Longevity is a mark of a true academic. Even after retirement, an academic may continue to read, write, publish, deliver occasional lectures, often becoming a nightingale which sings to please its own soul, as Shelley would have it. But it is very rare to know of an academic who had a living relationship with the classroom and his students until he almost dropped dead. That was Professor P Rajani for you, who passed away in Coimbatore last week, leaving academic circles and students across Tamil Nadu in mourning.
“I was born in Pakistan in 1939. After Partition in 1947, we came to India because of the rise [in violence] both in Punjab and Sind. Why we came to Coimbatore, I have no idea,” said Dr Rajani about his Sindhi roots in an interview.
After his schooling at Stanes Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School, he graduated from Coimbatore Government Arts College and earned his Master of Arts from Thyagaraja College, Madurai, eventually becoming so much part of the Tamil Nadu milieu. He took his doctorate in English Literature from Madras University and a diploma in Filmmaking too. Though his family was in business, he chose to be an academic.
Whenever I asked him to take rest, he replied, “I want to die in harness”. His green and salad days were spent in Madras Christian College (1968-1998) after brief stints in Government colleges, notably Presidency College in Chennai, until he retired . He wintered in Madras University, for over a decade from 1998 to 2010, like a lingering pelican from Europe enjoying its days in the warm Pallikaranai marsh. He spent his twilight years in the rural area where the Central University of Tamil Nadu was set up near Thiruvarur (till 2015), briefly in Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore, and finally, in a private college in Sulur before COVID-19 came to snatch his life.
He was teaching, directing plays and staging them, wherever he worked. The meek came to speak, the timid turned jaunty, the indifferent became involved.
His passion was poetry and drama and his forte, theatre. He felt that women’s roles were not taken seriously in dramatic representations. Hence, his theatre foregrounded women-oriented plays, anticipating the paradigm shift even in films today projecting strong women. Some of his women students became directors.
It was this awareness of his métier that prompted me to invite him to Madras University to offer courses in Theatre. Very soon, his elective was thrown open to the entire university and the rest is history, as they say.
I must acknowledge that my university helped me accommodate Prof Rajani under one scheme or the other over a decade, the crowning of it being the Tagore Chair for Theatre followed by Emeritus Professorship. Thanks to the gracious gesture of Beatrix D’Souza , then Anglo-Indian Member of Parliament, we acquired theatre equipment under the MPLAD Fund.
We carried it wherever we took our students to perform. He taught them technical skills to handle it. Prof Rajani’s repertoire also widened with the introduction of Australian and Canadian Studies in the University department. Culturally thought- provoking plays were produced by him in international conferences casting our students. He produced Sriraman’s English translation of Indira Parthasarathy’s Tamil play Ramanujar at TAG Centre, Chennai, the public in full attendance. The performance was telecast on Doordarshan. Sponsorship from Australian and Canadian High Commissions, not to omit the Fulbright Foundation, was a recognition of his commitment. Even a drab veranda was transformed into a theatre for rehearsals in true Bakhtinian carnival spirit.
Prof Rajani was punctual to his classes, conscientious in discharging his duties, however much preoccupied he was with his theatre activities. He took all department work as his own and was generous in helping everyone. He was truly egalitarian in spirit.
Fare forward, old voyager!
The writer is Professor and former Head of the Department of English, University of Madras.
