Shifting to T Nagar

 Shifting to T Nagar

As my sister Viji got employed at King Institute, Guindy & my father's office shifted from Triplicane to Teynampet, travelling for them became cumbersome. Added to that me joining the college at Nungambakkam necessitated us to look for some tenement in T Nagar/Mambalam area. As luck would favour us, my cousin sister Lakshmi's in-laws were on the look out for a known tenant in their house at Murugesa Mudaliar road, T Nagar. It is  a cutting in North Usman road. That person was Sh Krishnaswamy Bhagavathar and they were planning to move out of station to stay with their second son. So it was a bonus for us , we took possession and shifted by April 1963.. That house number was also No.17 ! That made our commutation easy. My father could easily go by bicycle to his office and sister could walk to Mambalam station to catch the electric train to Guindy and back. For me, the services of S3- students' special run by the state government became handy. I did enjoy that bus ride going to Loyola college for my B.Sc studies.

Our shifting to T Nagar changed my life completely. To ease our rental load factor,one of my uncle ( mother's cousin brother) Mr N M Eswaran, who was an Income Tax officer shared & occupied a portion of that house.At that time he had 3 children- Usha, Ravi Narayan & Sridhar, As they were all young then,  practically everybody felt it as one family  excepring 2 kitchens. Within a year or so, my father went on deputation to Neyveli Lignite Corpn. Neyveli but we stayed there. We used to go to Neyveli only during college vacations that too short trips since my sister was employed. It is a different thing that my father had serious health issues  and forcibly returned back after a year or so.

Coming to my education,since in PUC  I scored only II class grade, my engg. degree admission became impossible. As I was a student of Loyola in PUC,  I could easily get admission for my B.Sc Mathematics with Physics & Statistics as Ancillary subjects. By that time the college principal got changed to Fr Francis My HOD was Prof.Adhivarahan Iyengar who took Calculus for us.Algebra was taught by Mr Mathews Dynamics by Mr Ramchandran, Mechanics by Mr Dharmapadam, Physics by Mr Joseph & Statistics by Prof. Manivannan. Language Tamil was taken by Mr Arul Prakasam & English by Mr Ramachandran.Of all subjects in my major I had a special love for Algebra & Mr Mathews encouraged me on that. He was very confident that I shall get I class in my B.Sc degree and should pursue further studies.  True to his belief I scored an A+ grade and obtained first class.

As confidence has set in me I felt relaxed and enjoyed my studies. During my B.Sc days, I continued my NCC ( Infantry) and rose to the rank of Under Officer rank- highest for a college student in NCC. Recognizing that  & considering our involvement, the State NCC authorities  have organized  a 6 week army attachment camp at Mount Abu in Rajasthan - attached with 4/4 Gorkha Rifles regiment. Those 6 weeks of camp life is an experience by itself. As all students were from Tamilnadu (mother tongue Tamil) excepting Mr Nathu Shah, who was a Gujarathi but born brought up in Chennai. In the camp we had difficulty conversing with the army jawans but had a good social life, and enjoyed the company of gurkha soldiers. One particular joke-   When we students talk amongst ourselves in Tamil, we use the colloquial word ' theriyuma'- Do you know? as slang. The army jawans used to caution us - Do you understand  what you are talking about; you all are giving disrespect to your mother! They took that as 'teri ma' and cautioned us not to repeat. As we could not understand the Hindi tongue then we were blank. Only Sh Nathu Shah could make it, he explained to both the sides and clarified. Then we had a hearty laugh. Courtesy Nathu Shah only could rescue us then.

Coming to my S3 experience : The bus S3 used to start from Kodambakkam station and ply through Usman road, entire T Nagar, Mount road, Egmore, Kilpauk,Chetpet and then Nungambakkam. It used to touch all colleges- both male& female institutions en route. As the fares were subsidized, almost all students (boys&girls) used to utilize its service both ways. Though the trip used to take 1 1/2 hours each way, the students used to enjoy the ride. There used to be several love birds and fight for the seats for their companions.

It so happened that in 1968, our house owners were returning back to Chennai and they wanted us to vacate. Once again luck favoured us; one portion in house no. 7 in the same road fell vacant and that house owner Mr Ramamoorthy happened to be a colleague of my father in A.G's office. He was happy to let us occupy that portion for rental. We continued to occupy that house until 1977 i.e until  my father's retirement from the service,after which he shifted to our own house at Alwarthirunagar Even my marriage took place in 1975 when we were occupying that house only. The beauty was, when the Corporation of Madras did a survey revision, even that house number was revised to No 17! So we used to say my parents and number 17 do not part away from each other.

In Murugesa Mudaliar road, I developed new friends. To name a few : M/S PS Murugesan, Narasimha Reddy, Raju, Karuna, Mani, Vengoji..... (same age group) but none of them were my classmates or from the same college or school. Out of them, Murugesh and Reddy were very close with me. Rather Murugesan is still in touch with me. He was the friend who rushed to Tuticorin to escort me from the hospital to bring me to Chennai by train.  I met with a major motorbike road accident in 1974 while working in SPIC Tuticorin. Murugesh did his B Sc Physics from the Presidency College, Madras. He worked in the Reserve Bank of India & retired. When it comes to Narasimha Reddy, after his B.Sc he joined as a commissioned officer in India Navy. Last I met him at his Naval Training school in 1971 at Kochi , Kerala, after which I lost contact with him.

During my college days, I with Murugesh used to visit Muppathamman temple daily and Siva Vishnu temple every Saturday evening without fail. People used to wonder and question us what makes you two to join together this way.