A Favourite Disciple of Ravi Shankar

“Is it possible to get A.R.Rahman? If it is not possible, how about Balamuralikrishna? At least S.P.Balasubramaniam?” These were the questions posed to me by a Manager in charge of Music in an important Malayalam TV Channel on the morning of 11^th December, 2012, the day Pundit Ravi Shankar passed away! The idea was to get a few popular figures in the field of music to talk about Pundit Ravi Shankar and get it telecast as a channel tribute. I told him that there is a person in Chennai who is better qualified to talk about Pundit Ravi Shankar. “Is it Ilayaraja?” he asked me. I said, “No. He is Pundit Janardhan Mitta.” He responded saying “Even I do not know of him. So where is the question of viewers knowing of him?” Then I asked him, “Do you know who Vilayat Khan is?” He said, “I have heard the name somewhere, but cannot place him.” “Do you know who Annapurna Devi is?” I continued. He said, “No”. “Nikhil Banerji?” “No”. “How about Shahid Parvez?” He did not know him as well. I disconnected telling him that it was no surprise that he had not heard of Pundit Janardhan Mitta.

If Pundit Ravi Shankar represents a great peak of sitar then Ustad Vilayat Khan stands as another great peak. Nikhil Banerji is another peak in the world of sitar. The genius of Annapurna Devi in sitar is well known. She was the first wife of Pundit Ravi Shankar. Ustad Allauddin Khan was the father of Annapurna Devi and a Guru to all the above sitar maestros! If Shahid Parvez is the present day sitar wonder, then Pundit Janardhan Mitta is South India’s best sitar maestro.

Among the few disciples of Pundit Ravi Shankar, Pt. Janardhan Mitta is an important one. He had moved closely with Pt. Ravi Shankar for almost half a century. But, as he had spent almost 45 important years of his life in the film music industry, barring composers and artistes in the industry he remained unknown to common people and music fans.

My relationship with Pundit Janardhan Mitta’s music began from the days of Salil Chowdhury composing music for the Malayalam film Madanotsavam. The song ‘Saagarame Shaantamaka Nee’ from that film was later translated into the Tamil song ‘Kaalamagal Medainadakam’. It is one of the most emotional songs that I have heard. I can never forget the sorrow-filled parts of the sitar portion in the song. Janardhan’s sitar music had also starred in the many songs of another of my ideal Malayalam film music composers, Baburaj. Baburaj was greatly infatuated with Hindustani music. He had composed many songs in ghazal, tumri and dadhra styles. And he unfailingly made great use of Janardhan’s sitar music.  

After I became a resident of Chennai, I searched for and visited many music artistes who played some fantastic instrumental pieces in many of my favourite numbers to spend hours of marvelous times with them. Important among them are flute wonder Guna Singh and violin genius Rama Subbu. That was how I first met Pundit Janardhan Mitta. That relationship continues to this day.

Pundit Janardhan, who was the sitar artiste dear to Salil Chowdhury, was not aware of the difference of opinion between his Guru Pt. Ravi Shankar and Salil Chowdhury that was practically music tiff. Salil Chowudhury had, in many of his numbers like ‘O Sajna Barkha Bahaar Aayee’ in the film Parakh, used sitar for a western technique like obbligato. At this, an angered Pt. Ravi Shankar had objected saying that Salil Chowdhury had no right to trivialize the treasure of Indian music, the sitar, like this.

Salil Chowdhury had reposted to this criticism: “I am not in the sad position of having to learn from Ravi Shankar how to be an Indian in music or how to go Western.” Later, however, Ravi Shankar corrected himself saying that his stand on the issue was wrong and that the score of Salil Chowdhury was superbly creative. He also said that he could never have composed music for films like Salil Chowdhury, S.D.Burman or Madan Mohan!

Pt. Janardhan had called me the evening of the day Pt. Ravi Shankar had passed away. Seeing his number on my cell, I greeted, “Good Evening, Punditji”. He sounded tired when he responded: “How could this day be good, Shaji?” I could feel the heaviness of his sorrow in his voice. I could feel his heart crying out in memory of his Guru Pundit Ravi Shankar, a person he worshipped, someone he valued like his own life.

