When I wrote a tribute to Mysuru’s iconic restaurateur and a socialite Chonira Ponoo Muthanna (Ponnu) when he passed away on June 21, 2024, I did not think it would ring a bell and revive old memories from his old buddies. The title of my Abracadabra column on Ponnu was “Ritz Ponnu’s Last Supper” and was published on Sunday, the 23^rd of June, 2024.

I was wrong. We received many letters and I received calls from Ponnu’s friends and admirers. However, there was one e-mail I received, rather late by two months. It was from an unlikely person, hold your breath, Mr. Bangalore Neela Megha Shyaman Deepak Muralidharan Iyengar. No prize for those who will tell this name in full, please. For short, he signs off either as Deepak or N. Shyaman. I am afraid in case, in the frontierless future, should I meet him, I may have to exclaim in the clichéd refrain “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” because I would not be knowing which of these names would come to my lips! Let it be.

In that e-mail, Deepak vividly remembered his association with Ponnu while he was an engineering student in Mysuru after accidentally reading my Abracadabra on Ponnu. He wrote that he stumbled upon it “by chance” while looking for info on what has become of Ganesh and Gayathri Talkies. It was then he ran into the sad news about Ritz Ponnu. It was a gut-wrench feeling indeed, he wrote in his e-mail. He even thanked me for giving Ponnu “a wonderful send-off to a real nice fellow.”

All this sentiment is okay for me but what made me “stick” Deepak’s letter in this Abracadabra was his presumption about my connection to Kodagu and Virajpet and using it as a trigger to draw my attention to his letter. He wrote: “My wife Ranie is from Virajpet, you may have known her parents K.V. Thomas and Dr. Molly Thomas (both sadly deceased).” Certainly, I had heard of them and sent him an e-mail in response and sought his biodata to know what manner of a man he is. Now retired, he seemed to be a jolly good fellow (like me!).

His biodata left me spellbound. A man of many parts, many interests — a life’s journey any man will envy. Man with brawn and brain Swami Vivekananda would have loved him as fitting his idea of man who is the architect of his own destiny. In modesty and humility Deepak asks me to “Please keep that (‘thumbnail’) from general publication.” Sorry, let me let you down because you are an inspiration to our students in youth and to professionals in adulthood.

N. Shyaman studied engineering at Mysore University in the 1970s. After a two-year research stint at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, he matriculated at Stanford University in California, graduating from there in the early 1980s. He worked on laser applications in aerodynamics for Boeing, NASA, US Army and on Formula 1 race car aerodynamics for Lamborghini and Ferrari, before becoming a businessman.

He had a career in international business covering continental Europe, Japan, ROK and the US. He started two trading companies in Japan with Japanese partners. He had decent exits from them and retired in the 2000s.

He split time between homes in Silicon Valley and at a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.

He writes occasional papers on military affairs and geopolitics of Europe and Asia and enjoys alpine ski racing, golf, target shooting, world film, opera, ballet and music.

Osho was right when he said LIFE happens only to those who dare and strive. Now about his memories of Ponnu:

Dear Sir,

My wife and I were deeply saddened — indeed, devastated — to learn from you of our beloved Ponnu’s passing.

It happened just by chance, when I stumbled across your article whilst looking for any info on what has become of Ganesh and Gayathri Talkies. All steeped in nostalgia, au fond dans les couloirs du temps, as it were. To then run into that sad news about Ritz Ponnu, even as we were in such a ‘way back’ state of mind, was a gut-wrench indeed. Thank you for that wonderful send-off to a real nice fellow.

Before we were married, my wife and I went on literally hundreds of dates that invariably began with late lunch or early dinner at The Ritz. Ponnu would always show up for a chat, and the first thing he checked was the temperature of the plates as the staff laid our table — he insisted they be warmed exactly to his specifications.

Ponnu and we were quite close — we would all go up Chamundi to the Palace up there, which Srikant (Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar)  had converted into a restaurant — with velvet walls and all sorts of exotica. And in the dark on the way back down, we would park by one of the many vista points by the road and look on at Mysore lights, while I sipped a rum double (neat, no ice back in those halcyon days of youthful alcohol assimilativeness), a gimlet for my wife and water for Ponnu, all while keeping an eye out for sundry leopards on the prowl. Needless to say, I let him drive…

We went to several weekend parties at Ponnu’s before we left Mysore for faraway domains, overdoing by half a world newspaper editor Horace Greeley’s ‘Go west, young man’, etc. Ponnu had just built his retreat over by Hinkal Road and there was always an eclectic bunch hanging around. For instance, a German professor and his wife, who tried to teach us German at Gangothri. My wife and I met during the week of the first German classes and that’s all she wrote — we never learned any German because we were always hanging around together, playing hooky every chance we got.

As for those Germans at Ponnu’s, the guy would be all normal and everything, till he had had a few, then he would start with a very soft ‘If only WE had THE Bomb first, Germany would surely have won.’ As my Russian friends say, scratch a German and  you get a Nazi.

Oops. I have gone on long enough — could easily do this till the day after the day after tomorrow. In closing, we have nothing but fond memories of Ritz Ponnu. RIP, dear friend…”

I guess as we grow old and keep losing friends, we realise friends make memories, not places or wealth.

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