Santhanam Rengasamy and Malathy Santhanam

Introduction

Santhanam Rengasamy (70) and Malathy Santhanam (68) have been married for 48 years. They were born and raised in India and currently shuttle between Canada and Australia to spend time with their two daughters and grandchildren.

In their interview, they talk about their early years, marriage, life in India, career, overcoming obstacles, life with two daughters living far apart from one another, and some of their life learnings worth sharing. In their advice to young people, they discuss the importance of accepting what life gives you and focusing on doing your own duty regardless of the outcome.

Please note, Rengasamy and Santhanam’s interview is not primarily in English. A translation has been provided below the video.

Rengasamy and Santhanam’s Story

Video Length ~22min.
 

English Translation

 
SR: Greetings, I am Santhanam.
 
MS: And I am Malathy Santhanam, greetings!
 
SR: I am 70 and she is 68. We have been married for 48 years. We have completed our 48th wedding anniversary just this August.
 
SR: We are both from middle class families (referring to SES) and we grew up in relatively larger cities. I was born in Manamadurai (city in Tamil Nadu, India), a small city maybe the size of today’s Waterloo. I was born on 17th October 1952, the day of Deepavali (or Diwali, a festival of lights celebrated in the Hindu religion).
 
SR: I studied in what they called SSLC during those days (a former education system) for 11 grades and I studied in 5-6 cities. My mom died five years after I was born so my grandmother took me to her sons’ and daughters houses, I would go with her and study wherever she went. If she went to her sons’ houses, I would go my uncle’s house and study. If she went to her daughters’ houses, I would go to my aunt’s house and study. So like this it was one city each year and that itself was sort of an experience and exposure for me at a young age. Bullying and other things that we say these days, I went through all that without even knowing what it was and I crossed it successfully.
 
MS: I was born November 28th 1954. In my house we were 5 siblings, I have 2 older sisters, I’m the middle child and I also have a younger brother and a younger sister. Since we were a family with five siblings, it was a lot of fun. We had a lot of fights and games. I was born in Vaduvoor (city in Tamil Nadu, India), a very small town. And next to that was Mannargodi (city in Tamil Nadu, India) where my dad was from, so I did all my schooling there up until I was 19 years old. After finishing my school’s finals at 17, I went to an institute to learn typing and shorthand. After that, I couldn’t go to college because we were from a middle-class family (referring to SES)  and I have a younger brother and he was the only son, so we wanted to give him a better education. I did get a scholarship, but I didn’t get the program that I liked. I wanted to take chemistry, but I got into history with my scholarship, so I didn’t go because I didn’t want to study something that I didn’t like. I got married very early at 19 years old and we had a love marriage during those days.
 
SR: As I said, I mentioned middle class (referring to SES) but you could say ours was lower or lowest middle-class backgrounds (referring to SES). Even when I was studying in school, if I could get one meal a day then that was a bounty. Once in two days we used to get square meals (referring to meals provided in school) otherwise we would just eat whatever we got, but we were so happy. No regrets. If I had food in the morning, then I wouldn’t know if I would have food in the afternoon and then the night falls. It was a rough ride even when I was studying in school.
 
MS: And he didn’t have his mother too that’s the thing
 
SR: But I was the eldest son and I have four younger siblings. But I was only reunited with my father when I was 12 or 13, or after I was 14 years old when I was in grade 9 and until then I was with my uncles and aunts before I finally went there (to live with father) so that’s why I didn’t have a great attachment because I grew up in different places in those formative years. I didn’t know from whom I could receive love. The only source for me was my grandmother because I didn’t have my mother, she was really affectionate towards me so that was a blessing in disguise. Since I didn’t get a mother’s love, I got my grandmother’s love.
 
SR: I studied in SSLC (schooling) and I wasn’t sure if I could go to college after that but I got into what they called PUC during those days. Those were college courses but are now grade 12 courses and after that was graduation. After completing my PUC and graduating, I couldn’t continue (my studies) due to financial reasons. My father couldn’t pay the second term’s tuition fees, so I was a drop out. During the year that I was out of college, I was in Madurai (city in Tamil Nadu, India) and I was doing all sorts of jobs. I wasn’t restricted to a specific job. Some that I can say and some that I can’t.
 
SR: So I didn’t know what to do. I was done with my education and everyone who studied with me continued their education. I didn’t know what was next. That’s when I resigned to my eternity like let’s see what happens and when everything was over a new path opened. I wrote the Bank of India’s clerk exam in Madras (city in Tamil Nadu, India. Currently known as Chennai). So I had to go to Madras for that and when I went there, I was reunited with the relatives from my mother’s side who I had lost touch with when I was 5 years old. Everyone was like “wow Raji’s son is here” and that was a new kind of affection. I went to Madras for the exam and only stayed there for five months while I was in the movie industry for a short period.
 
