Throughout his life, even when he stood on stages created by the privileged, Solomon Pappaiah’s words were directed towards those who were struggling, had nothing. Ayya spoke for them. He was their voice.The pattimandram — Tamil legal-style debate forum taken to the streets by Kundrakudi Adigalar — was brought into the homes of Tamil people by him. He made it something entire families could sit together and enjoy.When he introduced family-related subjects into pattimandram in the 1940s, Tamil professors were unhappy. But it was only after he began moderating the family-themed debates did women begin coming forward to participate. Many asked, “Why do you always give the verdict in favour of women?” His answer was always, “I should give them even more. The hardships they have endured are that great.”Once, when we were at an airport abroad, a janitor came running towards us. “Ayya! Please wait one minute, I beg you,” said the man from Tamil Nadu. The rest of us didn’t want to wait. But Ayya insisted we stay. The man returned with dates he had bought with the little money he had, gave them to Ayya and fell at his feet.Ayya turned to me. “This means more to me than all the honours I have received.”When people hear the name Pappaiah, they think of pattimandram. But he spent more time delivering lectures on Tamil literature. He provided an accessible commentary on Thirukkural and published a scholarly study of Akanaanooru. He founded the Madurai Kamban Kazhagam to organize celebrations honouring Kamban, the emperor of poets; Avvaiyar, the revered grandmother of Tamil; and Subramania Bharati, the poet who gave every song its soul. This ‘Vaigai Vallavan’ (name by which he was known in his early days) made the common man fall in love with Tamil. With a Thirukkural every day, he was introduced to children as “Thirukkural Thatha” — Grandpa of the Thirukkural.Born in Madurai, the city of Aalavai, where Angayarkanni reigns with her divine grace, he was the youngest child of textile mill workers Pakiathammal and Sundaram.It happened that one day a young boy, terrified after being chased by a bull, sought refuge in a school. When it came time to admit the half-pants-wearing boy into primary school, the teacher gave him a simple test: “Sing a song.” He sang a film song by P U Chinnappa and earned the teacher’s praise. The voice that first began to ring out in that school has travelled across every town and village — indeed, across the world — for 60 years, conducting more than 8,000 pattimandrams. He travelled by plane, bullock cart, sand lorry, cycle rickshaw, tractors and overcrowded buses.In college, he got an award from people’s leader M G Ramachandran for his performance as a stage actor. It became a mark of his mastery of Tamil arts — literature, music and drama.He worked a year at Voorhees College in Vellore and then for 33 at Madurai American College, where our Padma Shri Pappaiah served as head of the Tamil department.There was only one thing he would never accept: division in the name of religion.There was no stage where he did not recite these lines of Bharati: “One Supreme Being, we are its people, the well of worldly joy.”Sept 11, the memorial day of Bharati’s passing, Mahakavi too has joined the poet in that eternal light.I have lost my beloved father.(The writer, a motivational speaker, was mentored by Solomon Pappaiah)
