N Madhavan Reuters Hindustan Times

A hundred years ago, this family stayed in the agraharam at the Mayakoothan Divya Desam in Perungulam (part of the Nava Tirupathi temples) and watched the grand utsavams round the year. But as seen in many other stories in this section, this family too made its way out of this historical temple town praised by Nammazhvaar in his Tiruvoimozhi in search of greener pastures.

By the second half of the previous century, when Narayanan Madhavan visited the temple as a young boy, it had become dilapidated and lay almost in ruins that sent tears flowing down his cheeks. He had vowed then that one day in life when he would become financially independent he would contribute in some way to the development of this Divya Desam.

To grow his commodities trading business, Madhavan’s Thatha moved to another historical temple town, the Krishnan Koil agraharam (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2023/07/krishnaswamy-koil-ambai-krishnan-archaka.html) in Ambasamudram, from Perungulam, a few kms South of the Kulasekara Azhvaar Rajagopalaswamy temple in Mannar Koil. He also ran this from very near the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiru Ananthapuram (Trivandrum), another historical Divya Desam praised by Namazhvaar (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2009/11/anantha-padmanabhaswamy-temple-in.html).

There was another temple connect to Madhavan on his amma's side. Her Thatha was a priest at a Perumal temple in Ernakulam a hundred years ago. 

By the time Madhavan was born, his appa had moved to the national capital and settled there for good. His amma was proficient in Tamizh and wanted Madhavan to learn the mother tongue and thus surprisingly, he started out at a Tamil medium school in Delhi, an initiative that was to hold him in good stead when, later in life, he embarked on a translation of a legendary work.

On a rainy morning in Madras, Madhavan, enjoying a tasty traditional idly at Rathna Café, told this writer about his first cricketing encounter “My appa took me to the Kotla test in November 1969 and I watched Ian Chappell score a masterly century against Bedi, Prasanna and Venkat. As lilfe would have it,  a few decades later at that same venue, I had the privilege of sitting alongside Ian in the press box!!!!”

It was a memorable test match for India fashioned a comeback win after conceding a big lead in the first innings. From that moment, he had become a great cricket lover, especially of the traditional format. And he was to also cover his favourite sport for a brief period in the 1990s.

Madhavan was always vocal right from his childhood and an extrovert who participated in quizzes, debates and music competitions. Soon after he graduated in Economics, he received an offer from the Times of India in Delhi. His straight in the face attitude was revealed in that job interview. When asked why he wanted to get into journalism, he replied “I am interested in all subjects and like to write”. And he immediately landed up the job as a trainee writer.

He has always been an allrounder with a wide ranging interest from cricket to temples, politics to economics. While with the Times Group, he also wrote for Femina!!!

He got a second taste of cricket in the 1990s when he visited the Ferozshah Kotla Maidan for the India v Pak test. While he had sat in the gallery as a young school boy three decades earlier, this time he was there in the privileged seat at the Press Box "Centurion Ian Chappell was right next to me and I told him that his century remains etched in my memory.”

Earlier that decade, Madhavan had interviewed Kumble in Bangalore when he was just making his way into the Indian Test team and all the talk was around how he was not a traditional leg spinner like Warne. When Kumble took ten wickets and had grown in stature, Madhavan’s interview earlier that decade was played out much to his delight.

Unfortunately his interest in cricket waned after the match fixing scandal and the emergence of the shorter format that he does not cherish though every now and then he reminisces the good old matches from the 1960s and 70s when he followed every test match with a certain craze that was typical of those from that generation. Instead, he now attends the December Kutcheris with his amma. 

When he visited his home town and the Mayakoothan temple in Thiru Kulanthai (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2008/11/mayakoothan-thiru-kulanthai.html) in the early 1990s, he was shocked. It had deteriorated so much that it was beyond recognition "Bats flew from inside the sannidhi. There were huge bushes. Utsavams had stopped. We were really saddened that our Kula Deivam temple had turned into such a sad state.”

