In Memory of Raju

In addition to the 3 very close friends (LCN Srinivasan, Thambi Srinivasan and Ram Ganesh) I have spoken about previously, I also had several other lesser friends such as Crack Nagarajan, Goodlance Cheenu, P. Srinivasan, V. Krishnamoorthy and T.G. Narayanaswamy. Of these, Goodlance Cheenu was from an unusual background and was different than most. His father had been a senior manager at some drug company but was fired from his job – and so came to Madras in search of a new one with 4-5 young children in tow. They sank into poverty, moving from a large house to a tiny flat, living hand-to-mouth. Over the years, I believe that a couple of the children even died of malnutrition – which caused Cheenu’s father to take his own life, and his mother to take up with some other man. Cheenu grew up in this environment – he would often skip going to school, and would wander around the town playing chess, bridge and carrom with strangers during the day. I met him for the first time playing carrom in some friend’s house – and he beat me soundly at the game. He was unbeatable at these games, and he would often clear the entire board in carrom without giving the other person a single turn. Some days, he would mention to me that he had not eaten anything for a long time, and I would ask him to come home with me, and Amma would feed him. Appa even got him a job as a shop assistant, but he quit the job after 10 days – work was not in his nature. I heard later that perhaps he too, like his father, had committed suicide. He was an unusual man, and his brain worked a different way. He was a master at the games – chess, bridge, carrom – but he just could not conform to any societal stereotypes.