SR: In the midst of that I also worked another small job for a paint company which only paid 75 rupees per month ($1.24 CAD, according to today’s rate). When I was doing all this, I finally got the job from Bank of India for which I wrote the exam. I wrote the exam on May 25th 1971 and I got the job on September 6th 1971. Then they asked me which city I wanted to work in while offering the job and I asked them for Madras because I hadn’t really seen the city and I was helping someone in the movie industry and hope to continue with drama and cinema. They listened to everything I said but did not put me in Madras and instead put me in a nearby city called Trichy (city in Tamil Nadu, India) which is 300 kilometers away. So I went there and I was already 18. I was away from home by myself since I was 17.
 
SR: When I was 19 or 20 years old I was wondering what to do after I got my job because I wasn’t attached to my family members, for obvious reasons, so that’s when my friends told me that getting married is the best choice but I have a sister who’s two years younger than me (who would have to get married first according to the culture). So after a year of starting my job, a friend of mine invited me to a wedding. Until then, I got along with so many people, but it was not romance or anything because when eating a meal itself was a struggle there was no room for romance or anything like today’s teenagers. But when I went to that wedding and saw her, right at the first sight, somehow something told me that she is the person. Somehow after that, this was in February 1973 and we got married on August 19th 1974. In between that I had no idea what to do, I didn’t plan anything. I don’t plan anything normally. My philosophy in life is if we just leave things as it is then someone above us has everything planned. God. Our plans in life might happen or fail sometimes but his plans for us never fail. Some people say this is blind belief but for me, in my life, this belief has brought me to where I am in all these 70 years. So I can proudly say, believe in a thing and you will be taken care of. I have no doubts in that.
 
MS: Actually in my household when we go to weddings, if they took my sister to a wedding then they would take me for another so they would just interchange. So it would be my mother, father and one or two kids. For this wedding, I said I would go with them but then I said I won’t and asked them (parents) to take my little sister instead. I don’t know what happened after, but my mother insisted that I go with her since I hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time so that’s why I went. If I didn’t go to that wedding, I would’ve never seen him. I always think to this day that it was destined for me to go to that wedding and getting married to him.
 
SR: So as I said, it’s faith faith faith. Secondly, experiences are really important to me in life. If someone were to ask me what my priorities are in life, I have always been clear about this since my childhood and I don’t have a college education, but first priority is character, second priority is health and the third priority is money. I believe when you have this, everything else will be taken care of. Likewise, till today, my financial status has been steady, it didn’t go up or down.
 
MS: And we don’t need it now because we get our pension money and both our daughters have settled down.
 
SR: But I struggled a lot to raise my daughters give them the education that I never got. I didn’t have a lot of savings. My older daughter is here in Canada and younger daughter is in Australia. She’s a Canadian citizen and she’s an Australian citizen and they both have houses where they live. So everything that was a rough ride at one point, just passed with time. An important reason for that is a principle that I had since I was 18 years old. Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Don’t lose your hope but if something doesn’t work out then be prepared to face that too. Luckily, when you have faith and believe in something then that never goes to waste. That’s what I think they call positive thinking in the western world. In my life, this is something I have been practicing from an early age because of what I underwent. Poverty. The first time I wore footwear was when I was 17 years old going to college and until then it was just barefoot. The first time I bought pants was during college and until then I only wore shorts. There is a saying in Tamil by Avvaiyaar (a famous Tamil poet) [recites the poem]. It says that when you’re young you shouldn’t have to experience poverty but according to me, the poverty that I went through when I was young actually allows me to experience everything that I have today. They say you only know the value of the shade when you’re in the sun. If you’re in the shade all the time you don’t know how nice it is, you only realize its value when you’re in the sun. So because I went through all that in my childhood, it makes me appreciate everything that I got in life after that and doesn’t make me complain about anything in life. Whatever food I got was good food. Whatever I got was good. Whatever job is got was good and I was in the same job till the end.
 
MS: Other people my age got an education, graduated and then got jobs in banks, teaching jobs and things like that. So sometimes I felt that maybe it would’ve been helpful for the family if I worked. But he told me in the very beginning that I wouldn’t have to work and to just focus on raising the children. So I was a complete house wife and focused on raising my children well. My children still tell me that because I was there when they got home and fed them and spent time with them, they really enjoyed it. They tell me “it was really nice for us that you didn’t work but we don’t know how you felt. Do you ever regret it? Because you would’ve gotten your own exposure”. But I never felt like that. He said it wasn’t necessary, so I just stayed home.
 
SR: And the results are there to see. Both my daughters are well settled, and she should take 90% of the credit for that because I only provided the necessary financial arrangements, but she managed everything and that’s very important. So it’s a successful combination. Not 50-50 but 90-10. Take it any way.
 
