CHENNAI: K Mahalingam's life is characteristic of his times - he hit adulthood along with a generation that close on the heels of Indian independence, was heady with the idealism and hungry for knowledge. "Even money or lack of it could not deter this invisible movement from brewing within our youth," he says.
Today, the octogenarian may have lost most of his peers to time, but has determined to live by example. His lifeblood is his 65-year-old Tamil library in Saidapet. A space with the characteristic mustiness of antiquarian books, it stocks works of writers like Sandilyan, Na Parthasarathy, Akilan and
Anuradha Ramanan
, "most of who have also been my visitors," says Mahalingam.
On November 2, 1952, Parali Su Nellaiyappar, an associate of Subramania Bharathi, was called to inaugurate a small space housing select books inside a Ganesh temple in Saidapet. Over the years, it grew into a charming walled-in nook on Saidapet's Karaneeswarar Koil Street. "Most books this library is known for were given to me by people who believed in my work," says Mahalingam.
Somewhere along the way, Mahalingam also started gathering money to finance the education of underprivileged kids, while his own kids' education was facilitated by the Tamil poet
Kannadasan's son,
Gandhi Kannadasan
. "He also gave the library an envious collection of his father's books," says Mahalingam.
Mahalingam walks barefeet, acknowledging that the times may have changed too drastically to stomach his kind of idealism. He enjoys giving a fascinating account of how sunlight shone on Gandhi's face on an afternoon in 1946, when he was visiting the
Thakkar Baba Vidyalaya
in T Nagar. "That was the first time I saw him. But I never spoke to him," he says. Gandhi too left oblivious to the kind of tribute this man from Saidapet was going to pay him, investing his life and purpose into. "I come across more immorality today than I ever did before. I haven't received my senior citizen's pension because years ago, I resolved to not bribe officials," he says. "But following my heart, I built this library. Today, it is heartwarming to see a number of young women thronging this space to educate themselves, and I feel I must've done something right," he says.
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