The post on Chandra Maama in the Dhamayanthi group made me feel proud that I have a patron of art and lover of fine arts as my uncle. 

I remember him as Bumbai Maama in my childhood. He was then a Bombay returned engineer in textile Technology and was looked upon with awe and respect by all in the family. We kids called him Bumbaai maama and I think, we were all  especially smitten by his height, elegance, refined manners and sophistication. His straight hair and flamboyant hairstyle made him the handsome Shashi Tharoor of those days.

I still remember the visit to a club in Coimbatore, where we saw maama fraternising with a foreigner who offered us tea and cake and who asked who would act the host. We bit on the cakes or scones or whatever they were and daintily sipped tea from exquisite cups. The awe never went away, really.

Maama always expected us to be at our best, rather difficult for runny nosed kids, dirty from scuffles, fights and adventurous games. We would all run to clean ourselves the moment we saw maama. We wanted to impress him when we saw his tennis racquet and heard that he was his university player for tennis...he was our Bjorn Borg...

He narrated  tales of his escapades at college and we listened to him in open mouthed wonder. There was never a dull moment with maama around. I recall him taking Devanthi under his wings, when he realised that she had a love of photography. He gave her an old camera of his, taught her the basics and appreciated her work. This when Devanthi was probably just about twelve or so. 


Diwali, the time for bakshish and 'kumbidu panam' was a rather difficult time for us, as we strove hard to get maama to give us the one rupee or so and the hundred rupee note that he always flashed as a reason to not have small change.



Today, he stands as a pioneer in offering music, dance, harikathas and celebrity speakers to Erode connoissuers at his beautifully constructed Anjaneya Park. He takes pride in his garden and collection of exquisite flora there. He is a doyen of art appreciators at Erode and as he continues this task of giving his home town a taste of the Mumbai artistic sensibility, we are happy that as always, this maama is unique and different. God bless our maama.