Thankanna
BY
P.R.Ramachander
Thankanna was the
first son of my father’s athan ProfC.V.Subbarama Iyer.His mother died on the day that he was born .His father was at that time
Professor of Mathematics at the University college Trivandrum . Finding it difficult to
bring up the motherless baby , his
father married again and they called the baby boy as Thankappan and to
all of he was Thankanna.
Today is Thankanna’s 100th
birthday. Thankanna was brought up in
Trivandrum and he used to tell me that he had attended the
marriage of my parents. He must have been around 14 years then. Later he took his Ph.D. in mathematics and almost life long worked as Professor and Head of the department of mathematics of Sri
Keraka Verma , College
, Trichur. Prof.Subbarama Iyer became the Principal of university
college and after retirement
settled down in Chelakkara. During school vacations when I used to visit
Chelakkara , I was constant vistor of
Athan’s home with an intention of
playing carom with his sons and also
read books from the huge library that
he maintained. It was in this house that
I met Thankanna and Manni first. The love between us was at the first sight
.Thankanna and manni liked me and i liked them.
After a few years
I joined intermediate in Sri Kerala
Verma college and Mathematics was
one of my subjects and as fate would
gave it, My thankanna taught me mathematics ,He always wore a well maintained suit and always used to come to the college in a Rickshaw drawn by a very old man. To all my classmates who attended classes in Dhothi he was Mountbatten Prabhu. I as the Ammanchi Kutti
of Thankanna knew that the Rickshaw travel was
only a method adopted by
Thankanna to finance the old Rickshaw
puller. Most of the time he used to walk
and empty Rickshaw used to follow him.
In the college Thankanna used to tell me very often that Manni wanted me to visit his home ,These
visits made me close to his elder
children Nringa and Babu ,As a great teacher Thankanna had very many great people as his
students including several ministers and senior officials. All of them were
happy only when they get blessing from their Venkatraman Sir. Manni used
to tell me that unexpected guests to
feed was a rule not exception in their
house .
Thankanna did build a
home of his own in poonkunnam,He called this house Epsilon. Once i asked him why and he said it was “as small
as he liked” like epsilon
In the nineties my Thankanna passed away and whenever i used to pass through Trichur ,
i used to make it a point to meet manni.Always she to
welcome me with her trademark
smile and make me very comfortable,
Manni is also no more
and today it is the hundredth
star birthday of my Thankanna
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