Pt. Ravi Shankar was born in Benares, Uttar Pradesh. Bengali was his mother tongue. His father was an advocate. His elder brother was the internationally renowned Indian classical dance genius, Uday Shankar. Ravi Shankar started his artistic career as the dancer in his brother’s dance troupe at the age of 10. He started on his foreign tours then itself. He heard and was mesmerized by the sitar play of Ustad Allauddin Khan at the age of 14. He, at that very inspired moment, left dance to learn playing sitar as the disciple of Ustad Allauddin Khan. Ravi Shankar completely dedicated himself to music. By the time he was 20, Ravi Shankar was already a music genius. His fame spread across India. His music concerts in India and abroad were of prodigious count.

Janardhan Mitta was born into a Telugu family in Hyderabad. His father was an advocate, too. A music teacher used to come to their house to teach his elder sister music. His sister used to learn sitar, as well, from him on occasions. Janardhan, who was fascinated on seeing this, started practicing on sitar whenever he got time. Pretty soon, he started playing the sitar well.

He was invited to play sitar for radio events. Janardhan, without the benefit of having learnt sitar properly from a Guru, became the ‘court’ musician of Hyderabad Radio station! When Pt. Ravi Shankar came to Hyderabad for a music event in 1955, Janardhan Mitta had the opportunity of meeting him. He was introduced to Pt. Ravi Shankar as a humble local sitar player. He wanted to play sitar before the maestro. But Ravi Shankar declined assuring him that he will listen to him during his next visit.

Pt. Ravi Shankar visited Hyderabad again soon enough. Tensed by the occasion, Janardhan played something forgettable on the sitar. After listening to him, a surprised Pt. Ravi Shankar said: “You do not know the basics of playing the sitar! But, goodness me, you certainly have played some advanced bits so effortlessly”. Reassured by Punditji’s smile of approval, Janardhan fell at his feet and beseeched him, “Nobody taught me. Guruji, please accept me as your disciple and guide me along the right path.” Ravi Shankar did not have any reservations while accepting him as his disciple. He was then living in Delhi. Thus Janardhan made frequent trips to Delhi from 1956 onwards to learn sitar from his beloved Guru.

At that time, Ravi Shankar’s stay in India was only for brief periods! He was frequently visiting all the important music fora in the world to give his sitar concerts. Ravi Shankar had come close to George Harrison, the guitar artiste and singer in the Beatles Troupe, and soon became his sitar Guru as well. It was this ‘Ravi Shankar impact’ that made Harrison play sitar in a few songs like ‘Norwegian Wood’. It was George Harrison who had called Ravi Shankar the ‘Father of World Music’.

The album ‘East Meets West’, which he had made with Western classical music maestro Yehudi Menuhin, became very popular. The album ‘Passages’, that he made with American classical music composer, Philip Glass, many years later, was very popular as well. Ravi Shankar held fusion concerts with superstars of popular music like Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. He was not merely an India musician famous all over the world, the fame of having introduced Indian Classical music to the world was his, too.

There was not much demand, then, for classical sitar music in South India, especially not in Hyderabad. It was a time when Janardhan was in a dilemma to continue with music or to seek some other work. Then in 1958, he was invited by Sarathi Recording Theatre of Hyderabad to play the sitar for a film. He accomplished the job easily and received good payment, too.

Many opportunities followed from the film industry. That made Janardhan decide that his career lay in playing sitar for the film industry and in January 1959, he migrated to Madras, which was the then centre for the making of South Indian films. In Madras he played sitar for the film music of Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada films besides devotional albums. Now and then a few Hindi, Oriya and Bengali film opportunities also came his way.

Janardhan who started playing sitar for composers like Master Venu, Rajeswar Rao and Ghantasala continued his work playing sitar for, more or less, all the film composers of India like Salil Chowdhury, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Viswanathan Ramamurthy, K.V.Mahadevan, Baburaj, Ilaiyaraja and A.R.Rahman. One can say that practically 90% of sitar pieces in the popular South Indian music came from Janardhan! He had a special talent for playing sitar pieces for background score that enhanced the emotions of the film scenes. I would suggest that you listen carefully to the background score of the film Pesum Padam. One could deeply feel the emotion-stirring beauty of the sitar play in it.

Pt. Ravi Shankar scaled every height that an Indian artiste could dream of. He was bestowed every award of Government of India, including Bharat Ratna. He stayed, for the most part, in America. He would stay in India only for two months of the year. Pt.Janardhan Mitta continued his music lessons from Pt.Ravi Shankar by visiting him wherever he stayed in India. He practiced his sitar lesson for 10 days a year, staying with Pt.Ravi Shankar in his 3 acres farm house in his native Benares. Pt.Janardhan learned playing sitar at his Guru’s feet for almost 50 years!

