R. Kuppuswamy, Retired Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD), Government of Tamil Nadu, was the grandson of Poosari Boyar, one of the first big construction contractors in Coimbatore. Boyar constructed the buildings for the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and also the General Hospital.
Kuppuswamy was a school-going boy when his grand father constructed a house for them and he still remembers the way the terrace was planned. It was known as Madras Terrace and tiny bricks lined with lime mortar used to be placed on rafters for creating the ceiling for the building. Again, coloured flooring was in vogue those days.
"I did my schooling at the St. Michaels High School and learnt English in my school itself. After doing my Intermediate at the Government Arts College, Coimbatore, I did my Bachelor of Engineering at the College of Engineering - Guindy".
"Industrialist N. Mahalingam was my senior and ours was the only college for engineering in the whole of the Madras Presidency and seats were reserved for people from all regions on an equitable basis. On clearing my exams in civil engineering my grandmother gifted me a residential site in R.S. Puram and I have now built residential portions for my 3 sons on the same site."
Mr. Kuppuswamy, B.E., joined PWD in 1948 and he retired as the Chief Engineer in 1982. He began by working at Valparai where he built a factory for a Cinchona project (used for the manufacture of Quinine which cured Malaria) for some time and thereafter he moved over to work at the Parambikulam Aliyar project. He was involved with several of the dam projects which included Thoonakadavu, Sholayar, etc., Nonagenarian Kuppuswamy is agile and his recall is chronological.
"On getting my posting in the dam sites that came up due to the efforts of the energetic Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, K. Kamaraj I was taught how to use a gun at the Madukkarai shooting range for we had to learn the art of self defence with the aid of fire arms for the jungle sites were full of wild animals and big reptiles. We started from scratch and did soil testing, foundation work and the planning was from Chennai. Investigation and construction was done by us and there was absolutely no electricity until 1960. Hotels and tea shops were absent and one had to walk 5 kilometres to get food. We did canal investigation and went up to Palladam for completing the task".
"A new Jeep was provided each year and the Head Quarters for the project was at Makkinampatti in Pollachi. The labourers came from Palladam and boulder stone cutting was from Tirupur. A number of people used to work and there were 21 engineers totally in the site. My wife Kanakam and myself were lucky that our kids Saraswathi, Shanmugham, Sundaresan and Venkatesan were looked after well thanks to our infrastructure at Singanallur. My salary used to be a paltry 180 Rupees only and I believed in serving my district without making money on the side".
Octogenarian Kanakam Kuppuswamy says further: "We believed in a simple life and those days I was asked to assess the lifestyle of my husbands colleagues' by keeping an eye on the jewellery and sarees used by their wives. I am an uneducated woman but I can say that both of us are lucky to get each other. Both of us believe that we should give up on unwanted desires by the time we are 60 years and this will help us live longer and healthier."
Kuppuswamy was chosen by the United Nations to undergo training in Australia in the year 1964 and he was happy to give a crisp recall of his time overseas, "I stayed in a nice facility in Australia and spent nearly 6 months in that country by trying to pick up some experience at the Snowy Mountains Authority that was building a dam. Unlike India our hosts had several aeroplanes and all of us flew to the work site everyday. It was a United Nations Technical Assistance Programme and we visited a number of places. We absorbed their techinques and it was of great help. I used to have apple juice instead of water and really enjoyed the soups that were served by our host country."
Kuppuswamy has visited a number of dams all over India and has also met a number of Prime Ministers and bureaucrats during his active career. Interestingly he, who was actively involved with the construction of projects, which were being executed by Chief Minister Kamaraj, was also involved with the construction of the Kamaraj Memorial in Chennai. His son K. Shanmugham who studied at the Regional Engineering College, Trichy, worked with the design team.
Kuppuswamy joined medicine first but quit in order to become a civil engineer. "It cost us Rs. 40 per month at the mess in our college and they used to serve us hot badam halwa once in a way along with our food. Those days it was just civil, mechanical and electrical engineering and my friend Govinda Menon retired as the Principal of an engineering college in Kerala and another friend Mohanakrishnan was a consultant for UNESCO. Those times we used to work for 10 hours a day and had to take a lot of risk. The children of the site workers used to study at a school in Vettaikaranpudur and used to be taken in a bus everyday".
The service-minded and honest engineer is happy to talk about the committed public leaders Chief Minister Kamaraj and Minister C. Subramaniam who had done much for the nation, state and their home turf. The October 2nd born R. Kuppuswamy lives with his family at West Periyaswamy Road, R.S. Puram and he is ever happy to share the reasons for his contentment. The engineer who retired as the Chief Engineer (Ground Water) from the PWD is full of joy while stating that three generations from his family have done engineering from the prestigious College of Engineering at Guindy.
