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Magazine
SPOTLIGHT
Amidst the stacks of the Deep South
S. MUTHIAH
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An account of a busman's holiday to some impressive libraries and institutions in southern Tamil Nadu.
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Nehru's impatience to the fore: One of the rare pictures at the Gandhi Kalai Mandram, Rajapalayam. Photo: E.V. Ramaswamy
THE outstanding news photograph alongside — it would not be an exaggeration to call it spectacular — is one of the treasures held in a little known public library in the State, the Gandhi Kalai Manram in Rajapalayam. E.V. Ramaswamy of Coimbatore captured this vivid vignette of Pandit Nehru's well-known impatience and short temper at the Avadi Congress Sessions in 1955. G.R. Govindarajulu Naidu gifted it to the Manram when A.K.D.Venkata Raju arranged the pictorial celebration of P.S. Kumaraswamy Raja's life that now covers the walls of the hall that is the third floor of the library. The display is one of the most comprehensive pictorial biographies I have ever seen in Tamil Nadu.
Contribution to culture
Kumaraswamy Raja, Premier of Madras, 1949-52, committed himself after his exit from the corridors of power to ensuring that Rajapalayam remained a citadel of culture. To this end, he gifted his large ancestral home in the heart of the town to the Manram and, with his books as its nucleus, the library opened in 1955. Last year, its 3,000 members drew from its 50,000-book collection, mainly in English and Tamil, on 70,000 occasions. Many more than the 3,000 use its free reading room with its scores of English and Tamil journals. And its auditorium is ever busy with book exhibitions, music recitals and meetings of a dozen literary organisations, like the Bharati and Kambar societies. It's hard to believe that there could be such an active cultural centre in a small rural town in the deep south, but Kumaraswamy Raja, who had been virtually self-educated, had been sure that, given the opportunity, the Manram would be regularly used.
Perhaps he drew his inspiration from a library eight miles further north, in Srivilliputtur, which he must have used when he had been a student in what had been the Hindu High School, now with a new name but nevertheless over 200 years old. The library in Srivilliputtur, in the shadow of the 12-storeyed, 192-feet tall gopuram of the Sri Andal Temple, is the Pennington Public Library.
Inspired by J.P. Pennington, Collector of "Tinnevelly" District, in which Srivilliputtur then was, Saravana Muthu Pillai, the local Tahsildar, and some local philanthropists got together in 1875 to establish a reading hall and a billiards room. So began this privately owned public library, which the Pennington Committee funds through a row of shops it raised and rents in the market further down the street. To enable the library's growth, two more rows of shops were developed. This made possible the renovation and expansion of the library building.
Today, the Pennington Library, with its 40,000 books in English, Tamil and Sanskrit (a very special collection) and its scores of journals, draws hundreds every day to borrow books, use the reading room, or study in the special nook with its considerable material for the competitive exams. I, however, was interested in its old books collection and was disappointed that it was so small. But there was in it, among a few score books, a first edition of Thurston's classic Castes and Tribes of South India and a complete set of the Penny Encyclopaedia published in 1833. When Abdul Kalam, then Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, visited the library in 2000, he spent a lot of time with these encyclopaedias, I was proudly told. What, however, was a pleasant surprise is that the library has a complete, well-bound set of Government Gazettes from 1952. That's something unlikely to be found in too many other places in the State.
Stately structure
Towering over the library is the gopuram that graces the emblem of the Tamil Nadu State Government. This gopuram and parts of the Sri Andal temple are attributed to Periazhwar. In it are a wealth of sculpted pillars as well as copper-plated, gold-embossed portraits of Tirumalai Nayak of Madurai and his consorts. By the temple is a massive ratham, said to be the largest and heaviest temple chariot in India, built it would almost seem to proportions that would not be diminished by the soaring gopuram. Not far away, built perhaps with similar sentiments, is a Catholic church in Gothic style, its steeples reaching for the skies; it's one of the biggest churches I've seen in the South.
The third library I visited on this busman's holiday was minuscule compared with the other two. But this library for the doctors and nurses in the Krishnankoil Rural Eye Hospital attests to the concern Dr. Vivekananda Raju had for his staff in this hospital in the middle of nowhere, about 12 miles from Srivilliputtur. But this concern was just one more reflection of the caring that has gone into developing the hospital. After Stanley and a couple of years at Madurai General's ophthalmology department, the bachelor Dr. Vivek decided that his mission in life was to contribute to improving rural healthcare. And so, in 1982, he and his three brothers set up the hospital midst miles of farms and groves to offer the best in eye-care. To this end the 50-bed hospital was equipped with the latest instruments. And as its clientele grew, with not only patients in the immediate area but from eye camps held as far as Kaniyakumari, the hospital too expanded, but without ever losing its open air rustic look. It is only now, as it aims at 200 beds, it is getting a block-like building of today. But they have come with the change of management.
Dr. Vivek, working all day with outpatients and operating at night, achieving 1,500 operations a year with the help of occasional short-term resident doctors, had a heart attack in the new millennium. Unable to cope with the pace and the increasing demands for eye-care, he sold the hospital to the Sankara Hospital group in Coimbatore. Today, even as Dr. Vivek pays a weekly visit to see how his "baby" is faring, he finds the care and concern for the poor he had shown has in no way diminished with the new team. Only, they are in a position to offer more — like doing nearly 9,000 operations last year and, having installed state-of-the-art equipment, making possible shorter stays in the hospital. As I was leaving, a few vanloads of patients were arriving; 70 aged persons from near Kaniyakumari looking every bit the poor they were, but all in need of surgical eye-care. In a few days, they'd go back, being able to see better.
Unique institution
The last library I visited was that of Rajapalayam Rajus' College, an institution established by the Kshatriya Rajus of Rajapalayam. And what a surprise it was to find a South Indian college that from its inception had focused on History as its major subject, providing in its library a wealth of material to make the subject even more meaningful. How many colleges anywhere in the country will take this commitment to History further and publish a quarterly full of historical papers? Indeed, Quest Historica is a journal worth reading for anyone interested in Indian, particularly South Indian, History. Today, the journal has the added advantage of being edited by a much-published historian, Dr. V. Venkatesan, the Principal of the college and with a journalism qualification too. No wonder the college has successfully held two South Indian History Congresses, January's one drawing 500 delegates from all over the South and from other parts of what was the former Madras Presidency.
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