press Cuttings of all the famous cricketers of the time! That is life! Extracted from my autobiography titled `Courage My Companion`.

Making of Professor Rajan

It was in 1996 that S.R. Ayer, popularly known as “Mani” Ayer, after retiring from Ogilvy & Mather, became the mastermind behind the Advertising Management Course offered by MICA (Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad). He laid the solid foundation that later made the Institute a premier one in Advertising Management in the country. Immediately after he settled down in Chennai in 1994, as the (then) President of the Advertising Club Madras, I requested him to be the Chairman of the All India Advertising Conference of the Ad Club in 1994. He not only masterminded a good programme but also introduced a few interesting ideas to ensure top quality of the sessions without overlapping speakers! The conference brought me close to Mr. Ayer. I became his ardent admirer and started looking upto him for his guidance in my hours of crisis, professionally. He was well known for his legendary leadership qualities and his innate good nature in dealing with people. He became one of my best well wishers. Two years after MICA was started Mr.Ayer invited me to be a guest lecturer at MICA to handle a couple of sessions in Rural Marketing. I put together a presentation of three lectures based on what I had learnt about rural marketing over the years. It was my first presentation on the subject to an outside audience. Though I had been taking classes on general advertising for students at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kothari Academy, Advertising Club etc., it was my first attempt at addressing management students. I was frankly nervous as I expected the bright boys and girls to tear me apart with questions. But my fears were unfounded because the students found my lectures interesting and asked sensible questions which I could easily handle. Mr. Ayer told me later that I had got a rating of 4 out of 5 from the students. My first successful attempt at teaching Rural marketing resulted in my becoming a regular guest faculty in Rural marketing for the next fifteen years not only in Mica but also several other Management Institutes all over India. As the President of Rural Marketing Association of India I even master minded a full two credit Rural Marketing course for MICA and was responsible for implementing it with other specialists in RM. It was a role that I thoroughly enjoyed . The credit for converting me from a professional in rural marketing to Prof. R.V. Rajan in rural marketing must go to Mr. Ayer. He passed away in February, 2010 at the age of 74 leaving behind a big vacuum in the world of advertising. Extracted from my autobiography titled `Courage My Companion`

Sorry, I can`t hear you

In India we believe in having a public address system whether it is a meeting for20 people or 200. It is different in Western countries. I remember attending many Country Representative meetings of IFRA, a non profit organization devoted to Newspaper industry, headquartered in Germany. There would be about 30 to 35 people sitting around a big conference table without any mikes. I was in my mid sixties and was beginning to have hearing problems. While I could hear the talks of representatives with sharp , booming voices, many with feeble and weak voices would be inaudible. I would be unable to follow the heated discussion going on. Suddenly the chairman of the session would turn to me and ask me ` What is your view Rajan`. I would blink with embarrassment. I would reply sheepishly, `Sorry, I couldn`t hear the full discussion and have no views` Later I got a hearing aid only for my right ear as the audiologist told me that my left ear was ok. When I attended the next big meeting with confidence, I realized I had a new problem. Though I could hear any discussion taking place on the right side clearly, the discussions on the left side were not that clear. So the embarrassment continued. Until I started wearing an expensive pair of hearing aids in both my ears. Today I go round telling people proudly that I am wearing two expensive diamond ear rings! Fortunately, now I can hear much better with the hearing aids. Loss of hearing as you age is inevitable in every one`s life. But many people resist from going for hearing aids or don`t use them regularly if they have bought inexpensive aids. The normal refrain is` The first thing I hear is the cawing of crows and there is so much outside noise that I can`t hear what is spoken`. Many people avoid using the hearing aids at home because they can shut off the constant nagging by their wives. I know of many wives going through hell trying to communicate with husbands who cannot hear. A friend with a severe hearing loss is not bothered that people dealing with him are frustrated trying to communicate with him. He would say, `It is their problem. They would have to repeat what they are saying a couple of times, louder and louder each time. Until I get it….`. I thought that was an interesting attitude to have. Recently I came across a cousin with a 95 year old stone deaf father trying to solve the problem. He uses printed sheets featuring all the 26 alphabets of English and tries to visually compose words letter by letter to communicate whatever he was trying to communicate with his father. He also uses another sheet displaying some common questions which need answers. Most of the time he has been successful in getting the right response from his father. Interesting idea indeed. Worth trying by others with similar problems!

Inspiring story of Mrs Kanaka Sharma

This is one more story to prove that age is no barrier to realize your dreams. The story of Mrs Kanaka Sharma, who started seriously writing short stories in Tamil at the age of 89 and has become a published author with her first book of short stories at the age of 92. Mrs Kanaka Sharma is the mother in law of one of my Rotarian friends K.S.jayaraman. I met her at his home three years ago. In the course of our conversation Uma , Jayaraman`s wife, told me that her mother had started writing short stories and was keen to get it published in some Tamil magazine. And whether I could help. Since bringing to limelight talented women writers in Tamil has been one of the objectives of Prabha Rajan Talent Foundation started in memory of my late wife Prabha , I told Uma that I will try. I sent two of Mrs Sharma`s stories to my contacts in the Tamil magazine world and forgot about it. One morning a few weeks later, I got a call from Mrs Sharma bubbling with excitement. She was delighted beyond words to find her story published in the Diwali special of Ladies Special, a Tamil monthly edited by the dynamic Girija Raghavan, considered an `one woman army` in the Tamil literary world. Encouraged by the response Mrs Sharma started writing more stories based on the characters she has come across in her long life. They were simple stories reflecting Mrs Sharma`s sense of observation and her memory for events that happened a long time ago. When she was ready with a sufficient number of stories , I suggested that I can help her self- publish a book of short stories written by her. Girija Raghavan was kind enough to offer her professional help in bringing out the book, with an interesting Foreword by her. Thanks to the unexpected Covid 19 crisis the publication got delayed and was out just two days ago. In the attached picture you see the beaming Mrs Sharma holding the first copy of her first book titled `Ninaivugalin Thalattu`. When I asked her how does it feel to hold the book in her hands, she said it felt like she was holding another new born grandchild. Mrs Sharma`s is a typical story of women of older generation, who suppressed their creative talents and sacrificed their dreams for the sake of the family, very often trying to fulfil their dreams through their children. I appeal to all such women to come out of their closets and make efforts to go after their child hood dreams and make them happen. It will help if the children also extend a helping hand . As Mrs Sharma`s three daughters and two sons are doing. God bless them. My reward for being a catalyst in Mrs Sharma`s creative journey is the abundant blessings that she has been showering on me and my family. I am happy to see her Happy!