MS: My eldest daughter got married in Chennai and stayed there for a few years before moving here [Canada]. The younger one got married to a groom who was already from Australia. So we went to Australia for my daughter’s delivery when my grandson was born and it was first foreign country that we ever went to and we really enjoyed it. We went to Melbourne Australia in 2010, two years later in 2012 my eldest daughter asked us to come here [to Canada] and that’s when he obtained his early voluntary retirement because both our daughters kept calling us. Ever since we’ve been shuttling between Australia and Canada, we are barely in India. We just visit sometimes. When we’re here we enjoy with our granddaughter and with our grandson when we go there [Australia]. And life is just going by.
 
SR: My goal in life is to experience life as it unfolds which is the purpose of life but not having a target and chasing it and ignoring other aspects of life. Experiencing whatever you get in life including the good, bad, sadness, happiness. Experiencing everything that life has to offer is the purpose of life and that is my principle. I have felt this in the past 70 years. Experiencing life is important and if we ignored that and chased after something else then we would miss out on all the experiences that life has to offer so my whole life is an experience. For example, when we’re here in Canada, I don’t complain about the snow, I just say wow it’s snowing or wow it’s sunny. If we were open to experiencing everything then we won’t have negativity in life.
 
MS: Wherever I go, I mingle with everyone, whether that’s here with their [daughter] friends or over there in Australia with their [daughter] friends. Many parents travel here [places outside their home countries] and people say that their parents complain about not being able to walk and things like that, but we never do that. If it’s snowing then we’ll put our jackets on and walk around in the mall. I can’t sleep if I don’t get my 10,000 steps in everyday. I wake up every morning, drink coffee and go on a walk. It’s the same in Australia and I would get 12, 13, 14 (thousand) steps in over there. The other that I always keep in mind and taught my daughters as well is to never be greedy in life and have desires for more and more. So we taught them how to live a simple life where there is no constant desire for something else.
 
SR: During those days in India they used to say that when you have a son they would look after you when your old but if you have a daughter then that’s a liability. So those that had sons were held in a higher social status and whenever I told someone I have two daughters, they would pity me, but I was so proud that I have two daughters. When my second daughter was born, I gave everyone two sweets. People said, “why are spending money when you already have expenses lined up because you had another daughter”. I did not think of it like that, I was just happy that we had another baby. Then they’d say “what about a son” and I’d say “my son-in-law would be my son”. If you keep saying good things then good things will happen and this is an example for that. Both my daughters, as I said, my financial status has been very normal. My daughters buy the tickets for us and ask us to travel to them. We have travelled so many times.
 
MS: They don’t accept it even when we try to pay them back and they say “don’t give me money”. So we’d say to ourselves maybe if we had two more daughters and they were in the US and UK then we could’ve travelled there too. My daughter says to me “if you had 2 or 3 more daughters then it would’ve been nice with each person in each country”. We just laugh.
 
SR: That’s what they say positive thinking and I’ve been practicing that for 70 years.  I thought positively, I acted positively and so far nothing has gone wrong. Everything will work out when you have faith. Faith will move the mountains. The second thing is to never complain about anything. Even if we are in an uncomfortable situation it is important to accept it and look at it like it is comfortable.
 
MS: Just enjoy life the way it is.  Simple.
 
MS: I always want to learn new things like a language or something. I just want to learn new things so that’s why I learn new Slogams (mantra/chants) and memorize and recite them everyday. That is good for my memory and is also peaceful. So everyone should read a lot and learn new things or even if they are reading the same thing, it’s important to just read. It would be really helpful for older individuals and younger individuals; everyone must read something. Reading helps divert your mind. That’s what I would say. Learn something new and keep reading. It leads to good experiences for young and older individuals.
 
SR: What I say to everyone is based only on my experience. Just accept what life gives you. As simple as that. Try not to be adamant in life that only certain things are good for you and if you don’t get that you will be upset. It’s easier said than done but I’m saying this because I’ve done it. When you live with an expectation that this is what you want then that always comes with disappointment. Having a mindset in this generation that “it’s good if I get this and it’s even better if I don’t” would make one very strong, which they would realize later in life. So if you wanted a specific course but didn’t get in, maybe not getting in was better for you. Like the Bhagavat Gita says, “Do your duty, don’t fret over the result”.  It’s not that you shouldn’t want results but just do your duty and you will get what you’re supposed to. When I was working, I would do the work for 1000 rupees ($16.63 CAD, as of today) and only get paid 75 rupees ($1.25 CAD, as of today). Later in life there were times when I would do the work for 75 rupees and get paid 10,000 rupees ($166.25 CAD, as of today). When you look at life’s calculations, it never goes wrong. Our calculation might go wrong but his never does. If you missed out on something yesterday, it would be given to you today. Instead of calculating every step and assessing the losses and benefits, just go with the flow. Don’t stop and assess. That’s why I said money is the third priority. When money is the top priority, you tend to lose so many things. That’s what I would say. The second thing is, hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Whatever happens in life is for good. And do your duty but don’t fret over the result. The result will come to you automatically for sure and this is an example for that. This is my conclusion.
 
MS: Just live with what you have and go with the flow. Don’t worry about the tomorrow, just enjoy your life today.