6 l SRUTI June 2019

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Nostalgic memories

Sruti’s homage to our dear father, Dr. V. Raghavan on his 40th anniversary by publishing an article by my second brother R. Charudattan, created emotional moments for the four of us—Kalidas, Charu, Priyamvada and myself—bringing in nostalgic memories.

Father’s vast library consisted of nearly 15,000 books, apart from priceless documents, photographs and archival material, which he considered as his prime property all through his life. After his untimely demise, the four of us shared around 1000 books each as part of his legacy. While Kalidas focused on religious and spiritual subjects in addition to the encyclopaedia volumes, Charudattan took works on paintings, art and literature of different parts of the world; Priyamvada, close inheritor of our father’s Sanskritic heritage, having studied with him many sastraic texts, treatises on dance and dramas, acquired books in those

areas of study; as for myself I took an assortment of many aspects of literature, religion, music, dance, and theatre, apart from invaluable collections of old journals, photo­graphs, archival material, and hand­written notes of father as well as his own unpublished works in some 24 different areas of research.

Apart from Harvard University library, few others like University of Hawaii, University of Florida and University Utrecht, The Netherlands, were happy to host limited collection of Dr. Raghavan’s books, some while he was alive and some after his demise.

Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, a disciple and great admirer of Dr. Raghavan, who was then an important part of the Education Ministry of the Government of India, arranged to buy a considerable part of the library books for a very nominal price and housed it in the premises of the Kuppusvami Sastri Institute, in the campus of the Madras Sanskrit College.

This Centre, named “Dr. V. Raghavan Mandiram”, was inaugurated in a memorable event in which high officials from the Central government and celebrities of this city participated. Dr. S.S. Janaki, a devoted disciple of V. Raghavan, took meticulous care of the collection. This library is being maintained there for the benefit of students and researchers. However, the name board installed on this occasion at the entrance of the campus, has been removed in recent times for reasons best known to the next generation caretakers of the parent organisation.

Housing a part of his invaluable collection in the campus is a fitting tribute to Dr. Raghavan. Recalling his unique contribution, B. Madhavan, learned scion of the V. Krishnaswamy Iyer family, who led the institutions later said: “Many might have worked at this campus for upholding the glory of Sanskritic heritage, but none can match the extraordinary, selfless, scholarly services of Dr. Raghavan.”

Incidentally, at this very campus our father delivered his last lecture on Rama Navami day just a few hours before he passed away in April 1979.

Nandini RamaniChennai

Obituary

Jamuna Krishnan (76), Bharatanatyam guru, Director, Kalangan Centre for Classical Arts, New Delhi and mother of dancer Ragini Chandershekar, passed away on 15 May 2019 in New Delhi.

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