Kuppuswamy was a school-going boy when his grand father constructed a house for them and he still remembers the way the terrace was planned. It was known as Madras Terrace and tiny bricks lined with lime mortar used to be placed on rafters for creating the ceiling for the building. Again, coloured flooring was in vogue those days.
"I did my schooling at the St. Michaels High School and learnt English in my school itself. After doing my Intermediate at the Government Arts College, Coimbatore, I did my Bachelor of Engineering at the College of Engineering - Guindy".
"Industrialist N. Mahalingam was my senior and ours was the only college for engineering in the whole of the Madras Presidency and seats were reserved for people from all regions on an equitable basis. On clearing my exams in civil engineering my grandmother gifted me a residential site in R.S. Puram and I have now built residential portions for my 3 sons on the same site."
Mr. Kuppuswamy, B.E., joined PWD in 1948 and he retired as the Chief Engineer in 1982. He began by working at Valparai where he built a factory for a Cinchona project (used for the manufacture of Quinine which cured Malaria) for some time and thereafter he moved over to work at the Parambikulam Aliyar project. He was involved with several of the dam projects which included Thoonakadavu, Sholayar, etc., Nonagenarian Kuppuswamy is agile and his recall is chronological.
"On getting my posting in the dam sites that came up due to the efforts of the energetic Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, K. Kamaraj I was taught how to use a gun at the Madukkarai shooting range for we had to learn the art of self defence with the aid of fire arms for the jungle sites were full of wild animals and big reptiles. We started from scratch and did soil testing, foundation work and the planning was from Chennai. Investigation and construction was done by us and there was absolutely no electricity until 1960. Hotels and tea shops were absent and one had to walk 5 kilometres to get food. We did canal investigation and went up to Palladam for completing the task".
"A new Jeep was provided each year and the Head Quarters for the project was at Makkinampatti in Pollachi. The labourers came from Palladam and boulder stone cutting was from Tirupur. A number of people used to work and there were 21 engineers totally in the site. My wife Kanakam and myself were lucky that our kids Saraswathi, Shanmugham, Sundaresan and Venkatesan were looked after well thanks to our infrastructure at Singanallur. My salary used to be a paltry 180 Rupees only and I believed in serving my district without making money on the side".
Octogenarian Kanakam Kuppuswamy says further: "We believed in a simple life and those days I was asked to assess the lifestyle of my husbands colleagues' by keeping an eye on the jewellery and sarees used by their wives. I am an uneducated woman but I can say that both of us are lucky to get each other. Both of us believe that we should give up on unwanted desires by the time we are 60 years and this will help us live longer and healthier."
Kuppuswamy was chosen by the United Nations to undergo training in Australia in the year 1964 and he was happy to give a crisp recall of his time overseas, "I stayed in a nice facility in Australia and spent nearly 6 months in that country by trying to pick up some experience at the Snowy Mountains Authority that was building a dam. Unlike India our hosts had several aeroplanes and all of us flew to the work site everyday. It was a United Nations Technical Assistance Programme and we visited a number of places. We absorbed their techinques and it was of great help. I used to have apple juice instead of water and really enjoyed the soups that were served by our host country."
Kuppuswamy has visited a number of dams all over India and has also met a number of Prime Ministers and bureaucrats during his active career. Interestingly he, who was actively involved with the construction of projects, which were being executed by Chief Minister Kamaraj, was also involved with the construction of the Kamaraj Memorial in Chennai. His son K. Shanmugham who studied at the Regional Engineering College, Trichy, worked with the design team.
Kuppuswamy joined medicine first but quit in order to become a civil engineer. "It cost us Rs. 40 per month at the mess in our college and they used to serve us hot badam halwa once in a way along with our food. Those days it was just civil, mechanical and electrical engineering and my friend Govinda Menon retired as the Principal of an engineering college in Kerala and another friend Mohanakrishnan was a consultant for UNESCO. Those times we used to work for 10 hours a day and had to take a lot of risk. The children of the site workers used to study at a school in Vettaikaranpudur and used to be taken in a bus everyday".
The service-minded and honest engineer is happy to talk about the committed public leaders Chief Minister Kamaraj and Minister C. Subramaniam who had done much for the nation, state and their home turf. The October 2nd born R. Kuppuswamy lives with his family at West Periyaswamy Road, R.S. Puram and he is ever happy to share the reasons for his contentment. The engineer who retired as the Chief Engineer (Ground Water) from the PWD is full of joy while stating that three generations from his family have done engineering from the prestigious College of Engineering at Guindy.