Mourning the loss

Ranikka, Arul and Anna and friends,

I thank the family of Dr. Gift Siromoney for having asked me to speak on this occasion. I consider it a privilege to have this opportunity to pay my tribute to him.

Gift and I had many links between us. His father and mine were good friends who respected each other for what they were. Mr. Siromoney was an Official in the Revenue Department of the Government and I think he retired as a district revenue officer. He was well respected in the community as an honest, disciplined and an efficient administrator. Recently when I saw Mr.E.C.P. Prabhakar, Retired Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu and I was speaking to him about Gift's last illness his immediate reaction was that he knew Gift's father, Mr. Siromoney, very well that he had been a D.R.O with him and that he was one of the finest men he had worked with. So it is not surprising that many of these fine qualities were found in his son.

Gift's mother, Dulcie auntie was a student of my mother. Though the student-teacher relationship continued to exist on one side, they were also very good friends and worked together in many church activities particularly in the Mother's Union.

His wife, Mrs. Rani Siromoney is a relative of mine, by marriage. She is, my maternal uncle Rev. Peace David's wife's sister. She stayed with Rev. and Mrs. Peace David, when she was a student in Madras Christian College. I used to spend all Sundays in that parsonage so I knew her well. In fact, it may not be out of place to mention that it was I who first introduced Gift to her!

My son Vasanth was a good friend of Arul's … Vasanth, Arul and Anna were all members of the Christian Drama group called "The King's Messengers". Now Anna is a colleague of my wife Ranjini, in the Women's Christian College in the Physics Department.

I have mentioned all these things to show how closely we have been connected.

Gift and I were classmates in school for a number of years in St.Peter's High School, Tanjore. He was always a good friend and source of inspiration to me. His house was only 2 furlongs away from mine and every evening we played games together. On holidays we used to spend hours together either in his house or in mine. He had a keen sense of humour and all of us enjoyed his company. Suganthan Koilpillai his neighbour then, and Calvin Jacob were 2 of other members of our group of friends.

Gift was a person with a great many talents. He was a very good student and a great favorite with all his teachers.

In fact my father was his teacher too. Gift won many of the prizes in school. He was very good at Dramatics and he took part in all the school elocution competitions. I can still remember the huge stage in the first floor of our school building where he won the first prize for reciting with actions the poem Abu Ben Adam. He believed in "all round development" and he developed himself in many directions. But he did not allow any one of his many interests to carry him away and detract from his studies. STUDY for him, always had FIRST priority.

He was interested in music and practised the piano regularly. It is this talent we see manifested in Arul, who is an outstanding pianist and organist today.

I remember that he was very good at sketching.

He attended Sunday School regularly and often won prizes there too. What he learnt in Sunday School, he practised. I remember one occasion very vividly. As you know, Tanjore is famous for its cashew nut groves. The cashew nuts were precious, but not the fruits. They used to permit all the school boys to enter the groves and eat as many of the fruits as they wished. We could even carry the fruits home but were not allowed to take away the raw nuts. We were expected to throw the nuts in the grove itself under the trees. On one occasion, one of our numbers tried to carry away some of the nuts by stuffing them into the hollow of the handle bar of his cycle. I don't know how many the boy could have succeeded in taking away, but I remember, Gift spoke to him persuasively and pointed out that we had entered the grove on trust and made him leave them behind.

Another incident that I recall, was our trip to Trichy from Tanjore on bicycles. Trichy was 32 miles away and a group of us decided to make their trip on cycles. Knowing that the wind would be against us, we had all planned to travel light. But at 6 a.m., when we met at the starting point, we were surprised to se Gift with the huge jack fruit strapped on to his cycle carrier! I suppose his mother had expressed her wish sometime to send their "garden produce" to their relation in Trichy and Gift had decided to oblige her thus. Thinking that we were all to have a share in the fruit on reaching Trichy, we all took turns at riding that cycle with the jack fruit, and only after reaching Trichy we realized that it was not for us! Yet we were all happy that we had helped him and we always had a lot of fun recalling the many adventures we had in transporting the fruit dropping it several times on the way!

As I said earlier he was a person of varied interests. I will read the extract from the Indian Express dated 21st march 1988: " A gifted teacher of Statistics and Computer Management, Prof. Siromoney had conducted extensive research work on Information Management. A man of varied interests, he was well-known for his contribution to Tamil and historical studies in the fields of inscriptions, temple architecture and bronzes". Apparently he had maintained his habit of developing different interests all through his life and so, well might we say of him as Goldsmith said of the Village School Master in the Deserted Village:

"And still they gazed
And still the wonder grew
That one small head
Could carry all he knew."

We thank God for the many gifts that he had showered on Gift Siromoney. We thank God for the way in which Gift used his many talents for the good of us all.

Thanking You.

Sam Victor (Classmate and Friend from Kindergarten till 1988)
Currently: Correspondent and Secretary, YMCA College of Physical Education, Nandanam, Chennai.