Pattappa Thatha turns 100

Thatha was just thatha for us. He lived in that airy house with cool red cement floors and big windows with sage green shutters that matched the ceiling beams. His room was the one on the right as you entered the porch, and it was not till much later that I noticed that he wore no poonal, and did no sandhya-vandanam.

He would read a lot, go on long walks, and cook his own meals. I didn't know what he ate, for when we were there, Amma would do the cooking. However, if Amma was out, he would make tea, and share it with us kids, and pull out an old album with pictures of his wife to show us. She looked regal and commanding in her military uniform, very different from the woman I remember in layers of long skirt, and a voice that was a whisper. It also never occured to me that she too didn't wear the nine yard saree and diamonds like my other grandmas.

He never told us he was different, nor did my mom, or any of my other pattis and thathas. When Allahabad thatha passed away, patti came to stay in the same old ancestral home, she had her own kitchen with the coal stove, while my thatha continued to use his kitchen with the gas stove, the countertop, and the saucepan in which he made his tea.

It was around this time, that I started realizing that thatha was not just special, he was a rare kind of special. It was a chance revelation. I was rummaging through those piles and piles of books on the big rosewood tables, and not finding anything of interest, went to his room. There I found a book that I liked and started browsing it. I read, and I paraphrase, V. K. Krishna Menon lamenting the loss of C. S. Subramanian's leadership in politics due to personal choices that should rightly not affect politics. My mind was suddenly full of questions. I had heard that thatha was a freedom fighter, but was he an important figure? Why was he mentioned in a history book, and by Krishna Menon, no less? What was the personal event that took him away from politics?

I confronted Amma, and learnt the little that she knew. Thatha had gone to study at Oxford, England, and to write the Indian Civil Service exam. He came home, not to become the bread earner of the family that his father had hoped, but to become a freedom fighter, who had no income, and was often a political prisoner or on the run. 

He then did the unthinkable, and married a woman who not only was from a different community, but was a divorcee, the wife of a fellow politician. He was disowned by his father, and lost any possibility of pursuing a political career after independence. 

"What about his brothers and sisters?" I asked. Amma then explained, the best that she could, the complexity of human relationships, and how Allahabad patti would not eat a meal cooked by a man who did not wear his poonal, but would, if needed, defend him with her own life.

I tried talking to thatha about his life as a freedom fighter, but he was not one who liked to talk about past glory. He instead wanted to talk to us about our future, and what we were doing. When U.S.S.R. collapsed, I asked him if he still believed in communism, and he said he did. He explained, and I paraphrase: Communism is a principle not a government. China and USSR have very different governments, though both claim to be communists. He believed in communism, and encouraged me to read about it, and understand the principle, and then make up my own mind.

Recently, Amma went with Appa and Mimi mama, and Shubha mami to greet thatha on his 100th birthday. As was thatha's style, no celebration was planned. It was to be a simple family get together. To accomodate Shubha mami's poor legs, they decided to bring thatha to Coimbatore for a couple days, instead of spending the time in Gopi with him. About a 100 other people made a similar decision to spend that day with him - some young, some almost as old as he, some ministers, some politicians, some friends, but all who were personally touched by him. They must have learnt on reaching Gopi that thatha was in Coimbatore, and came there to see him. Then came the reporters from Hindu and Dinamani, and then the pictures in the papers. It was the first time that Amma found out that thatha was the founder of the Communist party in Tamil Nadu.

I have been with thatha almost every summer. I know almost every wrinkle on his face. I know his smile, his walk, and his voice. I know his short temper. I know the idealism that he never lost.

I know only a few sketchy details from his life. I know that he traded fortune for freedom when he returned from UK, and fame for happiness when he married patti. It is amazing how obvious those choices are, and yet how much courage it takes to make those choices. 

When he turned 90, I asked him to write his memoir, and explained how it would not be self-indulgence, but something that would help us, his grandchildren, and our future generations, understand history better. He understood, but confessed, for the first time, that he was old now, and the time for him to write a book had passed. 

Here is to thatha, and all that he was, and continues to be, and to the hope that we all learn to live by our ideals, whatever those be.