Coimbatore: Gratitude was the word on the fifth day of Coimbatore Vizha. Kovaiyin Rathinangal (The Gems of Kovai), an event to remember four great men who had pioneered in several fields and had brought development to Coimbatore, was held in the city on Tuesday.
The contributions of Narasimhalu Naidu, S C Rathinasabapathi Mudaliar, Thulsidas Murarjee and Robert Stanes were presented by N K Ponnuswamy, Iakoka N Subramaniam, Rajesh Givindarajulu and V Sriram respectively.
Speaking about Narasimhalu Naidu, Ponnuswamy said he started as a schoolteacher. "But he did not stop there. He designed the syllabus, wrote textbooks, printed them and taught them, all by himself," Ponnuswamy said. "He was the district secretary of the Coimbatore chapter of the Chennai Maha Jana Sabhai, an organisation which was started for social upliftment. Later when the Indian National Congress was started, he became the district's Congress committee secretary," he said. His most prominent contribution was perhaps envisioning the Siruvani drinking water scheme for the city, Ponnuswamy added.
When T T Krishnamachari wanted to build the Madras Music Academy in Chennai, he came to Coimbatore for funds. It was Rathinasabapathi Mudaliar who gave him the biggest contribution, said Iakoka N Subramaniam, while speaking about him. "When I heard his contributions to develop the city's infrastructure, I was awestruck," he said. "He would travel around the city in his car. When he saw a place which he thought had a scope for development, he would get down and explore how it can be done," Subramaniam said. "He established the Rathina Vinayagar temple, around which R S Puram was planned later," he added.
When an Englishman told Thulsidas Murarjee that the cotton waste that mills in Coimbatore burnt could be used to make denim jeans, he spoke to mill owners, took the cotton waste to Bombay and exported it, said Rajesh Govindarajulu. "He wanted to build a school, a hospital and a temple in the city. It eventually came true," he added.
The city got its first automobile workshop because of Sir Robert Stanes, said V Sriram in his presentation on Stanes. "He was the first person in the city to buy a car. And when he found that he had to take it all the way to Madras if the vehicle developed a repair, he started an auto repair workshop," he said.
