PAST & PRESENT
Four good men
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
"This year saw the passing of four Indians I admired."
THE year that is now ending saw the passing of four Indians I admired. Two were cricketers. At one time, Polly Umrigar held most Indian batting records — no Indian had scored more Test runs or hit more Test centuries than he. He played a leading role in India's first victory against England, scoring an unbeaten hundred; and also a leading role in India's first victory against Australia, with his other hand, the bowling hand. This was in Kanpur, when Polly helped Jasu Patel spin Richie Benaud's men out on a low, dusty wicket.
Elegant player
Soon after Polly, Hanumant Singh left the scene. Hanumant was a batsman of grace and elegance, cruelly short-changed by the selectors (who gave him only a handful of Tests after he had scored a hundred on debut). On retirement he became a successful coach, often working in partnership with Vasu Paranjpye (among their wards was a certain Yuvraj Singh). Like Umrigar, he was a man of great personal decency, one of nature's gentlemen. An obituarist pointed out that Polly and Hanumant operated in a world without agents and sponsors; those might be among the reasons why the two never sledged an opponent, never questioned an umpire's decision, and never intrigued against a teammate.
A life in science
Amulya Reddy, the third good Indian whose death I wish to note here, also started life as a cricketer. He was a prolific batsman for Madras University, before he chose to exchange a life at the wicket for a life in science. After taking a Ph. D. from London's Imperial College, he spent nearly three decades on the faculty of India's premier scientific institution, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
In the first part of his career, Reddy did regular science; he wrote a widely used textbook on electrochemistry, for example. Then he decided to bend his research more directly to the service of the poor. With some other colleagues he started ASTRA, an elegant abbreviation for a unit whose full name read: "Appropriate Science and Technology for Rural Areas". ASTRA developed smokeless chulas and biogas plants and distributed them, with some success, in the rural areas of Karnataka.
After retiring from the I.I.Sc., Reddy synthesised the first two phases of his career to forge a third — in the realm of energy policy analysis. In contrast to the prevailing "supply-side paradigm", which chose to promote new projects to supply new or old needs, Reddy proposed a "demand-side" approach which would instead seek to make more efficient use of energy among end-users in households and industries. His work here was of far-reaching significance, but sadly, it did not find favour with politicians and bureaucrats, who would rather issue new contracts for new projects when renewing existing systems might have produced the same result, and with half the cost and half the damage to the environment. (Those interested in this aspect of Reddy's work should read his co-authored book, Energy for a Sustainable World, or go to the website www.amulya-reddy.org.in.)
The last Indian I wish to pay tribute was also a Reddy, also variously gifted, and also based in Bangalore. Pattabhi Rama Reddy was born into a prosperous family in Nellore, but left home early, to wander around the country and the world. He studied in Santiniketan and Calcutta, before publishing, at age twenty, a volume of poetry that made a dramatic splash in the Telugu literary world. As Velcheru Narayana Rao has written, "intentionally shocking and carefully crafted to read neither like poetry nor like prose, Pattabhi's prose poems broke the back of metrical verse that had lost its meaning in a wilderness of mechanically measured lines".
From words to numbers
Having arrived as a poet, Pattabhi now departed the scene, to go to New York and study mathematics at Columbia University. He then almost joined the American Army, but pulled out when he discovered that he would have to eat meat. Choosing to return home, he came back (as he once told the critic T.G. Vaidyanathan) "by the longest possible route". It took him a year, travelling overland and by sea, via Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, South Africa and a dozen other countries.
His travels done, Pattabhi settled down in Bangalore. With his wife, the actress and dancer Snehalata, he became the centre of the city's arts scene. Pattabhi now became a maker of films — among the movies he made was that all-time classic, "Samskara". Then, during the Emergency, the Reddys helped found the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, and gave shelter to left-wing activists. For this Snehalata was put in jail, where her asthma was aggravated, leading to her tragic early death.
Great loss
Sadly, I got to know Pattabhi only in the last years of his life. But I saw enough of him to sense that he was civility personified; one might even say civilisation personified. Of him it could truly be said — the apparel proclaimed the man. He dressed simply, and yet beautifully; to watch him enter Koshy's Parade Café in his cream and crisply pressed dhoti-kurta was to watch a work of art in progress. As the fine old man walked in, the murmurs went around the tables: "Pattabhi is here". Now we shall see that sight no longer. My city, and my country, are the poorer for it.
ramguha@vsnl.com
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