Seated in the office of the Principal of Ethiraj College for Women recently, I had the opportunity to look at the photographs of all the Principals the College had had from the beginning. And the name of the first Principal, Subur Parthasarathi, struck me not only as one I had heard in another context not too long ago, but also as someone who looked different in that gallery of pictures. Back home I began looking at my recent reading — and there she was in her grand-nephew Raghu Karnad’s book, Farthest Field , an emotionally wrought but fact-rich ‘Indian story of the Second World War’.
Subur Mugaseth, was the oldest of the four children of Khodadad Mugaseth, the heir of a leading businessman of Calicut, Dhanjibhoy Mugaseth. Then came Nurgesh, Raghu Karnad’s grandmother, Godrej aka Bobby who went into the Army, and Khorshed, who married a college student Manek Dadabhoy who joined the Royal Indian Air Force. But this story, unlike in the book, is not about all of them; it is about the Parthasarathis.
It was on a scholarship that Subur went to Oxford in 1932 and besides getting an MA in English, became what her grand-nephew calls “a regular blue stocking”. While at Oxford she met the son of N. Gopalaswami Iyengar, a Madras civil servant who had served as the Dewan of Kashmir. G. Parthasarathi (GP) was a double Blue at Oxford (cricket and hockey), and came from a distinguished family. He had played first class cricket in England too while he waited for Subur to finish her degree. He also apprenticed at The Times in London and took his dinners to qualify as a barrister. But the orthodox Khodadad would not let them into his house when they came to see him after they got married. So back they went to Madras.Subur joined Queen Mary’s College as a lecturer in English and was to go on to head the Department and even act as Principal on occasion. Parthasarathi joined The Hindu , became its Foreign News Editor and played Ranji Trophy cricket. He also maintained his contacts with the Left and the nationalists with both of whom he had been in touch in London. Many of them became visitors to their house in Madras.
After India became independent, GP spent some time with the Press Trust of India in London, then joined the fledgling Indian Foreign Service (IFS). In time, he was posted to key capitals, serving as Ambassador to Indonesia, China and Pakistan, and as India’s representative to the United Nations. After retiring from the IFS, GP helped found Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and became its first Vice-Chancellor. Meanwhile, at Queen Mary’s College, Subur Parthasarathi was allowed by Government to become Principal of Ethiraj College (Miscellany, August 24). She was later appointed a Rajya Sabha member. She died in New York in 1966. Nurgesh, a Government doctor in Madras, lost her husband, also a doctor, Kodandera Ganapathy, a Coorgi, when he was a young Army doctor. Asthmatic bronchitis was the cause.
Raghu Karnad’s book is about the three brothers-in-law, Dadabhoy, Bobby and Ganapathy, who all died during the War.
