THEFT IN OUR VIJANAPURA HOUSE OF AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1972

 When me and my brother were children there was a less fortunate incident that plagued us and could have had bad consequences  but some how came to a logical end much earlier than expected.

Every year there used to be Onam celebrations within the ITI complex and on the said year even our family made our prescience. My mother made a mistake...she wore all her ornaments for the show. What we did not realize on our way back there was a thief Krishnan on our trail eager to understand the exact location of our house.

The next few days Krishnan has kept our house under surveillance and observed my mother used to take food for her children at school at around 12:30 and return by around 1:30.One of these days he decided to strike.

He did strike with clinical accuracy. A short and heavy metal rod that we used to use came handy for him. He broke open the door lock with the metal rod and scrambled within the house and found  the trunk under the cot and even broke open the lock and de-camped with the jewellery.

As providence would have it for some unknown reason my father left his work place and came home and was the first to see the mishap. My father was certain our house has been burgled. I don't know what went in his mind. He decided to inform my mother  who was on her way back home from School.

Me and my brother were too young to understand what was going around us.My father kept his calm and went to the house  of our relative O K Nambiar who used to live in Wilson Garden around this time.The son-in-law of O K Nambiar ,M Sankaranarayanan was an IAS officer and Nambiar had exquisite links with senior police officials of this time..more precisely Shri Biran Moideen who was DGP  and Shri. Nizamuddin IPS. My father met  Shri Biran Moideen in his house and he told my father not to be upset ...WE WILL CATCH THE THEIF.

I remember police official's would come to our house often  seeing if they could collect some evidence. My mother gave the drawings of her lost jewellery to the police and this was flashed among all stations.

Few months later Krishnan tried to sell the ornaments within Shoolay police station limits to a  pawn broker.The pawn Broker suspected the jewellery to be  of stolen nature and he informed Shoolay police station and the police matched the jewellery with the drawings given by my mother and the police knew the game is over for Krishnan.

The following day police in civilian dress kept vigil for Krishnan at the pawn brokers shop and Krishnan appeared and was apprehended and on interrogation handed over the entire bunch of jewels stolen.

1st of April 1973 was most possibly a Sunday  and was another Sunday for all of us. I was looking out of the window and suddenly saw two police jeeps stop at  our door and I  called my father who opened the door. The police had brought Krishnan with him in hand cuff and he sat  on the floor. The police  people told us this is the thief and the loquacious person that Iam went into long conversation with the police staff.

Later we went to the Shoolay police station where the inspector showed us the entire bunch of jewels but could only be handed over to us through court procedures.

Well that did not take too long. On the 14th of May 1973 the jewels were back at our house. My sister was born on 15th of May 1973.

.........Why I took the pains of recording this incident ..for several reasons. Had it not been for the industry of my Father  things may not have the propitious end we had.. secondly  had it not been for the support of O K NAMBIAR  we would have been no-where...  thirdly I want to thank the police staff who went about  the matter assiduously... and finally warn women not to make the mistake my mother did of wearing jewellery to casual celebrations and inviting mis fortune and wrath and putting families in peril.

R S KRISHNASWAMY(RSK) AND MYSELF

I met R S KRISHNASWAMY or RSK as he is known in the board room of MSRIM perhaps in the year 2004 or so for the first time where he was teaching Marketing and Gandhian Thoughts,subjects he used to teach in a spirited way and no sooner came to know he was a confidant and  friend of the children of  O K Nambiar and went to school together with them in Mysore.   He is the nephew of  R K LAKSHMAN the noted Cartoonist and is an alumnus of the National Institute of Engineering Mysore and a college mate of  the founder of Infosys Mr. Narayana Murthy. His son Chetan Krishnaswamy was on the advisory board of the Institute for some time.

O K NAMBIAR

Below is a Photograph taken in 1957 at CENTRAL COLLEGE BANGALORE.  O K Nambiar is seated somewhere it seems to me.anyone familiar with this photo can please pin-point it to me.

M BHAKTAVATSALA PASSES AWAY

I was having a nap at home when my brother called me up and said M Bhaktavatsala more popularly known in Bangalore as Bhakta passed away.He is the first son-in-law of Mr.O K Nambiar.A veteran movie enthusiast and a writer and investor was a key figure in dynamics of the city for many decades.

Bureaucrat  Chiranjeevi Singh IAS and Prema Bhaktavatsala are seen here 

I immediately paid a visit to their house on Richmond circle and was given to understand that he had a regular morning swim and passes at around 7:00 AM.I paid my respects to him and was told he was 83 years of age.

MY ANCESTORS AND RELATIVES AND PAZHASSI RAJAH

Living in Bangalore , I was not very much concerned about my roots in Cannanore/kannur in Kerala. My earliest memories are that of going to my ancestral house in cherukunnu in kannur with my parents and brother. My father is from the kalikot family at a place called narath in kannur. The sister iof my mother using treacherous methods ousted my mother without giving basic rights on ancestral properities after demolishing the ancestral house and building a smalll one for herself in its place. This event had a lasting impact on our lives because most of the connections with our mothers household got terminated once and for all somewhere in 1973. Thereafter as relatives we only went to our father's place. My father also seems to be from a formidable house hold in narath of hard working people. I remember fondly the eldest brother of my father whom I used to visit and stay with when I visited kannur/cannanore.

Interesting as it seems the word Nambiar caught my fancy largely because of my stint at BPL nd I became increasingly curious about my ancestors. The search focussed on the village of cherukunnu in kannur/cannanore. It seemed to be another of those villages. The ancestral house that I mentioned above was built by a person called kottayam kadankot chindan nambiar in 1935 and is the father of my grandmother. There seems to be something great about this person from his actions during his life time. In bangalore we used to frequent the house of professor

O K Nambiar who used to teach english at bangalore university and their three children Prema Bhaktavatsalam, Prabha Shankaranarayanan and Jeevan Prasad. (Mr. Shankaranarayanan was chief secretary of karnataka state)

Prof . O K Nambiar's wife is the granddaughter of kottayam kadangot chindan nambiar.

There is another house hold in cox town in bangalore we used to visit as childre; this is the house of Dr. P C Nambiar who used to be an FRCS and his wife Madhaviachi is a cousin of my grandmother. Later I had regular contact with the daughter of p c nambiar by the name janaki menon. They used to stay in a victorian style building which was demolished somewhere in 1997 and flats built in its place. I have met the son of janaki menon by name dilip menon once.

I became keen on this kottayam kadangot family as I have connections with this house hold so to speak. This led me to the activities and the times of pazhassi rajah in the place called kottayam in telicherry. When the british took control of Telicherry from the pazahassi rajah many of the relatives of the rajah fled tellicherry and it seems this family called kottayam kadangot in cherukunnu were descendants of the relatives of the pazhassi rajah of kottayam. In 1865 when my great grand father kottayam kadangot chindan nambiar was barely eleven years of age a house in the naalu-kattu style came up in cherukunnu and exists even to this day. I had visited this house some time back.

It is surprising to note about this connection between telicherry and cherukunnu that was established during the times of pazhassi rajah whom the british called pyche rajah. However my initials are Palanghat Odayoth and please visit potrust.org which is a web site created by the members of this family.