Judging the past
By Asha P. Nair
01st January 2009 10:03 AM
The year is 1958. Thiruvananthapuram turns venue for the State School Kalolsav for the first time. Sixteen-year-old Vijayagopal makes his first trip outside his little village in North Paravur to compete in the kalolsav. The venue was Thycaud Model LPS, where he signed up for extempore speech and ended up participating in elocution.
It’s 2008. Thiruvananthapuram is once again the venue for Kalolsav and Vijayagopal returns to the old campus. But this time to judge a competition.
And all the while Vijayagopal, now better known as R.V.G. Menon, was looking for a gallery class - where he had stood for elocution - which had rows of benches arranged, unlike his small classroom in North Paravur Government HS.
For social scientist R.V.G. Menon, descending the steps of the Model School to judge a Malayalam essay writing competition was taking a trip down the years, exactly 50 golden years back.
The district-level competitions in 1958 were held at the Manikyamangalam School in Ernakulam. ``I had participated in extempore speech, where a topic is given only five minutes beforehand for the participant to deliver a speech. When I came to Thiruvananthapuram for the state-level competitions, the item was changed to elocution. But I gave my best,’’ Menon recalls.
But whether he won a prize, Menon does not clearly remember. ``I don’t remember who the judges were or who my fellow contestants were. But I do remember the elocution I gave. It was Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Speech,’’ he says.
It was much later, almost decades, that Menon came to know of his contemporaries in the 1958 kalolsav. ``I didn’t know that Yesudas and Jayachandran had participated in the kalolsav or that it was the first time that all districts were included. Back then, it was just enjoying the first distant trip of my life,’’ he recalls.
Ask him about the first frame that enters his mind when reminded of his youth festival stint and he would say ``the big gallery class.’’ For a village boy, a gallery class in a city school was a big sight, he says.
Then a student of class XI (now equivalent to SSLC), it was his last appearance in a kalolsav.
Now, a member of various committees in the field of education and science, Menon is settled in the capital with his wife. On Wednesday, in between his role as a judge, Menon was seen tracking the corridors of the school, reliving some of the 1958 moments.
It’s 2008. Thiruvananthapuram is once again the venue for Kalolsav and Vijayagopal returns to the old campus. But this time to judge a competition.
And all the while Vijayagopal, now better known as R.V.G. Menon, was looking for a gallery class - where he had stood for elocution - which had rows of benches arranged, unlike his small classroom in North Paravur Government HS.
For social scientist R.V.G. Menon, descending the steps of the Model School to judge a Malayalam essay writing competition was taking a trip down the years, exactly 50 golden years back.
The district-level competitions in 1958 were held at the Manikyamangalam School in Ernakulam. ``I had participated in extempore speech, where a topic is given only five minutes beforehand for the participant to deliver a speech. When I came to Thiruvananthapuram for the state-level competitions, the item was changed to elocution. But I gave my best,’’ Menon recalls.
But whether he won a prize, Menon does not clearly remember. ``I don’t remember who the judges were or who my fellow contestants were. But I do remember the elocution I gave. It was Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Speech,’’ he says.
It was much later, almost decades, that Menon came to know of his contemporaries in the 1958 kalolsav. ``I didn’t know that Yesudas and Jayachandran had participated in the kalolsav or that it was the first time that all districts were included. Back then, it was just enjoying the first distant trip of my life,’’ he recalls.
Ask him about the first frame that enters his mind when reminded of his youth festival stint and he would say ``the big gallery class.’’ For a village boy, a gallery class in a city school was a big sight, he says.
Then a student of class XI (now equivalent to SSLC), it was his last appearance in a kalolsav.
Now, a member of various committees in the field of education and science, Menon is settled in the capital with his wife. On Wednesday, in between his role as a judge, Menon was seen tracking the corridors of the school, reliving some of the 1958 moments.
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