Janardhan, too, has travelled to many countries and given concerts of both classical and film music. He has given classical music sitar concerts in many centres in India as well. In some of Ravi Shankar’s sitar concerts in South India, Janardhan had jointly played sitar with his revered Guru. Some sitar pieces played by Janardhan had found a place in the album ‘Passages’ of Philip Glass and Pt. Ravi Shankar. He has also released a few records and cassettes of classical music of his own. He has the credit of composing music for a few Telugu films.

Pt. Janardhan Mitta was the President of the South Indian Film Music Artistes Union for many years. He had, during his tenure, taken steps to increase the remuneration levels of music artistes and introduced quite a few new schemes for music artistes living in penury. He is now untiringly working full time for the spread of Hindustani classical music. He is running a forum in Chennai called Vishwa Kala Sangam, just for Hindustani music. He continues to give regular music concerts accompanied by a young woman tabla player, Rimpa Shiva.

Janardhan Mitta says: “My Guruji was instrumental in making Indian instrumental music stand tall in the world arena. The role played by him in raising the standards of life for Indian musicians and getting them their due respect in our society is truly historical. Janardhan Mitta worships his Guru like an incarnation for teaching him the secrets and techniques of Hindustani music on the sacred premise that ‘don’t do cheating in music’.

Today, Pundit Ravi Shankar is no more with us. But there is Pundit Janardhan Mitta who reminds us of his guru. How many people know that he can hold his own in the ‘Top sitar players of the world’? I despair to know when we are going to honour with all due respect Pundit Janardhan Mitta’s miraculously potent sitar music and his lifelong service in the cause of music!

The Malayalee Sensibilities of Music

“There is nothing as great a music system in this world as Carnatic music. There may be a few others that are pleasant to hear. But none of them have the greatness or the importance of our music system.” This is no sooth-saying of an ordinary person! It was no less than the Guru of Carnatic music, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer! Most of the people here will contend that this opinion of the omniscient Guru is indeed correct. Is it possible that the venerable Semmangudi reached this conclusion after attaining a complete understanding of all the other music systems in this world? If he has reached this conclusion only on the basis of his understanding of Carnatic music, is it tenable or credible?

Melissa Holliday is an Australian friend. She can sing very well. On an occasion I presented her a record of Madurai Mani Iyer’s rendering of a Swati Thirunal krithi ‘Saarasaaksha Paripaalaya’ in Raag Pantuvarali (Kamavardhini). After listening to it, the question that she asked me was, “Is it some tribal chant?” We can dismiss her question as a matter of ignorance. My question is, “Isn’t there a big mistake somewhere in claiming, with just an understanding of a music system that is native to a few provinces in India which is a small part of the world, that our system of music is the greatest system in this world?” We Malayalees have for long been fostering an attitude very similar to this, that what we know is great and everything else is trash.

By now, we have a long history of writing in Malayalam that regards Western music with varying degrees of revulsion and buttresses it with ‘scholarly’ evaluations like ‘Over doing of Western music’ and ‘Noisy Western Music’. If this is the standard of evaluation of the classical system of music that has developed over a millennium and spread to all parts of the world, then I can imagine nothing more absurd! What Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi or Tchaikovsky created are not mere ‘noises’. These are wizardries of music that can reach, touch and transform the most delicate emotions and moments of human heart!

And if these smug critiques refer to the Western popular music (Pop) then to consider the prodigious output of the likes of John Lennon, Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder as noise is height of ignorance. Most of these are sculptures in music that unify light music, the excitement of beat, incandescent moments of emotions and universal brotherhood into one moment of creative greatness. This Malayalee thought that seeks to trash the Western music as noise, when compared to a white woman’s understanding of Madurai Mani Iyer’s rendering as a tribal chant is a much greater distortion and very unbecoming.

In Malayalam film music, in the many songs composed by Salil Chowdhury, M.B.Sreenivasan, Johnson, Ilayaraja and Shyam, we get to hear the great fusion of tunes steeped in Indian classical music and scintillating background instrumental scores that are so beautifully in western music style. But our traditionally handicapped listening style makes us listen to the lines of the lyrics and then the tune in which the lines are sung often completely ignoring the glorious background instrumental music.

