The Late Shriyut V.V.S. Aiyer In Memoriam

Heavy griefs have often embittered our life, but none heavier than what
thy sudden death caused, Oh friend, ever taxed our capacity to endure.
Memories of those momentous years and trying days rise in a flood and
struggling to find a vent, keep knocking at the gates of our heart. How we
wish we could have spoken them all and recited our reminiscences; but our
lips must remain sealed. How we long to write of thy goodness and
gentleness of disposition—how, when betrayed, thou stood'st unshaken,
how thou served'st them who owned thee not and how thou suffered'st
when unknown and madest not the slightest mention of it when thou gotst
known—how we long to write of it all; but our pen is a broken reed. The
noble story of thy life must for, the time being, may perhaps for all time to
come, remain untold. For while those who can recite it are living, the time
to tell it may not come, and when the time comes when all that is worth
telling will no longer remain suppressed and will be eagerly listened to, the
generation that could have recounted it might have passed away. Thy
greatness, therefore, must stand undimmed but unwitnessed by man, like
the lofty Himalayan peaks. Thy services and sacrifices must lie buried in
oblivion as do the foundations of a mighty castle.
The news of thy sudden death was bitter enough. But bitterer by for, is this
our inability to relate to posterity under what heavy obligations thou hast
placed them and to express the fulness of our personal and public grief.
For, indeed, he was a pillar of strength, a Hindu of Hindus and in him, our
Hindu race has lost one of the most exalted representatives and a perfect
flower of our Hindu civilization. Ripe in experience, hallowed by sufferings
and devoted to the service of man and God, the cause of Hindu Sanghatan
was sure to find in him, one of its best and foremost champions in Madras.
In 1907 A.D. or somewhere there, one day the maidservant at the famous
India House in London handed a visiting card to us as we came downstairs
to dine, and told us the gentleman was awaiting in the drawing room.
Presently, the door was flung open and a gentleman neatly dressed in
European costumes and inclined to be fashionable, warmly shook hands
with us. He told us he had been a pleader at Rangoon and he had come over
to England to qualify himself as a full-fledged barrister. He was past thirty
and seemed a bit agreeably surprised to find us so young. He assured us of
his intention to study English music and even assured that he was eager to