Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXXI No. 23, March 16-31, 2022
Kamakshi Paati… a living legend
by Sabita Radhakrishna
The first time I laid eyes on her was when she said she would like to register with our NGO UDHAVI. I looked up and saw a petite woman of medium build with graying hair, somewhere in her seventies or so I thought. I wondered if she sought to become a beneficiary of the organization.
She flashed a smile. “What can you expect? I am in my late eighties. I do need a little help from your organisation. But I am capable of volunteering as well, and can render any help that you need.” She wowed each of us with her brilliant smile and her enthusiasm.
Kamakshi Subramaniam lives by herself in Besant Nagar. She has only part-time help and the only concession she allows herself is to get her daily food supply from home chefs. She said the only help she would like from our NGO was to be accompanied on her visits to the doctor.
A fiesty young woman of 94 years and six months, Kamakshi Paati has a fount of inexhaustible energy as a civic activist. She co-founded an organisation SPARK which is a civic forum to tackle various issues. She is also known for conducting ‘secret inspections’ on corporation activities that use public funds, her main area of concern being the tarring of roads. “You see, the contractors play games to make money in tarring roads. The Besant Nagar Road has been tarred for the past 12 years and it is still shining. I was monitoring it on a daily basis. Take interest in your surroundings, highlighting issues would break corrupt practices. Be a responsible citizen.”
When the renovation of Schmidt Memorial took place under the umbrella of SPARK, she was given unqualified support by the Corporation officials, the police and the Mayor. Rs 34 lakhs were sanctioned for the project and every pie was accounted for. She remembers many with gratitude – Dr. Vijay Pingle, Deputy Commissioner, Buildings, Corporation, environmental activist T.D. Babu and friends from the Press. The stretch in Besant Nagar 4th Avenue is especially dear to her as the pavements on either side were knocked off to make it a veritable garden lovers’ delight with greenery and flowers. When initially work was sanctioned amidst much of protest from certain civic bodies, they cleared the weeds and found, to their amazement, an abandoned Fiat car completely covered by the undergrowth of weeds and plants.
Kamakshi Paati is a doer not a person who orders others around. Hers is an example to be emulated and she is an inspiration for her team at SPARK. Hands on hips with a “I dare you to defy me” attitude, she is on the spot supervising the work, come rain or shine.
It was breaking news when she filed her nomination papers as an independent candidate from Chennai’s ward 174 covering Besant Nagar and Adyar. It was merely an extension of the long-drawn battle she had undertaken for several civic issues in and around Besant Nagar for the rights of the people.
Kamakshi Paati tells me she was suddenly overwhelmed by all the media attention she received when she filed her nomination papers. The press and the television groups made a beeline to her modest abode in Besant Nagar. She was in every local paper, and gave interviews on television. “I have now become known internationally,” she chuckles. “ I never knew the power of the press and media before! I am not finished with life yet, there is so much left to be done!”
What makes her tick? What makes anyone in their old age vibrant and different from other people? A zest for life, a religious dogma if you could call it that, a guiding force within her which makes her work for civic rights, trying to shake the lethargy off her complacent brethren who let other people do the work, whilst complaining incessantly about the state of affairs in the city.
A woman who embraces life with both her arms, Kamakshi Paati admits to enjoying herself wherever she goes. “Of course, I am human too. I have my worries and minor health problems, but I leave them at home when I go out. I am a people’s person.”
The 94-year-old was in New Delhi as her husband was with the President’s secretariat and had lived in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan campus for forty years. Thanks to her husband, who explained to her the complexities of bureaucracy, she understood how officialdom works in the country.
Kamakshi Paati stood for the post of Councillor of ward 174 as an independent candidate. Why not as part of other parties? “Then I would have to tag along and support their policies,” she says without batting an eyelid. “I know what the people want and what they need.”
She has no tolerance for people who have no civic sense. Littering the roads with garbage riles her in particular.
She has lost the elections but has not lost her sparkle. It is a wonderful experience she says and being feted by the media was a great excitement. I have never ever experienced this before. “The role of a Ward Councillor is a powerful one and I had planned many changes in an area which deserves it. I will continue to lobby for citizen rights despite not getting elected, for as taxpayers we have the right to certain amenities.”
I hope I can join her with the same infectious verve and vivacity to fight and lobby to make Chennai friendly for its growing populace of senior citizens coping in an unfriendly milieu.
