Krishnamoorthy Chittappa

S K Moorthy: In his late 60s, he is still robust having lost none of his verve. He still travels from one end of the city to the other on buses without the least exhaustion. He can be accused of many things by different people but none would contest that he is a colourful character.

He is still lean, the face is long and narrow, the eyes still retain that youthful sparkle, a long nose, fair Brahmin complexion, a graying mustache is the only concession to age. He sports a cap for some relief from the sun; he is too much an outdoor person and needs all the extra protection. He talks in a hustling manner racing to listener’s incomprehension while he would all guffaws at his own spiel. I have always found talking to him to be a “solo” effort; there is no understanding or connection being made at the other end. That can be very tiring and disappointing and leaving the speaker flummoxed about the vocal energy being emptied on sand. Another thing that used to annoy me was those “missed calls”. He always expected the others to talk to him and spare him the pennies.  

S K Moorthy has an individualistic streak right from the earliest memory. He insisted on being a bachelor and a devoted Sabarimalai visitor almost every year. He worked in Engine Valves as a factory man and that has hardened him to a lot of hard labour and a hopelessly repetitive mind. He has that SC/ST mind of slow comprehension and restricted to stereotypes. That he lives in some middle-class comforts can be wholly credited to his wife, Visalam. She saved the pennies, was instrumental in buying land in the outskirts of the city near the airport, and bringing their sole daughter to the shore of middle-class comforts.

He stayed with my parents for a good 5 years after marriage and those were the days when my mother tried every trick in the book to make him vacate. He was a freeloader in addition to his wife and a baby and that can pinch any other person. It was only to shake him off that my father took a transfer to Hyderabad.   

S K Moorty was estranged in the family and it was 20 years later that we caught up with him. The intervening years were good for him; his daughter was married to a high level executive, he had his own brick business that gave him ample money and a car (car is always a symbol of affluence by my family yardstick) and health-wise, still as sturdy as a buffalo. But he still retained that rustic and hurried mumbled speech.  

Two years back, he came to my house at Besantnagar and kept visiting so often that we became friends. I was hopelessly condemned to solitude and I welcome any human being with open arms. Though we suffered each other’s monologues, we found some amusement in each other’s company. I must thank him entirely for the Thiruvannamalai and Yercaud trips.   

S K Moorthy loved those blue film strips and he would demand to see them during each of this visits. I cherished this man’s visits but they strangely came to an abrupt end for no conceivable reason. It is a Bermuda mystery to me as to what caused this man to sail so apart and all of a sudden. 

Despite my unemployment, I bought him a new handset, gifted Rs.3,000 rupees for his Deepavalli celebrations. He never went without demanding an Rs.100 or Rs.200 but I was always there to oblige. For a man who would call 5 times a week to be silent for months is a mystery I cannot attempt.  

Post Script (2017): This is one anecdote difficult to forget. When his grandson Jaidev won the gold belt at the university on graduation, he said: I was moved to tears.  Inside three generations we have progressed dramatically – I am no better than a shepherd, Viji was the first graduate and now my grandson wins a gold medal and makes a speech before 3000 people. Both his grandchildren are in the United States!

Verdict: Rajas

Lesson to be learnt: Keep such characters in good humour that you cannot befriend them. But always allow them to set pace and context.