When rudely interrupted by rain, cricket matches usually slip into a sideshow with the broadcasting channel playing past matches, curating the content carefully for context.
During the lockdown, some hobby groups function almost similarly, by putting the past on a loop, often choosing past activities with some relevance to the present.
While posting pre-lockdown visits to heritage sites from his group Cycling Yogis’ Sunday Rides to keep his flock engaged, founder Ramanujar Moulana had on a couple of occasions sought to link a past bicycle ride with the prevailing situation, using some strands of commonality.
One post particularly presented a nugget from Chennai's past, rather Madras’. Touching upon the continuing global hope for an early vaccine against COVID-19, he showcased a memorial for someone known from the Madras Presidency who was famously known as “The Vaccinator”, W.S. Sawmy Naick.
“A picture taken sometime during my rides, at the Memorial Pillar of Dr. W.S. Sawmy Naick (1760-1839) the Great Vaccinator and Health Officer of Madras during the British Rule. The Memorial Pillar is located near Langs Garden Road in Pudupet,” writes Ramanujar in a post that includes a photo of the memorial.
This post with a blasting message from the past is punctuated with present concerns — thanks to the tags, #covid19 #vaccine #lockdown #stayathome #staystrong.
A frontline worker
Given the nature of the work and the challenges that he had to take in his stride, which Sawmy apparently did with a lion heart, he would automatically qualify to be a “frontline worker”.
Years ago, writing in his column Hidden Histories for The Hindu , historian V. Sriram drew attention to how “Dr Woodayagiri Singadivakkam Samy Nayak or WS Sawmy Naick”, appointed “Native Superintendent of Vaccination in 1803 at a salary of 25 pagodas”, had to wage a war not just against disease-causing microbes, but also people's ignorance and fear. His visits to neighbourhoods for vaccination work would be fraught with risk to his safety, and Sriram mentions that during vaccination work in George Town one day, he was attacked by a group of Armenians. It is likely to have been vaccination against smallpox.
In a telephonic conversation, Sriram explains, “In the early 1900s, the Corporation of Madras had five vaccinators, and their output was vaccinating just one person a day.”
This situation, Sriram says, seems to underscore that even in the early 1900s, people could refuse to be take the vaccination.
Sriram article can be accessed at https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/chen-columns/ memorial-to-a-vaccinator/article3321575.ece
