My grandfather (dada) Calamur Mahadevan (1901 – 1962) – geologist, scientist, nationalist, feminist, father, husband, friend, teacher. Prinicipal at Andhra University. A man who educated his wife after their marriage, and insisted that she go out and work with the less privileged.
My Grandmother (dadi) Satyavati Mahadevan (1916 – 1993) – poet, musician, writer, wife, mother, grandmother… My love for the epics and the Gods comes from her.
My father (standing extreme left), My Uncle – periappa (extreme right) and my aunt (attai) in the centre. A few years before they were all married . Their father loomed large in their lives. His death anniversary was on the 8th of April. I can tell you, they are still to recover from his death.
I wish i had known him.
My name is Patrick . My father Harold W. Fairbairn was a Geology professor at MIT in the USA (1937-1977), . I I remember a supper at my parents’ house about 1950 for several geologists, including Dr. C. Mahadevan. In the course of the evening he and I exchanged a few words, no doubt with his encouragement. At the end of his academic sojourn here, he left with me a big book (Grimm’s Fairy Tales) with a personal inscription inside the front cover. Some time afterward, I received a letter from his son Raja Gopala Krishna Mahadevan (“Andy” for short, he said) proposing that we become pen-pals. As a nine-year-old then, I was too shy and not outgoing enough to take on this formidable first-time challenge! As a well-advanced septuagenarian now and slightly more sociable, I’d like to find Andy and tell him that I accept his proposal. After a few hours of googling, something tells me I must be getting close to my target. Please let me know if this is true.
— PWF
Calamur Mahadevan was my grandfather.
Andy was my father. He passed on 3 years ago. But, i think he would have loved to hear from you.
i am his daughter, how lovely to hear from you
b/w
Harini
Harini, I am sorry indeed to hear that you have lost your father; sorry also to be personally too late in locating him. While waiting for a response to my query about him I even wrote a poem that anticipated the personal contact! It ended as a kind of retrospective tribute to the grandfather you never knew — “in memoriam”. Now, with my discovery of you and your good works, I know that if anyone can be said to rest in peace it must be he. In you (and me, in some strange way) he rides again!
— Patrick
Today – 14th of April – would have been his 78th birthday. He would have been thrilled to have ‘found’ you – or been found by you.
He always had that child like excitement. And, the time in Brazil, i think, was amongst the best days of his life.