By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem

Last Tuesday, an elderly gentleman walked into my consulting room and introduced himself as Suryanarayana Rao, a retired engineer, who had served in many States, across the country.

 He said that he was a full ninety-two years old but to me he seemed only to be a full seventy-two at the most, going by the energy and enthusiasm his smile radiated and the erect and upright carriage with which he strode into my room, like a soldier, still in service.

He very eagerly extended his hand but I very politely refused to shake it, excusing myself by saying that a doctor was not the best of persons to shake hands with, especially while he was at his work. But I assured him that we would certainly shake hands every time we met, if we happened to meet anytime, at any other place, in the future.

To this he said that he was not at all apprehensive about catching an infection from me because in the past fifty years, he never once had any occasion to see any doctor for treatment of any ailment, major or minor. But he said that once before those fifty years of good health, he had needed a doctor’s help just once, when he was bitten by a stray dog, as he was riding to work, on his motorcycle.

That was when I reassured him that the consequences of being bitten by stray dogs were no longer as painful as they had been in the days when he was bitten. I explained to him that unlike in the distant past, when a victim of dog bite had to receive a full course of fourteen, very painful injections around the navel, dog bite victims, even when badly bitten, could now be managed with exactly half the number of injections, which were almost painless!

Here I would like to digress a little from my narration and clarify that when I talk of injections being painless in the present era, I’m only talking of all others to whom I prescribe them. When it comes to myself taking any injection, however trivial, I am a real dodger. That is why I always used to dread the mandatory cholera vaccinations that used to be administered to us in our school days, with the onset of the summer months, just before our exams were due. That is how scared I am of being at the wrong end of the hypodermic needle.

My dentist friend, Dr. H.P. Jaishankar, will be able to throw more light on what a brave man I am, whenever I have the occasional misfortune to sit in his chair!

Now, my visitor after introducing himself, said that the reason why he was before me was not to seek any treatment but only to tell me that like the way I had written about my love for books in my column last Sunday, he wanted me to write more regularly about some of the books I read. He clarified that as a book-loving pensioner he and my other readers would then be guided by my reviews to buy only the best books, without wasting money on the mediocre ones.

Now let me tell you here that he was not the first person who was requesting me to write reviews about books. Many of my readers have expressed similar sentiments, on many occasions and I am now beginning to think that I must heed this advice.

Here I am reminded about a plaque that was displayed in Newspaper House, which was once one of my favourite bookshops in our city, standing at the northern end of Lansdowne Building and which was owned and run by Lakkur Raja Rao and his two sons, Sridhar and Krishna. The plaque said: ‘Do not read good books. Life is too short for that. So, read only the best’!

Although it was a most sensible bit of advice to any book lover, with which I too was much impressed, I must admit that I have not followed it in my eagerness to read every interesting looking book I could lay my hands on. I have written in the past too, about my visits to this tiny bookshop as a school boy and my frequent meetings with the writer, R.K. Narayan there. The two of us would talk at length about his books and their characters, with him seated on a low wooden stool and with me seated on a bundle of newspapers or magazines.

Raja Rao would always order a ‘one by two’ hot Badam Milk for the two of us from Phalamrutha, the juice shop next door, which we would share. Interestingly, the Badam Milk would arrive only when Narayan arrived there and not on the other days and so I would always go to that bookshop with a prayer that he too should be there!

Starting in earnest and acceding to the requests of my most recent visitor and others like him, I am now writing about a book which I am reading right now. It is the memoir of Walter Issac Davaram, the well-known, formidable Super Cop who served in the Tamil Nadu cadre. It is interesting to note that a great many former Police Officers have taken to writing their memoirs these days and a good many of them make some very interesting reading too.

Two recent notable ones who served in our State and wrote about their lives are late A.P. Durai, who has written, In Pursuit of Law and Order and the other is K. Annamalai, who has written, Stepping beyond Khaki.

In his book, Munnar to Marina, Davaram traces his journey from the tea gardens, nestled in the high ranges of the Western Ghats, to the Office of the State’s highest-ranking Police Officer in Chennai on the Marina Coast. The most notable post he held was perhaps of the Chief of the Joint Task Force constituted by the two States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to rein in Veerappan, the most dreaded bandit.

The book is a very candid and enjoyable account of the man’s daredevil exploits narrated in his own informal style. Additionally, it throws much light on the origins of tea planting in Munnar and the fast-track transformation that the region has been seeing over the recent past, with the rampant growth of tourism there.

Like any other school boy drawn away from his village, he with sad nostalgia, takes the reader on a tour of the favourite spots he loved as a child before embarking of an account of the unusual incidents he witnessed and handled as a Police Officer.

On the whole, the fairly hefty, five-hundred-page tome is a very enjoyable read and it is hard to put it down once you start reading it. Despite being the very slow reader that I am, I finished it in just three days.

The book has a foreword penned by another high-ranking Police Officer, who once served under Davaram. I felt that the humble man who introduces the hero of the book, has painted his boss in the vibrant hues of a giant cinema hoarding. Davaram would have been what he is, and just as tall and impressive, even without this rather flowery introduction.

But there are always some inevitable problems, whenever a subordinate is asked to pen a tribute to his boss. The ink, invariably becomes a little too colourful!

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