Hemantha Kalam - 111 - Never before and never after, till now!

During the working years of my father, I could rarely see him for most of the times. He was working so hard that he used to return home quite late in the evenings; very often necessitating me to keep awake, so that I can just see him.

Sometime during November-December, 1967 my father became busier as he was doing sort of a trapeze act with his work.

Before I proceed further, I think it is necessary for me to explain a bit of what my father did for his living, at that point of time. He was working as a manager for SYGA Corporation and as an Associate Director for SYGA Movies.

The word SYGA is an acronym made of the first letters of the names of four members of a family comprising of Late (all) Shanker Giri, Yamuna Giri, Girinath Giri and Amarnath Giri, the son, daughter in law and grandsons of Late V. V. Giri, the former President of India. Later when Late V. V. Giri went on to become the President of India, Late Shanker Giri became the Member of Parliament (MP), from Madhya Pradesh, my father had an additional designation, PA to the MP of MP. As Late Shanker Giri also became the PA to the President of India, my father was the PA to PA of President of India.

SYGA Corporation was the Indenting Agency for procurements of Gwalior Rayon Silk Manufacturing Limited, Mavoor, Calicut (Kozhikode), Kerala (now Grasim Industries) and SYGA Movies was the film making unit which produced two movies – one in English called “Epistle” where, along with Late J. Jayalalitha, yours faithfully also debuted and the other one in Kannada called “Vagdaana”. Both the films did not do well at the box office though, but that is a subject for another story.

Now, coming back to the original story, my father used to finish his household duties, as we had three tiny tots in the house and challenging to manage by my mother all by  herself (necessitating lending hands from my father and myself), go to office and do the regular work that is needed to be done and go in the evening to the market for collecting quotations etc., for material needed by Gwalior Rayons… 

But then during November-December, 1967 my father had an additional responsibility of ensuring the construction of a pavilion for Gwalior Rayon Silk... at the ‘forth-coming’ “Indian International Trade and Industries Fair 1968” at a godforsaken place in Madras (as Chennai was thus called earlier), comprising of ponds and swampy area, beyond Amaindakarai (Aminjikarai). My father’s homecoming from work was becoming more delayed.

Finally, the trade fair was inaugurated on a Sunday, the 21^st January, 1968 by the Vice President of India (at that time) Late V. V. Giri. My father’s work quadrupled. But he managed the stress. Today, for such strenuous work, people need comforts like AC Cars etc. All my father had was an old Raleigh bicycle and he managed. When comparing to such efforts, the tantrums being thrown by the new-gen workers, for the least stressful works make me laugh, truly.

Info / Photographs courtesy: Mr. P. V. R. Rao, from his Facebook (Meta) post on 6^th July, 2021, in the group ‘Madras Local History Groups’ (who seems to have used photos from Madras Friends group) - Thanks to him/them

Once the fair was inaugurated, my father had to man the stall/pavilion of Gwalior Rayon silk... and every day the fair used to close after 10.00 or 10.30 pm depending on days and crowds. He had to ensure that the stall was closed properly and then bicycle it all the way home through Chetpet, Nungambakkam, Kodambakkam and Vadapalani. I remember a day, when his bicycle had developed a flat wheel, in the night and he had to push the vehicle all the way from the exhibition grounds to home because at that time of the night even "pavement bicycle service guys" were hard asleep.

Interestingly, we could see the lights around the fair, and especially the well-lit Visweswarayya Tower from our house, but the way between our house and the fairgrounds was filled with pits dug by brick kilns, lot of bushes and especially snakes. So near and yet so far (today in Kms it would be perhaps about four to five kms of distance from our house).

Finally after a couple of months, the fair came to a successful end and many pavilions were dismantled. Later, the area, well developed for the fair, was converted into a housing layout, by the State government and plots were sold at around Rs.10,000/= per ground (as I remember, but I might be wrong about the pricing). As is wont of, the most influential people of the city could manage to wangle prime spots by ‘arrangements and adjustments’ and straightforward and lesser fortunate people got plots in different sizes and shapes and in insignificant corners of the area. Over a period, it has become a prime property to be known as THE "Anna Nagar”, the prime property location in Chennai today.

That is how the story of an insignificant location of Chennai became a prime property locality thanks to one intervention of an International Trade Fair. Sometime in November, 1972, Pragati Maidan opened in Delhi and after that, to the best of my knowledge, belief and Trust, no other international trade fair ever took place in any of the other states in the country. That way this fair was “never before and never after, till now”.

Surely there must have been any number of people who toiled for the success of this fair, directly or indirectly, like my father. Some of them may still be around too to relate the memories. But for me, my father who worked so hard for his family, left us all on this day, nine years ago, leaving us with waves of memories about him.

Wherever he is and whatever he is doing now, I do hope that he possesses the same cheer, curiosity for life, energy, enthusiasm, excitement and a zest for life. But, I will take comfort to know that he had attained Sadgati.

God bless him!

Until the next, I remain with,

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian, Bahasa Malay and Singaporean) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India