In Internet age, immediate response seems imperative. Unfortunately, I came to know about Tony Jesudasan’s death a day later. Too late for a proper obituary which had already been written by better pens. In my case, perhaps one need not call this an Obit, but rather a trip down memory lane. So, it is not about Tony’s unusual career in New Delhi and more about his separation from a classmate and friend of fifty-five years. I’m hoping that anyone who has recently lost an old friend can relate to my tale. It’s a strange irony of destiny indeed: the last time Tony and I spoke, we ended our conversation with the disapproving statement that “we were all in the departures lounge”. This house comes on people of seventy years.
It was 1968, in what was then called Madras, a hot and humid city, a relative backwater compared to revolutionary Calcutta, official Delhi, or prosperous Bombay. Tony and I entered the BSc Chemistry class at Loyola College at the same time. I came from a reasoning day school in Madras. Tony came from a posh boarding school in Mussoorie.
We discovered a prevalent love for the periodic table, Avogadro’s number, and Grignard reagents. But most of the time, we sat in adjacent seats and exchanged notes about poetry. Tony introduced me to Francis Thompson and explained what it means to write religious poetry in the English language. (“Ah, dearest, blind, weakest, I am the one whom you desire”)
Tony wrote a brilliant piece on “The Literary Value of the Psalms”, arguing that the Psalms were ideal reading, especially for non-religious individuals! A typical contradictory Tony scene. I introduced Tony to TS Eliot. I thought I was an expert on Eliot. Tony surprised me one day by telling me how important the topic of Emmaus was wasteland,
Tony was not impressed with my undergraduate flirtation with Marxism and leftist rhetoric. He was mainly concerned with the aesthetics of poetry and music. He introduced me to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. It was in his dorm room that I first heard a vinyl record of Cohen singing Suzanne, We both fell in love with the image of ‘tea and oranges that come from China’. Whenever I think of Tony, I’m always reminded of Cohen’s little poem: After Annie’s gone, to what compare to the morning sun? Not that I compared, but I do. Now that she’s gone
Tony had a great guitar. He pounced on her, and she sang passively. Another source of great comfort to us was Lawrence Durrell’s ribald poem on “The Good Lord Nelson” – now in Trafalgar Square, stern on a column with a sexual air, Nelson stylites.
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a language of our own
Tony came from the north and his Hindi was very good. My Hindi was not that good. We both decided to choose German as our “second language”. Loyola was the only college of the university that offered this option. Bechtloff, our German professor, introduced us to Keller and Kafka. Whenever Tony and I had an argument, we always ended the session withGemand Muste Joseph K. verleumdate haben‘ (Someone must have falsely accused Joseph Kay) – Kafka’s famous opening line der process (testing). Tony and I quarreled and slowly discredited each other directly and not anonymously.
Coming back to Tony’s Hindi, sitting in our class during an organic chemistry lecture (I don’t know how or why I remember that specific topic!), he wrote a half-Hindi, half-English poem on rape in green ink. Wrote. Of Bangladeshis. In Tony’s sight, the Padma and Meghna rivers were soaked Blood (blood) and all of us spectators were wrestling with us Navel (navel) in helplessness and possibly cynicism.
We exchanged stories about our first girlfriends. The stories were mainly about platonic intimacy and unrequited love as women preferred other men. Years later when both of our “first girlfriends” died, Tonya and I called each other and consoled ourselves. Consolation was not easy. It was a matter of driftwood pieces floating together and then floating apart.
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life after college
Like J Krishnamurthy, Tony too had a dread of examinations. He faltered and faltered and went through crisis in our final year. He turned out to be stronger in his outlook on life and somehow more prosaic and less verse-inspired. After college, Tony and I grew physically apart. I never got a chance to live in Delhi which became his home. He moved away from his mother’s house in Paharganj and rented rainySomewhere in South Delhi, where I used to visit him sometimes.
Tony became friends with my father, who lived in Delhi. My father just “loved” Tony. He knew that the way to the old man’s heart was through gifted books by Mark Twain, Frederick Turner, and William Faulkner.
Late in life, Tony found happiness in a blissfully romantic marriage. Parul and Tony’s mutual love was made on sight. I, for one, was overjoyed that the tormented psalmist had found a safe haven, where the divine Shepherd had at last given him his refuge.
Tony was very worried about the fact that he had become a father at a young age. Now his college going daughter will have to live with bittersweet memories. Not easy – but this is a whim of fate. By 2023’s standards, seventy-one is too early to die. This is today’s Alpa-Ayu (short life span). But a life of fever-spiked beauty sensibility is one to celebrate, not just mourn.
Others may write about Tony’s PR skills, his intimate knowledge of the political undercurrents in Delhi, his corporate wanderlust. I remember my friend writing poetry in chemistry class sitting under the ceiling fan. Tony: I’m in the departures lounge too and hope to see you soon and revisit our bootleg college trysts with Old Monk Rum.
Jayateertha Rao is a retired businessman based in Mumbai. Thoughts are personal.
(Editing by Therese Sudip)