Of late the city of Thiruvananthapuram has metamorphosed into a city of statues. They crop up like mushrooms here, there and everywhere. Not that I have anything against them. In fact, I am a firm believer in the dictum - the more the merrier.
I enjoy playing the guessing game when confronted with some of the statues I am not familiar with. Some have gone under the hammer, never to return, yet some have sprung up like the Phoenix after having undergone a facelift.
“Statues may come and statues may go, but I stand here forever”, seems to be the unspoken words of my favourite statue. ”No one would dare knock me down because unlike the other statues scattered all over I am the backbone of Thiruvananthapuram city. I am to the city what the Statue of Liberty is to the United States of America.”
The importance of this statue is such that a long stretch of road in the heart of the city
where the statue stands is named after this monument. A tall and imposing figure, exquisitely crafted in bronze, it is a sculptor’s delight and envied by all artisans. This larger-than-life figure has stood witness to all the ups and downs the city has faced and sports a look which says, “I am the Dewan of all I survey.”
Yes, you have guessed this favourite statue of mine: it is none other than the statue of Dewan T Madhava Rao. Now you may wonder why I have this special fondness for this statue. I am no artist, but a lay person.
More than its artistic splendour, I have a soft corner for the grand old man sporting a turban for a very special reason. As a child I used to live in a house just a five-minute walk from where the statue stands. So, from the age of three, for every trip I had to make outside of my home I had to pass this statue. But all I did at that time was to gaze at the figure with a puzzled look, while I had to wait with my parents to cross the road.
As I grew a little older and was reading ‘Grimms Fairy Tales’ and ‘Aesop’s Fables’, my curiosity got the better of me and I would try hard to connect this statue with the characters I had come across in the tales.
And finally one fine day I got my answer while reading ‘Gulliver’s Travels in Brobdingnag’. This statue must have been, once upon a time, an inhabitant of Brobdingnag. Today, I have a hearty laugh when I think of my stupid conclusion.
I often wonder why I did not ask my parents for more information concerning the statue. Always known as a talkative child, I knew I would have got an answer to all my questions from my Professor father.
Unfortunately, he is no more. So I had to turn to a few historians who provided some information about the history of the man behind the statue. I was also lucky to meet a person who happened to be a distant relative of the Dewan. He, in turn, provided me with some personal details.
Dewan T Madhava Rao was born in a Tanjore Marati family of Kumbakonam in 1828. After serving for two years in the Madras Civil Service, Madhava Rao was appointed Tutor in Mathematics and Physics at the Govt. High School in Madras. However, Rao quit in a short while to take up a job in the office of the Accountant General.
He was appointed to the Princes of Travancore at the recommendation of the then English Resident which he accepted.
Impressed with his performance he was offered a position in the revenue department of Travancore. In a short while, he rose to be the Dewan Peshkar of Travancore. During this time, Travancore was facing a severe financial crisis and the treasury was empty. The then Maharaja had already taken a loan from the Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple to tide over the crisis.
The state of affairs was bad enough to deter anyone from taking the post of the Dewan, but Rao was confident he could tide over the crisis. His progressive financial measures were testified by the fact that when he left the state in 1872, the state had a reserve of Rs 40 Lakh. A princely sum indeed in those days!
In recognition of his services, by public subscription, the bronze statue of Sri Madhava Rao was erected at Thiruvananthapuram.
The chance meeting with the distant relative of the Dewan proved to be a blessing in disguise. There seem to be some sort of an invisible bond between my abode in Tutor’s Lane, near the statue, before my marriage and my present residence, because the plot on which my house now stands once belonged to the close relative of the Dewan.
(She teaches English to the visually-impaired college students who stay at the University hostel for Women,
Thiruvananthapuram)