To add insult to injury, we grumble aloud that too much importance is being accorded to instrumental music. Our complaints then borrow the tones of our innate beliefs in untouchability to ask why should accompanying instruments, that should stand with deferential humility well behind the vocal music, be given such prominence. As far as Malayalees are concerned lines of lyrics are what count and they should be loud and clear! When we set the sacred lines to tune we should not stretch, shorten or split them! It is just blasphemous.

We refuse to understand that the words of the lines need to be stretched, shortened or split to suit the requirements of the tune to give the whole line the musicality that go on to make a song out of lyrics. The beauty of a piece in the background score whether it is a sitar or flute or tabla used with equal or more prominence in a song barely reaches our ears. If the lines of lyrics alone are important, why have a song at all. It should be enough to read or recite the lines as a poem. Why bother to set the poem to music, at all? Or for that matter, why have instrumental music at all as a background?

How many among us would have noted how in the song ‘Maanasa mine Varu’ sung by Manna Dey for the film Chemmeen the Harmony and the Obbligato of the instruments flute and Oboe in the background gives the song a creative completeness? But then we are Malayalees and our strong belief is that instrumental music only ‘helps’ to discount the clarity and importance of lyrics.

These kinds of opinions emanate from the wrong notion that poem and music are synonymous. As I have already written in a previous article, you need language to create a song. But you need neither language nor lines to create music. Good music can stand on its own strength without the lines of lyrics. Take Mozart’s violin composition Serenade 13 in G Major, for example. You can write lines in any language any time to the tune of Serenade 13 and make it a song.

I would like readers to carefully listen to Johnson’s background scores in many Malayalam films like Thoovaanathumbigal and Namukku Paarkaan Mundirithoppugal. One can then experience the verity of the proposition that instrumental music can stir our emotions on par with any song or even surpass it. But then we have to improve our discerning power from a mere ‘awareness of the song’ to an ‘awareness of music’. We can understand the real creative contribution of a composer only by listening closely to the instrumental scores of composers in songs. Otherwise listeners simply lose the finer points of music in listening merely to the lyrics of the song.

Another essential stipulation that our listeners prescribe for a singer is that he should have a ‘bass’ voice. We see Yesudas’ ‘bass’ voice as his very great specialty. My experience tells me that this belief in the essentiality of a ‘bass’ voice for a male singer is the peculiarity of Malayalees. None of the great and famous male singers of western music like Michael Jackson, Barry Gibb, Jeff Buckley, Jimmy Somerville, Sting and John Lennon can be said to have the ‘bass’ voice prescribed by us. Nor did the great Indian singers like Mohammed Rafi and Talat Mehmood have the ‘vibrant’ low notes. Look at our great singers before Yesudas like A.M.Rajah or Udayabhanu. They were such marvels but did not have the ‘vibrant bass’ voice. For this reason, can we dismiss these greats as not great singers? Many of them were certainly better singers than Yesudas.

It is generally said that Malayalees are not given to star worship. But, at least in the matter of music, I do not think it to be true. I know many Malayalees who are in no doubt whatsoever that Yesudas is the greatest singer ever to have been born in this world. Here there is no further room for critical analysis or evaluation of great music.

Exactly like our overweening commitment to Carnatic music, we are stuck with an ignore-everything-else interest in some particular ragas of Carnatic music. The countless number of popular Malayalam film songs from the ‘Golden Era’ of Malayalam film music had been composed in ragas you can count on your fingers like Mohanam, Madhyamavadhi, Aabheri, Hindolam, Ananda Bhairavi, Shuddha Dhanyasi etc. I cannot help remembering the comment of a musician friend from Tamilnadu that most of the Malayalam film songs he had heard sounded more or less the same. As you keep composing the songs in a few ragas, the possibility of the song becoming familiar faster increases through the process of the song reminding us of earlier famous songs. The Malayalee tendency of appreciating only the familiar things and viewing the unfamiliar with suspicion is again evident from this.

Then there are Malayalees who make a ‘to do’ about their appreciation of songs with a deep knowledge of music. Right on top of their menu is the requirement that ‘sangatis’ must have deep and grave import. The more involved and difficult to sing the sangati is, the better it is! Then they can delight for hours and days, explaining the unexplainable. They will accept the greatness of a song only when the sangatis score more on the scale of difficulty. ‘Gangey……and ‘Madhumozhi Raadhe Ninne……………..Thedi’ are some examples where lung calisthenics stretching the lines are called for and therefore, count as great songs! Delicate expressions and beautifully portrayed emotions in a song is the basis of good music. But, sorry, it is not so for Malayalees.

