**************************************************************************************************************
I was talking about the possible cordial intellectual relations between a father-in-law and his son-in-law.
Let me get personal a bit.
I had very little interaction with my organic father-in-law since he died soon after my marriage....not my fault. We had met only a couple of times and that too in the crowded presence of a dozen other relatives. For the record, he didn't actually rebuke me (unlike his wife).
But I had a wonderful grandfather-in-law who was my real father-in-law. Let me explain:
My wife was the first born to her parents who were living far away from AP and getting transferred every other year...her father was in the accounts division of the railways. After getting posted in Assam, UP, Bihar and other such remote places, they sort of settled down at Jalgaon in Maharashtra by when my wife got married (to me).
So my wife's grandfather, Sri Patri Hanumanta Rao, took up the responsibility of raising my wife from her infancy along with his other grandchildren who were all brought up in his vast joint family, although he had lost his own wife when he was a mere 36 and his whole family was looked after by his widowed younger sister.
PHR was an engineering graduate from the then famous Guindy Engineering College...I am talking about the 1930s. He was a civil engineer and was for a long while associated with the construction of the Tungabhadra Dam near Hospet, now in Karnataka, as an executive engineer:
It was he who discovered me as a suitable groom for his fond granddaughter who had just then completed her MD in Microbiology under his care and supervision. He was about the only one among his relatives who had heard of IIT KGP and assured his dubious relatives that gps is ok, sort of.
A few months after our marriage in 1979, he visited KGP, traveling without reservation by the Madras-Howrah Mail...he said he had this sudden urge to see for himself how gps was treating his granddaughter. And he had planned to stay there for a week but was so charmed by gps and IIT that he stayed for over a fortnight.
During this probation period of mine as a husband, PHR and I struck up an unlikely friendship...he was in his 70s and I in my 30s.
At first he was very curious of what I did at IIT, what I taught and learned, and slowly he probed into the secrets of the quantum world and the wonderland of relativity. I was naturally charmed that an old retired civil engineer was so curious of physics.
And I in my turn learned from him a lot about dams, tunnels, irrigation canals, hydroelectric projects and such topics which I had read in my high school and forgot. I found in him a great teacher and a great student.
And while I was away at my office, he was taking book after English book from my meager collection in my home library and was reading them on the sly. And when he was leaving KGP he selected half a dozen of my books like RKN's and Jim Corbett's and pleaded with me to let him borrow them promising he would return them when we met next. And said he never had the time to read such great books during his working days.
I said ok a little dubiously.
But during our next visit to Tirupati where he was staying, the first thing he did was to return all those books with brand new covers...a thing only my senior colleague MS Sikand used to do.
We met again half a dozen times and during his last visit to KGP he stayed for over a month and asked me to take him to the Central Library, Computer Center, Civil Engg Department, Nehru Museum and such places at IIT KGP. And he was of immense help and support to me during my several mundane travails with my extended family.
A couple of years back when my wife was on her deathbed, she looked at me one midnight with a strange gleam in her eyes, and said:
"My grandfather, PHR, always used to talk highly about you and used to often say you are a good man, in front of all our relatives. And I used to envy you then. Now I realize why he said all those good things about you"
And then she left us forever within a week.
A rare tribute I fondly cherish...
...Posted by Ishani
*************************************************************************************************************
I was talking about the possible cordial intellectual relations between a father-in-law and his son-in-law.
Let me get personal a bit.
I had very little interaction with my organic father-in-law since he died soon after my marriage....not my fault. We had met only a couple of times and that too in the crowded presence of a dozen other relatives. For the record, he didn't actually rebuke me (unlike his wife).
But I had a wonderful grandfather-in-law who was my real father-in-law. Let me explain:
My wife was the first born to her parents who were living far away from AP and getting transferred every other year...her father was in the accounts division of the railways. After getting posted in Assam, UP, Bihar and other such remote places, they sort of settled down at Jalgaon in Maharashtra by when my wife got married (to me).
So my wife's grandfather, Sri Patri Hanumanta Rao, took up the responsibility of raising my wife from her infancy along with his other grandchildren who were all brought up in his vast joint family, although he had lost his own wife when he was a mere 36 and his whole family was looked after by his widowed younger sister.
PHR was an engineering graduate from the then famous Guindy Engineering College...I am talking about the 1930s. He was a civil engineer and was for a long while associated with the construction of the Tungabhadra Dam near Hospet, now in Karnataka, as an executive engineer:
It was he who discovered me as a suitable groom for his fond granddaughter who had just then completed her MD in Microbiology under his care and supervision. He was about the only one among his relatives who had heard of IIT KGP and assured his dubious relatives that gps is ok, sort of.
A few months after our marriage in 1979, he visited KGP, traveling without reservation by the Madras-Howrah Mail...he said he had this sudden urge to see for himself how gps was treating his granddaughter. And he had planned to stay there for a week but was so charmed by gps and IIT that he stayed for over a fortnight.
During this probation period of mine as a husband, PHR and I struck up an unlikely friendship...he was in his 70s and I in my 30s.
At first he was very curious of what I did at IIT, what I taught and learned, and slowly he probed into the secrets of the quantum world and the wonderland of relativity. I was naturally charmed that an old retired civil engineer was so curious of physics.
And I in my turn learned from him a lot about dams, tunnels, irrigation canals, hydroelectric projects and such topics which I had read in my high school and forgot. I found in him a great teacher and a great student.
And while I was away at my office, he was taking book after English book from my meager collection in my home library and was reading them on the sly. And when he was leaving KGP he selected half a dozen of my books like RKN's and Jim Corbett's and pleaded with me to let him borrow them promising he would return them when we met next. And said he never had the time to read such great books during his working days.
I said ok a little dubiously.
But during our next visit to Tirupati where he was staying, the first thing he did was to return all those books with brand new covers...a thing only my senior colleague MS Sikand used to do.
We met again half a dozen times and during his last visit to KGP he stayed for over a month and asked me to take him to the Central Library, Computer Center, Civil Engg Department, Nehru Museum and such places at IIT KGP. And he was of immense help and support to me during my several mundane travails with my extended family.
A couple of years back when my wife was on her deathbed, she looked at me one midnight with a strange gleam in her eyes, and said:
"My grandfather, PHR, always used to talk highly about you and used to often say you are a good man, in front of all our relatives. And I used to envy you then. Now I realize why he said all those good things about you"
And then she left us forever within a week.
A rare tribute I fondly cherish...
...Posted by Ishani
*************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment