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Vol. XXXI No. 4, June 1-16, 2021

Remembering V.K. Parthasarathy

V.K.Parthasarathy

With the passing of V.K. Parthasarathy (Pachu), an era ends in Chennai tennis, when it was a game played more for the love of it than anything else.

R. Krishnan, India’s first citizen when it comes to the sport recalls Pachu to have been a dear friend. Their close association began in 1953, at the Ramakrishna Mission School. Krishnan was a year senior to Pachu and remembers him to have been the only other tennis player in that institution. “He was coached by my father and we played on numerous occasions together. Pachu to me represented the finest in amateur tennis, which as you know once flourished when compared to professional play which is what is better known today. He went at his own expense to all the tournaments he played and never accepted remuneration. A gentleman on and off the court, he accompanied me to Pakistan where we won all the doubles matches. I shall miss him terribly.”

Lakshmi Mahadevan, the first Indian woman to be seeded No. 1 in Asia recalls that she and Pachu shared a friendship of 60 years. “We were both students of T.K. Ramanathan and even before that our respective parents and grandparents were friends. We won many mixed doubles tournaments. We were friends on court to start with and then as we grew older I realised what a wonderful human being he was. Never a harsh or ill word about anyone. He had enormous trust in the goodness of people. And he had this amazing capacity to take teasing – we used to tease him endlessly and he would laugh along with us. Both of us were interested in reading. We used to discuss books and compare notes. I introduced him to Kindle unlimited. He would call me once a week to just find out how I was doing. That care is what I will miss. He had a lovely, close-knit family and his wife Hema was his perfect companion.

N. Sankar, Chairman, the Sanmar Group:

I knew Pachu as a good, close, dear friend from 1958 onwards. He and I played at T.K. Ramanathan’s – R. Krishnan’s father’s – courts. He, of course, was a star pupil and T.K. Ramanathan would use him as a demonstration model, and Pachu had ‘the perfect’ tennis strokes, particularly in the T.K. Ramanathan model which was backhand and forehand. You must remember, net tennis was big in those days, and Pachu was an absolute exponent of it. He would always be at the net, with perfect volleying, and his backhand was a thing of beauty. He used to have a top-spin backhand return from the left court which was unbelievable.

He was the captain of Vivekananda College team, and I had been with him on quite a few college trips. I remember two fantastic matches in the year 1959. One was the tournament at Annamalai University. He came to the finals and won the first two sets against a gentleman called Dicky Mammen who later went on, I believe, to be a famous doctor at CMC, Vellore. But Mammen won the next two sets, it started raining and they couldn’t complete the fifth set. They tossed to decide who would keep the Cup for the first six months. It went to Mammen, and we were all very disappointed.

A more important event I remember is the Stanley Cup in Chennai where he played S. Srinivasan (Ratnam) from Madras Medical College. There was a longstanding rivalry between them. Ratnam was the son of Dr. Rajan, a very good player, and also a good friend of mine. The first two sets went very easily to Dr. Srinivasan. What happened was, Pachu was playing with Bata canvas shoes which had very thin soles. The Loyola First Court was one of the best clay courts to be found. It was totally hard, the surface shining like glass, and abrasive with loose sand. He ran through his shoe soles and was slipping and sliding as though he was playing on ice. After losing the first two sets easily, he took off his shoes and played barefoot. He won the next three sets and won the Cup. In fact, when he went to receive the Winner’s Cup, one could see blood stains in every step he took. That was a fabulous match. The Physical Education Director of Vivekananda College was very upset when Pachu was down at Love-Two and he went away. So a lot of us went to his house and gheraoed him. He came out and made a statement saying, “Oh, I was very confident that even at Love-Two, Pachu would win, and that’s why I went away!”.

Pachu was ranked, if I am not mistaken, among the Top-5 – certainly Top-10 – in India at one stage. But as luck would have it, while he had won many regional events, he never won any national tournaments in singles or doubles at the senior level, and Mr Ramanathan was very unhappy with that. Once his son R. Krishnan was going on a trip in the Pakistan Circuit. There were three major tournaments in I think Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi. He sent Pachu along with him. Those days Krish was very dominant, and as expected, he won the three singles titles easily, and the doubles were won by V.K. Parthasarathy and partner (the partner being R. Krishnan). We used to pull Pachu’s leg saying he had an easy job – he just had to serve or return serve and stand on the side, and Krish would take care of the points and the match. They won all three doubles tournaments!

Pachu was one of the finest human beings you could think of – warm hearted, never thought bad of anybody, and would never lose his temper. I am saying this truly from my heart. He was a person I really liked.

Again on a lighter note, he started his career with EID-Parry, and he was in Delhi as their liaison man there. He subsequently moved to Madras. Mr. H.V.R. Iengar, the Chairman of Parry at that time who was also a tennis player, liked him and started playing with him regularly. Pachu had a similar role with HVR, as R. Krishnan had with him in Pakistan. As it was the Chairman playing with a young executive, Pachu had to be mindful of HVR’s requirements but sometimes he would go a little too far. One hilarious incident stands out where HVR was his partner and he served a double fault, and Pachu turned to him and said, “Sir, please have two more, you were not ready”. Even HVR lost his temper.

When I became the President of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) in 1989, I made Pachu the Honorary Secretary. We served for 7-8 years and had a good time. We reorganised the TNTA and brought in the Tennis League. We did good things in that period. A lot of the work was done by Pachu and others. There were a whole bunch of friends who thought so much of Pachu. In later years we played a lot of good tennis together.

Towards the end of his career, Pachu also worked with me in Sanmar. We had an Overseas Sanmar Financial Group, and he worked with us on the investment side. Of course, he was a fantastic employee.

What else can I say about Pachu? We will all miss him, and I wish his soul rests in peace.

N. Kumar, Vice Chairman, the Sanmar Group:

Pachu was a genuinely good human being, always willing to help and a team player.
He was older than me and therefore I used to look up to him, both at T.K. Ramanathan’s house and when he played regional and National tennis tournaments.
However after he settled down, we used to play casual tennis. He had lovely strokes as did everyone out of TKR stable!

He was a true gentleman both on and off the tennis court. I remember when I went to the US in the 60s he was in Delhi and he met and helped me.

As an administrator he always was perfect and would never do anything wrong and got along very well with people. He would go the extra mile for the game.

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