An evening with J Krishnamurthy

[adnanhridoy1576]

When did I first hear of this man? During the seventies, when I was a teenager, flipping through weekly magazines like Kumudham and Kalkandu without paying attention to the textbook, I was cursing at home. One day I was looking through the tidbits of Kalkandu Magazine and a small J.Krishnamurthy picture on one page. who is If you look at the name, it looks like someone from Tamil. 'J.Krishnamurthy is regarded as the greatest thinker of this century. It is remembered that Tamilvanan had written four lines like 'This is a philosopher.' Our contemporary philosopher, great thinker.. an Indian? The thought came to my mind as if I had read everything that I had never even heard of. I forgot about him after a while. Nothing more was read or heard of him for the next few years. After my first visit to Delhi, one morning in late March 1975, I boarded the GT Express at Madras Central Station. Rameswaram Express to Pudukottai only at night.

There is plenty of time. Higginbothams caught sight of the shops inside the station as Diffen finished his coffee. I looked into it thinking that I could buy some magazines. A little further in, I saw English books piled up on Telegram Number Data side stands. Books and writers, as heard, but not seen. There.. what is that? I've seen that face somewhere in a penguin book. I asked the shopkeeper to show me. He took it reluctantly, thinking that Ivan would buy it. The title of the portable book was 'The Second Penguin Krishnamurthy Reader'. Ah.. J. Krishnamurthy! The mind quickly showed the old stone side. Aw! Is this about him? A second reader? So has another book called 'First Reader' been published about him? I took a quick look at the back cover and the foreword.



To start reading on the first page, JK's pleasant commentary in simple English on the natural scenery he happened to see during an evening walk. In those moments when the mind started to soak.. 'Are you going to buy?'' said the shopkeeper in a somewhat irritating voice. Give it back.. He held out his hand indifferently, as if all this was irrelevant. I told him 'I will buy' as if protesting him and paid him. I own the book. No more this shopaholic itch. I rubbed it with pride and kept it safely in my bag. Return home and study calmly. I sat under the neem tree in the village and shook it slowly. J.Krishnamurthy was born in 1895 in a village near Madras in South India as the eighth child in a poor Antana family, at the age of 14 he was taken in by Dr. Annie Besant and friends of the International Theosophical Society, which operated from Madras, and then studied and grew up in England.