Sri S. Narayanaswamy:
An Enlightened Industrialist
K. CHANDRASEKHARAN
In almost nine out of ten
instances, the birthdays of persons celebrated in public, are either
politically motivated or sectionally inspired. Only a
few among men and women who receive plaudits are deserving of recognition and
felicitations for having lived the good age. Sri S. Narayanaswamy,
who completed his eighty-first year in April last, is one such whom most of the
institutions and organizations with which he has been connected look upon as an
ungrudging contributor to their interests. Hardly before he passed his ’Twenties,
he had already joined groups working for the social, cultural and industrial
causes. Though not a full full-fledged graduate of our university, he had
graduated creditably in public service. Many a movement of public utility
claimed him as an incessant coadjutor or collaborator in advancing the objects for
which such institutions came into existence.
The stock exchange drew
his attention for an early career but unlike many others engaged in the share-market
he had been found from the beginning refreshing himself with valuable
pre-occupations such as reading a lot of good literature and writing with great
speed upon many a subject of economic and industrial interest. As a speaker,
even at a young age, he was needed by the social organisers
to participate in their discussions, and never did he show slackening in his
mental powers of tackling problems. More than that, his facility for speech and
his attraction in filling it with apt quotations from modern writers proved an
immense source of willing attention from audiences.
Like the late Sri C. Y. Chintamani of Allahabad and Dr. D. V. Gundappa
of Bangalore, without holding university degrees, he is any day more competent
by his knowledge than of the so-called experts in the field with long suffixes
to their academic qualifications. One may get amazed indeed at his readiness,
to talk on economic and technological problems with apparent ease and command
of adequate material.
With a variety of interests
and serious involvements in business concerns he has no self-obsessions of importance so as to remove the
qualities of loyalty and admiration for men of intellect and large vision such
as Dr. C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar. The Rt. Hon’ble
Mr. Sastri and Rajaji. If every one of them felt him reliable and useful
in moments of need, it only adds to his other sterling traits of promptness and
energetic discharge of assignments in public affairs.
His daily routine of
attending Advisory Boards of more than a dozen Companies in the industrial
field, has not robbed him of naturalness and cheer and an accommodative spirit
to claims of a different kind. The adage that the busiest man alone can find
time for everything is true in a great measure or him. A practical mind is his,
and an unquestioning inclination to help others in distress. To his credit is a
clean and unblemished record of service of all kinds, ranging from small
undertakings of collecting books for building up a library to the vast entrepreneurial
efforts at bringing into life a new industry or reviving a sick one. In short,
his ambitions are for others; his activities are for himself.