The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

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There was this small river (kAttARu) that connected my dad's village & the village where he worked (i.e. where we lived and was the place of my first 16 years of life). Though it is not a border TN area but a nadoo-center of TN, this river had an interesting Sanskrit name "santhAna varththini". The first time I recognized it could be so powerful was when in 9th (1977) when a huge flood happened and this one was a contributor to the wiping out of a couple of villages Otherwise, it was only doing 'azhagu' to the village with its sand & some water appearing for a couple of months each year.

Well, it had a check-dam, using which some water was diverted to a koLam ('ayyan koLam' and the dam was called 'ayyan koLaththu aNai' or simply 'ayyaNai'). Until my 9th grade, I've never been there - though boys often talk about it (a couple of miles away from home, no water anyways, fearing dad etc). During this famous flood year, ventured to it with some classmates and was thoroughly fascinated by the sound of water, the 'ayirai', 'keNdai', 'keLuththi', 'kuRavai' kind of fish and the whole surroundings! The river had nice bamboo trees on the bank and the whole place was like a new-found-paradise to me.

We had a few more years of decent rainy seasons (ADMK folks claimed it was due to 'nallavar Atchi') and my visits to ayyaNai became a lot more frequent, often alone. This is probably the time when I understood that one can also enjoy solitude Naturally, all this appreciation for nature and its beauty followed. Enjoying those for hours became another addiction.

It was in this background that VM arrived in TFM, who over the years has proved to be the best in this domain. During my +1 / +2 years, many hours of riverside was accompanied by 'pon mAlaippozhudhu' playing in the mind