by A. J. PHILIP
When I heard that Prof M.G.S. Narayanan was scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Kerala Club, I made it a point to attend, for I had to thank him for a favour he had done to me about two and a half decades ago. One of my neighbours in Patna was an archaeologist attached to the History Department of Patna University. On off days we would meet either in his house or at my place and over cups of tea and a packet of cigarettes we would discuss subjects as diverse as history and historiography and anthropology and angiography.
One day he told me about his Ph.D thesis, which the university had sent for evaluation to two scholars. One of them had sent his report, while the other had not. There are no rules that the examiner should submit his report within a certain period. It could be one month or one year or one decade. My neighbour’s promotion as Reader was due and it hinged on his obtaining a Ph.D. The examiner in question was Prof Narayanan.
My friend wanted me to help him. I had no connection with Prof Narayanan. When I could no longer resist his persistence, I hit upon an idea. I wrote a letter addressed to Prof. Narayanan in Malayalam explaining my friend’s predicament and wondering whether he could expedite his report. I then sent my letter in a sealed envelope to my friend, the late James T. Malana, who lived in Kozhikkode, to deliver it personally to Prof. Narayanan. I had an uneasy fear that the Professor would be upset with my impulsive intervention.
Far from that, he told Malana to tell me that my effort was not in vain. True to his word, his report reached the university within a few days. My friend gave me a treat when he got his Ph.D. In due course, he became a professor and retired from the university a few years ago. Prof Narayanan’s lecture at Kerala Club was an opportunity for me to thank him for his favour. “What favour? I just did my duty”, he said a bit curtly.
Prof Narayanan went on to tell me how his own Ph.D got delayed. The external examiner of his thesis was none other than A.L. Basham, the British historian whose book ‘The Wonder That Was India’ should be read by everyone, who wants to know the cultural and literary heritage of India that is Bharat. That bit of information was sufficient for me to rate him higher than what I had imagined him to be.
Let me also confess that I had gone to the Club with a bias. The impression I had formed was that he was a camp follower of the BJP and a proponent of Hindutva. This might have been because he was allegedly close to Murli Manohar Joshi, HRD Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, who believed in astrology, rather than astronomy. Some of his statements on St. Thomas’ arrival in Kerala and the first Muslim mosque in Kerala, nay India, might have instilled in me such an impression.
But I was simply mesmerized by Prof. Narayanan’s lecture and remained virtually transfixed as he delineated on subjects as varied as the origin of Kerala, Unniyarcha of the Northern fables as the better half of Tipu Sultan and Cleopatra as a Malayali girl of exquisite beauty. By the time he completed his lecture, I became an unabashed admirer of his scholarship and pursuit of truth. Prof Narayanan is undoubtedly one of India’s greatest historians who truly distinguish history from myths.
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