This is a half-century old story, with ‘yours truly’, then a college student, playing a minor role, the hero being a brilliant Indian constitutional lawyer, educationaist, orator and administrator — Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer, diwan of Travancore state during 1936 to 1947.
We met at Mysore. The year was 1959. Just three years before, the three states had, between themselves, a linguistic trade-off of small pockets — Kasargode coming to Kerala and Shencottah and Kanyakumari going to Madras. If only CP had had his way, an independent native state would have been born in the south in the late Forties, for, on attainment of freedom, he, as diwan, had advised the king of Travancore to oppose accession to the Union, batting instead for a Travancore, with its own constitution, foreign relations, import-export regime and so on. What would have been the shape of the state now if CP had succeeded is an intriguing speculation. That was 1947.
In November 1959, around 1,400 college students from all over India converged in the salubrious city of Mysore for the sixth Inter-University Youth Festival. Following the state-level inter-collegiate festival, Kerala University had selected me as the delegate to a symposium, the topic being ‘Evaluation of merit of students’. On my performance, I would not dwell; there was nothing remarkable about it.
The moderator of the session was Sir CP. His aristocratic features — aquiline nose, big, bright, piercing eyes, starched, immaculate turban — and scintillating oratory are still fresh in my mind. He spoke extempore, and when rolling, rhyming periods like “I discovered with dismay and disappointment that the standard of students was steadily declining” flowed from him with rhythm, the awestruck audience stirred in their seats.
At the close of the meeting, the organisers introduced each speaker to the ‘distinguished knight’. When he shot a glance at me and shook hands, I could well imagine the trail of memories associated with his eventful stint in Travancore that must have panned across his mind.
Rewind. The night of July 25, 1947. Sir CP attends a music concert at the Swathi Thirunal Music Academy, Trivandrum. While he leaves the hall, all lights suddenly die out and someone pounces on him and tries to kill him with a sword, slashing him right and left. CP escapes, but with serious wounds on fingers, ear, behind the skull and left cheek. Surgery is done, and on August 19, 1947; he leaves Trivandrum, resigning diwanship.
The conspirators were my unknown ‘elder brothers, uncles and cousins’, who had found the diwan an insufferable dictator. Twelve years had passed. If he had succeeded in drowning the unpleasant recollections, chances, are I, through our handshake, rustled them up.