Madras has always been close to my heart although I was born and raised in Kunnakudi near Chettinad. It was a small village where we had a lot of ancestral properties that we had sold to permanently relocate to Chennai in 1951. I started working in Chennai in a private firm for a salary of 15 rupees and had eight people to feed.
Then I moved to TVS where I worked for over 9 years and then moved to Kalki magazine in 1960, where I served for over 30 years. As part of this, I got to experience the different flavors of Tamil Nadu and Chennai from my interactions with the who’s who of the state. One fond memory of my association while working for Kalki is getting to work with world-renowned singer Mrs. M.S. Subbalakshmi and her husband Mr. Sadasivam who was the co-founder of Kalki magazine along with Kalki Krishnamurthy.
I have been part of their journey in the magazine and their service to the nation as I got to travel with them every where as his personal stenographer. I am now 86 years and I wish to continue the service to the society that I started doing during my young age.
I continue to stay associated with my peers from the Hindu newspaper and other magazines. We have been working on helping the youngsters learn Tamil Literature as a lot of them know just the language and not the literature and the wealth it beholds.
In short, if I should describe my life in Madras, I could say that I moved to this city around the time when MGR got his big career break – the 1950s. I saw him enter politics and become the leader that we admire even today, despite losing him over 30 years ago . I have seen a lot of leaders come and go, a lot of changes happen in the city, and have seen Madras grow from a caterpillar to the beautiful butterfly that it is today where it holds people from all walks of life in its embrace and has been producing world