Later Years
Jeeva led a busy and hectic life : taking classes on Marxism for party workers, advising students to equip themselves to meet the nascent republic’s development needs, addressing literary fora on topics such as the greatness of poet Subramania Bharati, explaining the flaws in the government’s language policy at meetings of intellectuals, and addressing factory gate meetings in support of workers on strike. In between, he would be writing editorials for the party daily or discussing strategies for resolving industrial disputes.
In 1962, his health suffered a setback. Later in the year he visited the Soviet Union. He took treatment there and returned by the end of the year. However, his health worsened weeks later. On January 18, 1963, he died at his modest home at Tambaram, near Chennai. About two lakh people attended his funeral and paid their last respects to one who had toiled all his life for the common man, who symbolised the simplicity of Gandhism and who had a Periyar-like zest for social equality and the Marxist spirit to fight exploitation.
Read more about this topic: P. Jeevanandham
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour
high—I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)