Puru to ‘Madhwas group’ on Padda's 76th Birthday

The following mail was written by Puru to ‘Madhwas group’ after a couple of days following Padda’s Birthday on 11th October 2006

Dear G
There were many occasions before you to write to Padda. You could have written a personal mail, you could have spoken to him or time and occasion permitting you could have even visited him and paid your respects in private. Instead you chose to air the approbation in public. But then why in public? The only reason I could see is to offer a trigger for many to join the applause thus making a widely held personal view point, an expression of just public opinion and through it express solidarity of the group as a whole and love and respect to one of the great living sons of Madhwas. I see your mail as a positive and better late than never kind of note to this man who deserves nothing but respect, praise and love from all of us.

Our privately held public opinions about this man are well known to everyone by now. A simple explanation to the question as to why did he generate such intense and passionate opinions about him during his princely reign in the past, lies in the fact that none of us were equal to take him on. He was like a colossus astriding the old and the new world, an intellectual of his times, a great revolutionary whose life and thoughts were shaped by the great thinkers of English society therefore held in awe by all of us. A great product of his times, Anna loved him so much that he was always and almost treated with the love that the eldest in the family unduly garner in the Indian society. I have never seen Anna in happier circumstances than in his company discussing weighty matters of life. Lying down side by side, the discussion would run deeper into the long mysterious hours of night.


In a way, he triggered us to go out and find means to equal his length and breadth of his knowledge and wisdom. He brooked no fools. He made us scurry like a pack of rats in front of a fierce and hungry looking cat. To get a praise from him was like getting an accolade from the Nobel committee. Personally I read many of the Shakespearean works, Smith and Percival Spear’s Indian History (especially the passage summarizing the reasons for the downfall of Moghul Empire – I could even today challenge him for word by word reproduction) and many such great works of History and literature just to seek his approving nod.

Therein lies the beauty of such challenges. The knowledge only breeds love and leads us to see that the only meaningful act in our existence could be to love individuals, nay the entire humanity for what they are and what it is. What began as a challenge only ended up as love. I don’t know whether he was aware of it but he was the reason for whatever little I know and enjoy to this day. In retrospect I feel I only loved him for what he was and is. In his looks and deeds he reflected a bit of another of my cherished idol of his contemporaneous world - Nehru (Kamala there is we know, any Lady Mountbatten in his life, curious to know!!) - and perhaps his love for English, lieterature,history and its historical figures with all their great deeds and eccentricities must have rubbed strongly on me too to love this endearing Dada! Doubtless he was the fountain head to all of our curious and little endeavors!

Even today, I have an intense desire in me to challenge this man. I want to obliterate his record and make his achievement look pedestrian. In doing that, perhaps I would have paid my respects to him. But how? By winning the Nobel Prize. But then I realize it is impossible in this birth therefore join the junta in respect to bow to this worthy son of Yasaka and wishing him many more happy returns of the day, however belated it may be!!