Ambi Anna (1915–1992)

My grand father, Sri. T. R. Ramachandran was Ambi Anna to many, being the eldest of his generation in our family. He was a leading lawyer, who had grinded his way to the top much like his grandfather, a famous gent whom he derived his name from. My cherished memories of him from my childhood days spent in Ayodhya are numerous. Ayodhya a joint family household was inhabited by many and had almost every inch that was not stacked with law books and legal dockets occupied by humans. Mosaic floors would get transformed over night with neatly arranged cotton mattresses so we could all sleep in comfort.

My Thatha, was an early riser especially in his later years when he found sleep was hard to come by. He made his first trip downstairs around 5.30 am. He announced his presence by opening the front doors and let the natural light start filtering in. Chennai where he lived had no dearth for the heat and the natural sunshine. He would stand at the door for the newspaper man to deliver his paper and the daily case list which was a listing of the cases in the Madras High Court. He would sit down on his green easy-chair and flip through the articles and get his daily updates while my grand mother Madurambal ( affectionately called Manni) handed him a simmering cup of hot coffee. Those days we used to have fresh buffalo milk (A2) delivered at home. Due to the high degree of suspicion on dilution, the milk man usually arrived with his buffalo early in the morning and had to first come in and show that his pail was empty before he started to milk the buffalo. After getting his heart fill of The Hindu and perusing the court case list, he would stare at the half a dozen people blissfully asleep in front of him. He couldn’t take it any more so he would start exhorting us poor folks to wake up. “Dai, Enthundu ulla poi padutthu kongo”, he would say, and slowly one by one we poor souls would wake up groggy eyed with our blankets into one of the bedrooms to continue our sleep.

As I grew older I graduated to sleeping upstairs in his office with the likes of Swami & Raja who like me were making their trips through Ayodhya. Little did I know what I was in for. My Thatha really couldn’t sleep at night and even sleeping pills didn’t let him get a good nights sleep. We quickly found out that he woke up before 5.30 am. He would wake up at ungodly hours and walk into his office where we were catching our Z’s. There was a wall clock in his office with chimes that often would get out of sync. In his middle of night rounds he would decide to reset the clock. He would pull up a stool or chair, stand on top of it and go about resetting the clock so the chimes were back in sync. This was a frequent occurrence and soon we got used to it.

If it was a weekend day between 9 am — 10 am he would get the urge to read Financial Express and Economic Times and I was the lucky one he picked to send to pick it up from Raghavan Periappa’s house. Soon it became normal chore to run over or bike there to pick up the papers and swing back. I only wished I had read up on his favorite stock picks in the 70’s Pfizer and Hindustan Lever and Reliance and such which are still household names still.

In summer the house was always filled with family from all over and a game of carrom was always on. Thatha would join us sometimes and I still can’t forget his uniques style of play. He loved playing with his middle finger and was pretty good. To this day I have tried many a time to strike the striker with my middle finger whilst playing with little success. Thatha liked to watch sports too and would often join us to watch a cricket match. During the match the conversation would always revert to his favorite opening pair Hobbs and Sutcliffe.

Now we not only watched cricket but we also played some in the famous Ayodhya front yard and some of us were good at it and others whined (😜) when they lost their wicket. A pretty picturesque sight for the bowler a tall Christmas tree in the middle flanked by a Vrischi Poo and Hibiscus ( I think ). As we grew up that ground became small for us and we shifted to the road outside. One day whilst we were playing outside with a tennis ball my HS buddy Giri smacked one that rose up and cracked a window pane upstairs. I still remember the anger that it aroused in Thatha who came running out to reprimand us. I don’t blame him, for it probably cost more than a few paisa to fix that.

Thatha was a righteous man and one quality I imbibed from him was his integrity. It probably helped him to be great as a lawyer and created a long line of clients who wished to use his services. He probably could have become a High Court judge but chose not to entertain it for he was sure that would challenge his integrity. We benefited a lot from his court victories. His happy clients would land up with pots of “ basundhi” from Agarwal Bhavan that we all got to taste. I can never forget that taste and just thinking of it made my mouth water. My Thatha had a sweet tooth and so did the whole household. We got to eat Paal payasam daily and got treated to Pazham Nurukku frequently ( my favorite dessert to this day).

Thatha was elaborate at planning his trips and remember this was much before you could go online to IRCTC and book his tickets. Usually it was Punyakoti who got tasked with purchasing his tickets. But then more often than not he would change his plans and someone would have to run to Central to cancel his tickets. I had the lions share of this effort in my school days and remember making several trips early in the morning to do so. Early morning on weekends the buses to Central were empty and it was a breeze to go and come ( Yun Gaya aur Yun Vapas Aa Gaya). On one of my trips back from Central on a fairly empty PTC bus a young kid boarded and sat beside me on the bus. The kid had just been freed from jail for some petty crime and was singing praises of his life in jail. He was telling me how good the food was and advised me to give it a try. Thankfully, I have stayed away so far.

Unlike my paternal grandfather (Dikshithar a topic for a future blog) his first cousin, Thatha was not as talkative to us youngsters so I can’t recall many stories I have heard from him. Most that I know about him is what I have heard from my mother, my Dikshithar Thatha, Manni paati and my uncles and aunts. He struggled to set up his practice and supported an extended family much like his grandfather Diwan Bahadur. In his later years he was actively involved in the running of the family Rama temple in Punkunnam. We respected him and and I am sure I can speak for my uncles and aunts when I say that everyone was afraid of him. He had high expectations and no one wanted to fail him. My only regret is not having adult conversations with him during my college days and get to know him more as a person.