The Laugh That Won You Over

My first experience of Sivan uncle was his laughter.  One day in the mid-80s, I had just entered Vrindavanam and heard a booming, whole-hearted laugh, followed by another.  This was most unusual, for the older generation there believed that laughter was something that possibly earned you a bacterial form in your next life.  But entering this room, I saw this unusual man, with thick, white hair combed neatly back and a heavy pair of spectacles through which the eyes twinkled, seated cross legged on a bed, with a ready audience. 

He was immediately likeable.

I did not expect to meet such a lively person; just about a year earlier, he had lost much of his life’s work in Sri Lanka: livelihood, reputation as a lawyer, home and God-knows-what-else, leaving the country when the ethnic violence reached a point of no return.  The  years had been harrowing and stressful, yet you would never have guessed it;  wait for a while and you would hear his laughter, a trademark that defined him along with those twinkling eyes.   So, when he stayed with us in Bangalore next, I wanted to know him more.  I showed him books by my favourite cartoonist, RK Laxman, and, of course, the laughter touched a new crescendo – he would read a cartoon and find every nuance possible, each funnier than the earlier one.  
Some months later, he told me that he had actually met Laxman, when in Bombay and had his autograph. 

“But, how?” I wondered, for I had read that Laxman was an irascible character, prone to rudeness.  He apparently liked to work in his room at the Times all alone and was entirely intolerant of any interruption. 

“I just went into the Times building, asked around and went up and met him.” Sivan uncle said, as if the answer was utterly rudimentary.   But, you see, for him it was.  For Sivan uncle was a charmer, a man who could melt a curmudgeon, and I could see just how Laxman might have found it impossible to be anything other than civil in his presence.  

Yet, it was as I got to know him better that the other facets of his personality came alive: his eclectic taste in books and extraordinary humility (by the way, have you noticed that people who laugh a lot and from their heart are generally humble; it’s funny, there is a clear positive correlation).

Two books in my college years particularly influenced me: Small is Beautiful by EF Schumacher and a biography of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer.  When Uncle and I discussed them – and, by the way, he was the only one I could discuss them with – I began to see more to him than a funny, lively human being.  Deep within, there was philosophy, extraordinary (for the times) liberal thought -hence the connection with the Mahatma - and a sense of purpose.

Much of our conversations centred around development, though there was little I could contribute to the conversation that was original (a generation later in 2006, I would have similar conversations with Purnima). These were rich learning, so rich that I even asked Uncle for help with admission to a Masters program in MCC, Madras, so that I could catch up with him more often; his soft word actually had the admission ready and I attended the interview as well, but didn’t take up the course (that’s a story for another day).

While in Madras, he had fought for the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka, about which I knew little.  But it was after moving to Coimbatore that he joined an issue that I could entirely relate to:

South India Viscose made staple fibre used in clothing.  It was owned by one of the richest men in India, Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry (today, better identified as the father of Cyrus) and operated an old plant with poor effluent treatment facilities, resulting in the horrific pollution of the Bhavani river, the waterline to Coimbatore.  There were activists fighting the factory and he joined them: his role was to help with matters of law and, critically, to inspire others who were in the boat.  We spoke about it often and I was thrilled to see an activist amongst the pantheon of conformists in the parent generation. 

One day in 1997, in his own lifetime and to his delight, the factory was shut (it subsequently put effluent treatment systems in place and reopened, but I do not know the current operating status; perhaps, it is better that way!).

But of course, Sivan Uncle took on a number of others too, including a lady collector in the Nilgiris who was known to be both corrupt and ruthless (much like her political mentor); she got him arrested and those months in jail were rough and hard.  Now here is the crux: over the years – even in January this year – I have felt nervousness and agitation, and fear, at sporadic attempts at activism.  Every such time, I have asked myself, Just how did Sivan uncle manage his emotions?   I got a clue when I met him once he had got out of jail, as a result of the direct intervention of Amnesty International.  “She is a dangerous woman,” he told me, the lips set in a grim line, but the eyes?  The eyes were twinkling.  Because Sivan uncle loved the battle; it got him going in a style that was uniquely his. 

With that battle, he became an icon for me.  Sivan uncle, it seemed to me with my early-twenties idealism, could do anything. 

When, in 1993, he came to Bangalore, Mum told him that Aruna and I were engaged.  The broad open smile on hearing the news, the warm handshake, the ‘aaahhh’ of delight, the hug that followed, these are unforgettable memories of affection and warmth.  And what I love about memories is that they are within and remain alive even when the person has gone away, amidst the deepest sorrow of absence.  He immediately wanted to meet her, so he hopped onto the back seat of my bike (CAO 7474, now a family heirloom) and we rode up to the Tata IBM office on Airport Road.  On that busy arterial road, as the three of us chatted, he had won her over in about a minute and a half with his laughter and self-deprecating humour. 

For, he was, as you now know for sure, a Real Charmer.

And he was the only one who could persuade me to meet an Aunt in Palakkad, who wasn’t exactly known for her likeability and with whom I had, shall we say, a most frosty relationship.  The meeting did not go according to script (well, it was his script, not hers!), and he was most apologetic later.  But nobody else could have made me do that in a hundred years, and make me feel good about it later.  Charmer again!

And then there other memories too: of an afternoon in Kotagiri where Aruna and I stood at the back of a room listening to Uncle speak in Tamil.  I did not understand a word, of course, but the tone was passionate, committed, thoughtful, positive.  The words, Aruna later said, matched in style and flow and the command over the language was masterly.  That was the thing about Sivan uncle: after meeting him, you discussed him! 

And I think of a Sunday in Manas and of a discussion - over a drink - on philosophy and yoga between Nimmu and Uncle.  I think Uncle was posed a challenge and on impulse, he stood on his head, doing the shirsha-asana (and talking and laughing away).  That, I think, is the finest way to remember him: headstand, post-beer, philosophy turned upside down and laughing.

How could a person be just….so complete?