He moved to Reuters in Bangalore to cover the IT revolution at its peak. In that glorious phase in his career, he met the Who's Who of the global IT Industry “I interviewed Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Bill Gates and Phaneesh Murthy when they were at the top. It was a great opportunity to be stationed in Bangalore to cover the IT industry for a global newswire when the sector was taking off in a big way.”

After the passing away of his appa, he moved to Delhi and went on to head the Business Page at Hindustan Times for almost a decade writing special features on the industry and economy travelling across the country to meet the corporate chiefs.

Three decades after getting into journalism and writing stories day in day out, Madhavan quit the paper and turned into an analyst and commentator on Politics, Sports and Business for the BBC and the leading TV channels in India .

It was then that a lifetime opportunity came his way much to his surprise leading him into even more faith in the almighty. He had been a great fan of Sujatha right from his childhood. He was roped in to translate Sujatha's 2011 novel “Kanavu Thozhirchaalai”, a chronicle of the rising and falling fortunes of the Kollywood artistes, into English “It was a prestigious assignment to translate my idol’s work into English.”

Madhavan worked on it tirelessly through the Pandemic and the English version was launched in 2022 soon after the end of the second wave “It was my parents who taught and inspired me to appreciate language in many forms in grammar, style, meaning, slang, beauty, depth and rhythm”, he says.

And that is holding him in good stead as he moves these days seamlessly from a Urdu Channel to an Arabic TV, from Hindi and English to Puthiya Thalaimurai in Tamil with his commentary on the state of affairs in different fields and on different subjects.

A decade ago, he was invited to the G20 summit at St Petersberg, Russia accompanying the Indian PM. Coincidentally  he received an invitation to be part of the Samprokshanam at the Mayakoothan Divya Desam in Perungulam, a temple where by now he had begun supporting the Garuda Sevai and Kalyana Utsavam. This divya desam had been very close to his heart and with the transformation of his Kula Deivam temple, he was keen to take part in the consecration “I took the flight to Thoothukudi, drove to Perungulam, was blessed to be part of a grand consecration and enjoyed the sacred Thaligai. That same day I took the flight back to Delhi and boarded another flight to St Petersburg for the G20 summit. Within 48 hours I had had two memorable trips - one to have darshan of my favourite Mayakoothan and another alongside the Indian PM.”

The turnaround that Madhavan witnessed at Perungulam indicated to him the emergence of a devotional wave in TN. From ruins, the temple had been transformed and now the devotee crowd throngs the temple in large numbers. Similarly, opportunities have thrown up in a big way for those from traditional temple towns. Madhavan’s forefathers lived in the agraharam in Perungulam having darshan everyday of this Divya Desam Lord and he has been travelling around the world meeting the top industrialists and politicians of the country and penning stories for leading media houses. In recent years, he has also been a regular writer for the Quint. 

There is a certain freshness about him in the way he engages with people. He continues to write with childlike enthusiasm. He is friendly, articulate and at the same time strong and forceful with his views. His fan following is mind boggling. He was one of the earliest to take to the social media platform and today has a twitter follower of over a Lakh!!!! His 80+ year old amma back in Delhi is not as tech savvy as him but he is so excited at the sambar idly that he has just tasted that he sends her a photo, immediately, possibly luring her to make a trip to this traditional heartland of Mylapore and to the Kapaleeswarar temple (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2023/04/kapali-panguni-utsavam-2023.html), where his association as a devotee dates back to the 1980s.

Madhavan, who this writer has known for well over two decades, has always been a fearless journalist. At IT pressers, he has been most vocal raising issues both on the company and the industry. At 60, a new world beckons him. With four decades in the media space, he is now turning into a most ‘wanted’ analyst and commentator with both television channels and the print media seeking his time for views on wide ranging topics. He now likes to call himself an 'Independant Journalist' and continues to don his favourite role writing opinion pieces for various media houses in the country.  And sitting in faraway Delhi, he continues to be devoted like never before to Mayakoothan of Perungulam Divya DesamDesam and committed to the Garuda Sevai and Kalyana Utsavam there.