Remembering Natesan Thaththa …

Natesan Thaththa retired as an Assistant Head Master Andrews High School, Arakkonam. He was always a wonderful school teacher and he never stopped teaching until his health deteriorated during his final years. He was someone who led us by example with his patience and harmony.

Speaking of Thaththa, I have to mention about patti and how they managed to have a great family. He was a wonderful husband to Nagoji patti and a great father of 2 sons and 5 daughters. The interactions between Nagoji patti and Thaththa were always interesting. Patti was a high energy person - sensitive, angry, caring, loving, and affectionate – all in one interesting character. If patti was upset and raised her voice Thaththa would speak softly and calm her down. They had a perfect balance – sort of yin – yang thing. He was very affectionate towards my mother. Of course, he shared special and a wonderful relationships with my dad and chittappa.

He managed to successfully conduct marriages of all his daughters, a fantastic achievement with the meager teacher salary those days ably assisted by my father. He even saw them succeed as career women. 4 of the 5 daughters went on to work in Government and Public Sector Units.

I have some wonderful fond memories of him. We were very fortunate to have him living with us for many years when we lived in Madras and Coimbatore.

Eleven things I recollect about Thaththa at this time …

1. He used to feed my sister and younger brother regularly when they were toddlers. In fact, both my sister and brother used to pick up the feeding bottle from my mother and take it directly to Thaththa and sit on his lap and finish the milk. Sometimes, he used to tell stories and sometimes he would ask them to recite nursery rhymes.
2. In fact my younger brother would always sit on his lap and drink his milk and he would insist on me/my sister reciting his favorite rhymes while he drinks his milk.
3. Thaththa had a unique way of yawning and for a long time my brother’s favorite show as a toddler was to mimic Thaththa’s yawn to the visitors. Thaththa was a great sport and he enjoyed this act.
4. I remember him teaching me English Grammar. I think he knew “Wren and Martin” by heart. He taught me all the fundamentals of English language when I was 6/7 years old. I can still recollect his Active Voice/Passive Voice teachings using “Rama killed Ravana” example. I can say with absolute confidence that very little English that I can read and write now is mainly due to the solid fundas he instilled on me at an early age. He was a wonderful teacher. He was patient and a thorough teacher. He never got angry while teaching. He gave me a lot of exercises from “Wren and Martin” and used to correct them diligently and point to my mistakes with love and affection. He even pointed to some typos and errors in the Wren and Martin book.
5. He taught me how to read cricket scores printed on newspapers, how O stands for Overs and M stands for maidens, etc. He was a great cricket fan. He used to regale us with stores of yesteryear stars like Alec Bedser, Tony Greig, etc.
6. He also introduced me to the writings of RK Narayan. He used to read RK Narayan’s article in “Frontline” regularly.
7. I will cherish the time we spent listening to cricket commentaries BBC (Christopher Martin Jenkins)/Radio Australia (Keith Stackpole).
8. He introduced me to Tennis. Yes, to watch Tennis. He taught me the nuances of the game (let/double fault/tie-breaker, etc.) as we watched together the great Borg-McEnroe Wimbledon finals in the early 80’s.
9. Thaththa was a great fan of “The Hindu”. He will wait patiently for the morning commotion to die down (when everyone in the house was busy scrambling around getting ready for the day) and then he would pick up the paper and finish reading it by mid-morning. In fact, he would sort of revise it later in the afternoon.
10. He was a voracious reader. I have seen him read The Hindu, Ananda Vikatan, Gnana Bhoomi and novels from authors like Fredrick Forsyth, Irving Wallace, etc. In fact, some of my elder cousins would drop by to bring some novels for him to read. My aunts used to send my cousins to thaththa to learn English grammar and he taught them with great care and diligence.
11. His hair was always combed, neatly greased and in place all the times. In fact, if I remember right, my patti used to tease thaththa that whenever he woke in the middle of the night to attend to nature's call, he would ensure that his hair is combed before going back to bed. Not sure how much of this is true, but having seen him all the times with every strand of his grey/silver hair in place, I can't reject this theory outright.
    

Thatha, Wish you a very very Happy Birthday! Hopefully you are pleased with lives and achievements. We will always cherish you.

Your loving grandson,

Arun Shantharam