Columnist
Pattabhi Raman As I Knew Him

Death has a finality, which
forces one to face things one
may have taken for granted earlier.
On hearing that Mr. Pattabhi
Raman was no more, I suddenly
realised how much I had assumed
on his permanent presence in
Sruti. For a long time, even as I
contributed to Sruti, the accent in
my work being on happenings in
Delhi, Mr. Pattabhi Raman was a
distant figure—the Editor-in-Chief
of the journal I happened to write
for. My first direct contact with
him was when the Sruti Foundation
mounted the National Seminar on
Bharatanatyam Dance Traditions,
at Sathguru Gnanananda Hall in
Chennai from 8-14 December
1989. Watching Pattabhi Raman's
tireless efforts given the exhausting
schedule of events from early
morning to late evening, two facts
were brought home to me—one
that the man had rare capacity for
organisation and secondly was a
beaver for work. In later years, on
the many occasions when we
happened to participate together in
seminars or festivals, as at the
Houston event mounted by the
Indian dance diaspora in 2001, my
earlier impressions about his
abilities were only reconfirmed. At
Houston , as I came down the
staircase of the stately house we
stayed in, winding my way to the
kitchen downstairs for the inevitable
morning starter of a cup of filtered
coffee all south Indians are so
addicted to (fortunately for us, our
charming and hospitable hosts were
South Indians), it was to see Mr.
Pattabhi Raman already seated in
front of the computer in the study,
going over his daily 'dak', shooting
off messages to Sruti staffers, and
making notes on all that had
happened the day earlier. He and
my colleague Sunil Kothari had a
daily race for the computer and
whenever the result was a draw,
an amicable solution was worked
out on how best to use the
computer at different hours, so that
both were, at least partly if not
fully satisfied.