Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
Round and about town
THE HITHERTO quietly functioning Public Health Centre in West Mambalam, which will mark the end of its Golden Jubilee year on September 20, celebrated in uncharacteristic fashion what might in time be called Founder's Day but which on May 4 was called the M.C. Subrahmanyam Memorial Function. Tucked away in a corner, his portrait displaying his gentle, whimsical smile, was MC watching over an interminable meeting and all the be-shawling and be-garlanding that were a part of it as were poetic paeans in his praise and laudatory essays about those present. I wonder what MC the retiring would have thought of all of it; certainly he would have thought that the one thing they'd got right was tucking him away in that corner, for being out of the limelight is what he enjoyed most.
I wonder too what Rajaji, who had inaugurated the one-roomed, thatch-roofed, kerosene lamp-lighted centre with one doctor in 1953, would have thought about it in the context of what he had said on that occasion: "Any number of shadows do not make a substance. Any number of desires do not make an achievement... Recording and printing that we wish to do this, we wish to do that, we plan for this, we plan for that, is suicidal. The record must be only of what we have achieved. Let us avoid finding pleasure in cultivating a taste for drum beating and trumpet-blowing. It is no substance for work. A certain foreign style has been alluring us, destroying our old tradition of `maun' and quiet service". Today, though MC's belief that `Service to Man is Service to God' is still selfless observed by its numerous volunteers, the PHC, now grown into a large general hospital, has begun to feel the need to show itself off a bit. I hope the September function will be shorter and truer to the spirit prevalent at the founding.
Mea Culpa: Vinayaka Mudaliar, described erroneously as the "younger brother" of Arcot Ratnasabapathi Mudaliar in Miscellany last week, was in fact, his son-in-law.
S. MUTHIAH
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
|
