Remembering Kannan
By V Ramnarayan
Lakshmi and my cousin PS Narayanan—Kannan to the family and Nari to the cricket community—should have celebrated their golden wedding anniversary today, had Kannan not succumbed to cancer three years ago. Their children, son Sundar and daughter Abhi, live with their spouses and children live in the US. The eldest son of well known sports journalist PN Sundaresan, and predeceased by his younger siblings Raman and Sarada, Kannan is survived by youngest sister Alamelu.
If you live long enough, you will inevitably lose loved ones and cherished friends. I count the loss of Kannan among the more grievous blows I have sustained. He was a dear anna to me and my siblings. My parents cared deeply for him, and he for them. We are not a particularly demonstrative clan, but I believe Kannan knew how special he was to all of us. Most memorable was the way he took charge of the conduct of my sister Sarada’s wedding back in February 1973, on the job practically 24 x 7 for a whole month. I was one of the small army of helpers that reported to him as he managed a complex operation with minimum fuss and great responsibility. It was also back-breaking work as we had not transitioned to the now common system of outsourcing weddings to contractors on a turnkey basis. Finance, purchase, inventory management, scheduling of the various numerous sub-events in coordination with the priests, F&B management, receiving guests and hospitality, all had to be monitored with utmost care, and Kannan was on top of it all. We had all grown up together. Kannan was perhaps the most talented all round sportsman of the extended family, good at not only quite a few ball games besides cricket, but also at gilli-danda, marbles, tops, nondi, pandi, I Spy and carrom. In cricket, he was a natural—a stylish batsman and clever off spinner. Like his brother Raman the leg spinner-batsman, Kannan, too, must have been successful playing for PS High School, Mylapore, but I am not familiar with the details of his exploits there. He did his BCom at Vivekananda College, and played cricket for the college, but I think he really came into his own as an attractive opening batsman as a student of the Madras Law College. There, he was a junior of K Radhakrishnan, another consistent performer, an Ayurvedic doctor whose other claim to fame is that he is the father of cricketer-turned musician Parakkal Unnikrishnan.
It was after Kannan joined the India Cements Limited that his cricket struck a purple patch that lasted quite a few seasons. ICL went on an impressive cricketer recruitment campaign, hiring players from within the state and outside it. Playing in the senior division of the Tamil Nadu (then Madras) Cricket Association’s league under the banner of Jolly Rovers Cricket Club, the team swept everything before it and provided high quality entertainment year after year. In a side that contributed almost the entire state team, Narayanan performed a stellar role in many a triumph, without being rewarded by the state selectors except for a solitary match in which he did not get to bat or bowl. The Jolly Rovers batting was opened quite spectacularly by two outstanding wicket keeper-batsmen PK Belliappa and KR Rajagopal, while Narayanan followed them at no. 3. Though theirs was a tough act to follow, he was rarely found wanting. With his innocuous looking off spin bowling, he tended to engineer collapses and win matches for his side. In a star-studded side, he was often the surprise package.
Narayanan was an enthusiastic tennis player at the club level, and for a few years maintained a couple of courts for the use of recreational tennis players in the Alwarpet area. His son Sundarraman showed promise in both tennis and cricket, eventually migrating to the US, where a university tennis scholarship took him.
Narayanan succeeded his father Mr Sundaresan on his demise as publisher of Sruti, a performing arts monthly. At a crucial phase in the life of the magazine, Narayanan made strenuous efforts to keep it afloat. He then played a key part in handing it over to the reconstituted Sruti Foundation helmed by Mr N Sankar, the chairman of the Sanmar Group.
Narayanan, Nari or Kannan was something of a touch artist, not given to sledgehammer blows—whether in cricket, tennis or life.
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