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My life long friendship with my senior in the Geology
department of Presidency College is a classic example of abiding
friendship that didn’t suffer setback in testing
circumstances.Mr.Yegnanarayanan was attached to Bangalore
Laboratory of Atomic Minerals Division of the Department of
Atomic Energy where he was allotted Cuddapah and Kurnool
districts of Andhra Pradesh for prospecting for Uranium at the
time I myself entered the Department as Assistant Geologist in
August 1959.We used to meet frequently in the ambient

atmosphere of Bangalore’s Majestic Circle then not so noisy or
crowded as it has become now.H e needed someone who would
listen to his exploits in his field assignments, how by sheer
eloquence he would win friendship of District authorities and
secure their cooperation in his assignments !True to his averment
he was a fine conversationalist, well read in English literature and
British history. He was fond of quoting the above author about
the democratic pretensions of Oliver Cromewell whose
democratic whig fell exposing the naked sword which he relied
more on to rule England.I would almost anticipate his quotation
and say in chorus the part about whig and sword !His erudition
and recall from memory of pithy sayings and couplets from
Naaladiyar,Tirukkural,Avvaiyar made a great impression on me.I
would often admire how a person of such many sided excellence
could not make it to the IAS in which direction he made a couple
of attaempts but only to lose out first time in written papers and
second time in personality test

Mr.Yegnanarayanan came to know my budding interest in
exploring the mystery of UPSC examination.Not affected by any
complex at his own failure he very earnestly encouraged me in
my efforts and suggested a few authors whom I must acqaint
myself more seriously if I were to good score in that
paper.Macaulay,Ramsay Muir,Warner and Martin were some of
the authors introduced to me. It didn’t occur to me that the stiff
standard maintained by the UPSC before 1957 by prescribing a
minimum marks to qualify in the personality test was done away
with and if only to oblige lesser mortals like me lowered the bar

for us to scale !

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