B30 A Vice Chancellor Recalls Mr. Sundaravadivelu has lived through a transition from a stratified system of society. The call in the air, at the beginning of this century, was clear for a rectification of the structural defects of society, and a slowly intensifying way of wits and nerves between the upper and lower classes forebode a crisis. The late E.V. Ramaswamy, founder of the Dravida Kazhagam, who masterminded the strategy of pulling down people high in the social ladder, by the prerogative of their superior caste, became the hero of the oppressed. But for his skilful manoeuvring of the movement against casteism, the public would not have awakened to the injustices. This work takes us back to those days when EVR dominated the South Indian scene. The detailed account of EVR's rise as a leader and the growth and genesis of the Dravida Kazhagam in its pages is indeed admirable. The autobiography follows the traditional pattern starting with a graphic description of the author's birth-place. Neyyadi Vakkam and is pleasant greenery, and the rustic people unexposed to the rough weather of changing times. Of the two little Siva temples, one at the western end, and the other at the eastern end of the village, and of the Vishnu temple in the middle, and of the custom of having a common priest for all the three temples. Sundaravadivelu speaks with a vivid memory. o Of his loving but stern teachers, especially of Vaidyanathsami Iyer, who would in the mornings and evenings and on Sundays invite his students to the spacious
