Express Estates part I

The old man in the Kamaraj khadi shirt and veshti, a fading namam on his forehead (with no air conditioning in the sweltering newsroom, the red mark lasted no more than a couple of hours), and wisps of grey hair making a token presence on his otherwise bald head, looked forbiddingly at me as I handed him my resume and tried to impress him with the sterling attributes I was offering the newspaper under his watch. ‘Sorry we have no openings,” Mr CP Seshadri, the editor, said quite firmly, dashing my hopes. Disheartened, I made to leave, but remembered in the nick of time that my uncle PN Sundaresan had asked me to convey his regards to him. 

The mention of my uncle’s name had an electrifying effect. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier that you are Raja’s (Sundaresan’s) nephew?” the editor, who was “Master” to everyone said. “Are you Ramani’s son, then? I thought you were some vadakkathian (north Indian). You can join straight away. Go and sit there next to Chandrasekhar in the sports desk.  

Thus began my newspaper career—as Apprentice Subeditor—with a monthly pay packet of Rs. 200, peanuts even by 1967 standards. 

My landing at Master’s doorstep was an accident, a happy one, as it turned out. I      had had to miss my BSc Chemistry exams in March 1967, thanks to a mystery illness, characterised by unbearable headaches, that lasted more than a month, and left me weak and exhausted. “I think he’s having a nervous breakdown,” I overheard my father tell my mother, and, not knowing what those words meant (Can you imagine such an ignorant 20-year old today?) I duly informed my friends in college of this diagnosis, feeling suitably important. Of our group of five classmates, only one, Meenakshi, who later went to medical college, seemed to find my confession strange. She laughed her head off.  

Not only had I lost preparation time, I was too weak to sit down and do any overtime swotting. I therefore decided to take the exam in September—with my parents’ blessings—and actually acquitted myself quite well. At least three people, Prof. Jayanti Lakshminarayana, my former schoolteacher R Srinivasan, and a young doctor helped me through this period, and I will write about them later.