R Gopalakrishnan digs out his family roots of over 200 years and shares how the small village of Vilakkudi in Tamil Nadu responded to changes like the arrival of British, newspapers and railways in his new book. He chats with Karan Bhardwaj
Did you ever try to find out your family history and rootsIJ Do you know what your great grandfather’s father would have thought of evolving India, how would he have reacted to cultural changes prominent in his timesIJ Or how he would have set the “core values” of the family that are coming down from generations and are being followed by you and your childrenIJ You might not know that but R Gopalakrishnan has precise details of 200 years of his family legacy. The author has written about his previous six generations in a book titled A Comma In A Sentence (Rupa Publications). Gopalakrishnan hails from a small village of Vilakkudi in the Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu. What inspired him to look back into his origins was a trip to the village, where none of his relatives exists today. “But villagers recognised me through my mannerisms and started narrating stories of my family. I was shocked to learn how my ancestors lived in an isolated village. They opened the doors of temples for me since my ancestors were priests in the village. It was a moving and an inspiring experience,” he says. The travel that he did in 1984 started the journey of a documentation, which decades later, materialised into a book. He subsequently undertook several trips. “Since then, I started reading about the history of the state, talking to villagers about the family and the customs, rituals that they usually followed,” says the author, who is also the executive director with Tata Sons. During his research, he discovered some fascinating changes that the state of Tamil Nadu and India went through, besides his own family members and their customs. However, the book is not a detailed account of his family. “It is a fictional work which draws inspiration from the facts and history. My family is just a sutradhar of sharing what was happening in village and its vicinity,” he shares.
A Comma In A Sentence begins with a story of Ranganathan, a small-time landowner who was unaffected by the British rule. It talks about Tanjavore, mismanagement of the great Madras famine by the British, caste systems, family’s shifting out of the village and the present-day life and set up of the author. There are interesting conversations between the writer’s great grandfather and his father. Gopalakrishnan explains about the credibility of the content, “Even the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharta are based on hearsay information. How do we know about Mohenjo-daroIJ We got the facts and developed a script. That’s how a lot of historic books have been written. As far as the conversations go, I have imagined what they would have probably talked about since we also discuss things with our children.”
Gopalakrishnan says that his family never opposed the evolution. However, there were obvious apprehensions about future, which is a human tendency. “The generations are changing the traditions but the core values are intact. I feel technologically-handicapped while my grandsons think it is ‘cool’. I cannot stop them from using play stations or phones since the future demands that,” he adds.
A Comma In A Sentence is his fourth book. Gopalakrishnan has been a motivational speaker, columnists and has written The Case of the Bonsai Manager and When the Penny Drops: learning What’s Not Taught in the past.
photo Pankaj Kumar