It was an eggless cake. Of course, it was meant for a birthday event. The person who was at the centre of the event — Palamadai Ananthanarayana Seshan — may not have cut a cake in the past to mark his birthday.
But Saturday was special, as he stepped into his 100th year, and made an exception.
In the presence of industrialists Suresh Krishna and Pollachi N. Mahalingam, 15 of his family members, including the youngest member and his great-granddaughter Sanjana and many of his colleagues at The Hindu, the former Commercial and Financial Editor of The Hindu, Mr. Seshan, popularly known as ‘Leo’ to his readers and PAS to his colleagues, celebrated his 99th birthday at a simple and elegant function.
True to Tamil culture, Mr. Mahalingam, chairman, Sakthi Group of Companies, and Mr. Suresh Krishna, Chairman and Managing Director, Sundram Fasteners, presented Mr. Seshan with shawls at the function organised by Kasturi & Sons Limited. The birthday hero received a couple of rare gifts from his organisation — laminated versions of the newspaper dated July 7, 1913 (the day on which he was born) and April 30, 1957 (the day on which the earliest available edition of his famous column ‘Leo’s News & Notes’ was carried).
N. Ram, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, whom the newspaper’s Senior Associate Editor V. Jayanth described as the architect of the event, mentioned there was a suggestion to wait for a year to celebrate PAS’ birth centenary but the organisation decided it was best to kick off the celebration now.
Recalling Mr. Seshan’s long association with the newspaper that began in 1952, Mr. Ram referred to his contributions through his column, ‘Leo’s News & Notes,’ and his anchoring the annual Survey of Indian Industry, a publication brought out by The Hindu. He commended Mr. Seshan for his ability to work exceptionally long hours, word length and deadline discipline and “above all, prodigious memory.”
Mr. Seshan was not known to be a wordsmith but he was “reliable, factual, accurate, precise, unrelentingly so, day after day,” Mr. Ram pointed out, adding how the veteran journalist overcame his visual handicap.
Mr. Mahalingam, who is in his 90th year, recalled how Mr. Seshan, despite his handicap, visited his sugar factories to have first-hand knowledge of the working of the plants. The journalist had helped him in drafting the text of the annual speeches of the company’s chairman.
The industrialist had a word of advice to the newspaper — make a comparative study of the living conditions of farmers between the past and the present.
Mr. Suresh Krishna was as usual brief and to the point. He recounted how he benefitted by wise counsel provided by Mr. Seshan in 1983 when his organisation was planning to carry out expansion and become a public limited company.
The industrialist, who said he felt young in the presence of Mr. Seshan even though he himself was 75-plus, hailed the seasoned journalist as a “karma yogi” as one who found God in his work.
S. Viswanathan, Editor of Industrial Economist, hailed Mr. Seshan as the “Bhishma Pitamaha of business journalism.”
Mr. Seshan expressed his gratitude to K. Srinivasan and G. Kasturi, former editors of the paper, for their guidance and encouragement. His son P.S. Ananthanarayanan thanked the management of Kasturi & Sons Limited on behalf of his family for organising the event.
After his retirement from service in the 1990s, Mr. Seshan was associated with a host of organisations, including those in culture and education. He was founder-president of the Mahakavi Sri Neelakanta Deekshithar Foundation, the Palamadai and Sri Kasi Viswanathan Mangaleswari Baktha Jana Sabha and the Palamadai Welfare Account.