Malayalees love music programs, but, please, please reproduce exactly as it was recorded. Omit nothing. And do not add anything as well. My friend, why should you attend a music program? You will be better off listening to a DVD recording of the song. Why should another singer and a music troupe go to the trouble of reproducing the same thing? When a famous song is reproduced in a forum, everywhere in the world, listeners applaud and accept the changes made with a sense of musicality. In fact, most listeners come looking for such nuggets of creative beauty. When Mehdi Hassan sang his famous film songs, audience waited with bated breath for the creative changes he rang up at every different concert!

Only those who know that the music we have not heard is much more than the miniscule that we have heard can realize that there is no such thing as the last word in music! No form of art that does not understand the changing times or fails to reach newer and different audiences can survive. Carnatic music faces this frightening prospect today. We should be ever ready, without forgetting our tradition or the path we had travelled, to understand the new world and changing times. While remaining conscious of the greatness of our traditions, we will do well to remember that there are other even greater traditions in this world. For a listener who can in all truthfulness realize the limitations of what he has heard and therefore keeps both his mind and heart open to newer and fresher listening experiences, the music will always be the language of the heart and soul. Beethoven or Thyagaraja, Ustad Amir Khan or Michael Jackson, Mehdi Hasan or Salil Chowdhury, Madan Mohan or Baburaj, are all but a local dialect of the universal human language called music.

Dr. Verghese Kurien: Paving The Milky Way

They always say what can one man do? 

One man can do a lot if he dedicates himself to the task. 

One man can create an AMUL. 

– Dr. Verghese Kurien

Years ago I have traveled widely in the state of Gujarat. Anand town is on the State Highway between Baroda and Ahmedabad. It has a sleepy railway station on the Mumbai - Ahmedabad line. As you travel on the state highway you can see factories bearing sky-high legend AMUL. Whenever I used to travel on the route, my mind would inescapably remember Dr. Verghese Kurien. I had always regarded him as one of my ideals. I could never think of him without a sense of admiration. I had always longed to go into his office to meet him and shake hands at least once. The thought of ‘who am I for that?’ curbed my ambition.

Dr.Verghese Kurien was the one, over the last 63 years, who had built brick by brick the AMUL brand that is the face of the internationally famous, commercially successful empire that markets milk and milk products. The story goes back to the small town of Anand. AMUL stands for Anand Milk Union Limited. It is the name that showed the world how a single person with a will can eradicate the poverty of millions of people with a product that spoils in a matter of a few hours! It is a name that showed how the destiny of a nation can be rewritten for the better. Dr.Verghese Kurien is the only Indian who showed how it could be done!

Dr.Kurien was never the owner of or the investor in AMUL. AMUL is a miracle that happened when, as a Government employee, Dr.Kurien came forward to be a social entrepreneur. AMUL is among the most massive of the cooperative unions of people! It is an union of 16200 village cooperative units. Common people, all 32 lakhs of them, are the owners of AMUL! Today AMUL stands before the whole world as its greatest cooperative organisation that grosses a turnover of over Rs.12, 000 crores in milk and milk products.

There are few organisations in the world that can stand in comparison with AMUL in manufacturing breadth of products like our daily milk, butter, milk supplement for children, cheese, skimmed milk powder, curd, milk butter, ice cream, cold milk drinks, milk-based health drinks, sweetened milk concentrates, milk sweets, etc or in its geographic spread or its scale of operation. Dr.Kurien, as the head of National Dairy Development Board, launched Operation Flood to replicate the AMUL pattern of cooperative dairy development all over India. It is this ‘Operation Flood’ that made India the largest producer of liquid milk in the world! It is one of the few reasons that India could stand tall in the world as an example to the other nations! Dr.Kurien achieved all these as a Government employee on a monthly salary, taking all the monumental works in his stride as if it is all part of his every day work!

Variously called as the Father of India’s White Revolution, India’s Milkman and other such endearing names, Dr.Kurien had Malayalam as his mother tongue. He was born in 1921, as the scion of a rich family, in Kozhikkode, a part of Madras province in the pre-Independence India. He graduated in Physics from Loyola College of Chennai and later took a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Madras University. Later when he topped the exam in Metallurgy at Tata Steel’s College of Technology in Jamshedpur, Government of India sent him to America for further studies with a scholarship grant. He joined Michigan State University in 1946 and returned to India as a Mechanical Engineering scientist. He was to later remark that none of these achievements of him in higher studies was of any use in his later career!

