Duty, Destiny and Glory- The Life of C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

In a way, I began writing this book as a child of six. Those days, my father was in the habit of spending half-an-hour with me every night, after dinner, as part of his obsessive efforts to mould me into a brilliant student. He would make me repeat my arithmetic tables or discuss with me some scientific concept or adumbrate some historical event or give a brief biography of somebody. One such night my father spoke of C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar. That talk fired my imagination. Here was a man who, it seemed to me, had attained everything desirable on earth: power, fame, erudition, wealth and the admiration of women. While still a schoolboy, I visited C.P's principal residences, The Grove in Madras, Delisle in Ootacamund and Brahma Mandiram in Conjeevaram. This was followed by dozens of later visits. I went to Wandiwash three times futilely hunting for the house in which C.P. had been born. Whenever I heard of a person who had known C.P. or heard C.P. or even seen C.P. from a distance, I went in search of him or her. To cap it off, I spent most of my vacations in libraries and archives researching my subject. The result was a truly massive corpus of material. But, resisting the temptation to make comprehensive use of the same, I have kept this book mercifully short. The notes have been pared to the bone. Most of the positions taken rest on archival support, but the details are not provided. The bibliography is select and not full.

My mother belongs to Madras and my family used to spend its vacations there. Had it not been so, it is doubtful whether I could ever have written this biography. The lost paradise of my childhood was partially sighted in Madras. Madras is C.P's city, for me it is also a city of overpowering resonances. The hustle and bustle of Madras Central, the lunatic traffic on Mount Road, the crumbling rampartsof Fort St. George, the roaring waves that relentlessly attack the sands of the Marina, the hallowed steps of the ancient teakwood staircase of Higginbothams, the booksellers of Moore Market who are eager to sell their priceless wares for a song, the Casino where I saw my first movie, the divine taste of Madras degree coffee, the long, bindlike cries of the city's hawkers, the electrifyingly rough hide of the elephant in Ambattur I was made to touch as a child, the intoxicating scent of the jasmine sold by the women at the gates of the city's temples, thoughts of these are sufficient to bring tears to my eyes here and now.

**Contents and Sample Pages**