By M. CHALAPATHI RAU [Triveni] – To me, who was thinking only of an inner disturbance, the Armenian Street was the street of adventure, giving to that part of Madras City the look of a cathedral town. The cathedrals passed by, and then the merchant houses. The taxidermist’s shop spran to life on this day with dead animals glaring limply. I went up the steps of the Young Men’s Indian Association, stood outside a room, and scrawled my name on a scrap of paper. I went in, with trepidation but with an air of assurance, and on light feet.

I had seen Ramakoti somewhere in Mount Road, with some detachment. A friend pointed him out to me as the Editor of ‘Triveni’. So unlike John Morley or W. E. Henley, I thought, and so unobtrusive. I had seen ‘Triveni’ but today I was meeting its Editor, and it seemed a moment on which somebody’s destiny depended. He would be kind, but would he have the pleasure of discovering me, I who was so well-known to myself?

He was considerate. Inside me the small ego was struggling, like that of Frank Harris hawking his early stuff in Fleet Street; outwardly I was shy and wide-eyed. He said kind things, something about the reciness of the writing. But first I had to get the article typed out. I ran to the nearest typist, passing the taxidermist’s animals, dictated the article word by word, and delivered it on tiptoe next day. It was only when the article was published that I realised that the writing had been too racy, a tumble of similes and metaphors, racing beyond the point of no return. In writing about Masefield, I had been affected by his ‘Reynard the Fox’. With twenty-five neatly printed reprints, in red cover, I felt I was a writer. First article, first impression, twenty-five copies.

Continued at Triveni | More Chronicle & Notices.