While granting him scholarship for higher studies Government of India had laid the condition that on his return he must serve Government of India for a few years wherever he is posted in India. That was how he reached Anand in 1949. Anand was then direly impoverished with scorching summer and water famine and without any basic facilities. Dr.Kurien was sent there to erect new machinery for the Government milk dairy. Born with a silver spoon and having lived in America cocooned in all comforts, was given a dilapidated garage to stay in Anand. He could not stand the sounds and smells of cows and buffaloes tethered all around. He had an aversion for milk even as a child! Seeing no way out, he waited for his agreed term with Government to be over. In the meanwhile, he kept sending his resignations. Finally his resignation was accepted before the agreed term expired! As he was packing his bags with great relief, Tribhuvandas Patel, a leader of farmers in Gujarat, called on him.

Tribhuvandas Patel conveyed his belief forcefully that he could do something good for the dire poor who toiled night and day and yet could not eke out a living. He told him that Gujarat needed his service and exhorted him to stay. Dr.Kurien could not overlook the gravity and force of the request made by Tribhuvandas. That day he staked his life for the poor farmers of Gujarat. Thus the legend of Tribhuvandas and Verghese was born and the rest is the history of India’s White Revolution.

In one of his reminiscences down the road many years later Dr.Kurien had said: “Till then I knew nothing of either milk or agriculture. Only those people who are conscious of what they do not know rather than what they know can execute their work properly.” He requested his friend from his American stay, Harischandra Yadav, to come down to Anand for a few days. He hailed from a dairy farming family. The friend who came as a guest for three days stayed on for 35 years shouldering important responsibilities in AMUL. Dr.Kurien brought together many able persons from different fields and led them with a great clarity of purpose.

Dr.Kurien was not well versed in Gujarati language. His Hindi too was a laboured effort. English was his lingua franca. But that never cramped his style. Dr.Kurien’s contributions to the widely noticed and timely creative advertisements of AMUL were direct. Dr.Kurien’s stay at AMUL was a saga of achievements and awards after awards sought him out. Government of India conferred on him every honour it had except Bharat Ratna award. The award for being the World’s Top Manager (1993), highest award of the Milk Industry in the world, Walter Peace Prize, World Food Award and Magsaysay Award, he had got them all. In many of these awards, he was the only Indian to get them.

When his time of retirement came, he was not allowed to retire. He too was not the retiring kind. But at the ripe age of 85, Dr.Verghese Kurien was rather forcefully shown the gate at AMUL, the organisation he had so lovingly built. Political forces that wanted to clamp their hands on AMUL had cleverly outmaneuvered him. But even after this unseemly event he did not abandon either Anand or the many organisations that he had founded like the world-famous National Institute of Rural Development.

Selfishness was not a part of his mental vocabulary, but Dr.Verghese Kurien was supremely confident of himself, his work and decisions he made to further the cause of farmers. For this he was accused of being head-strong! He had always wanted all the Divisional Heads in AMUL to report to him directly so that he could guide them better. For this, he was dubbed a dictator. But never in his life was he a partisan giving concessions to favourites or recommending an individual. His work ethics, moving ahead of times with foresight, impartial and unbiased evaluation and unbending determination for the cause were the basis of his management legitimacy. The Presidents and Prime Ministers of India and Dignitaries from abroad threw protocol to the wind and visited him in Anand to gain the insights of his problem-solving philosophy.

This is what he has written in his autobiography An Unfinished Dream: “Farmer sheds his blood as sweat to produce food for us. When he eats his meal in peace, when he gets the respect and an income equivalent to other trades and industries, then alone will my dream be fulfilled. The journey that I started in Anand 60 years ago is not going to end till every poor farmer in our country triumphs.”

Dr.Verghese Kurien, who was a complete atheist and rationalist, wanted his body to be cremated in an electric crematorium and the ashes to be strewn on the soil of Anand. He also insisted that his funeral be free of the usual rites and that there be no memorial to his name. His wish was implicitly carried out after his death on 9^th September, 2012. Dr.Kurien used to cite the following lines of Alfred Lord Tennyson whenever he talked of his own death

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea.