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The world has lost a human library today, Enuga Reddy.
Enuga Reddy contained in him, both - as a lived experience and as a grand intellect, the largest, deepest set of resources on Gandhi ji.
In that sense, he was a monument, but unlike monuments made of brick and stone. He was a gentle human being with a very large heart. His generosity to share what he had stored, despite it eating into his time is unmatched. He could have written books and made himself famous but he sat there as a library, a treasure sharing his experience and knowledge with all of us.
As I was researching for a book I was writing on the UN, I was told that he was the best person. He was the walking archives. We bonded immediately and he was so delighted that an Indian has been chosen to write this book that he visited me in Bangalore, when I was stumbling and being more or less abused by the project directors for not knowing how to approach this historical book- that I was to write. He actually drafted the outline and chapters for me. This is the book that later got published as part of a series on the history of United Nations and my book was called ‘Women, Development and the UN: A sixty-year Quest for Equality and Justice.’
This was the year 2005. His partner ---- an equally endowed brilliant Turkish scholar was a challenge to him. His monumental mind did not intimidate her. She was writing books and at the same time caring for him in the most incredible way. Any of us, whether it was Ram Guha or Gopal Gandhi doing research on Mahatma Gandhi had to go to this human library for his generosity in sharing his knowledge and his archives. But never taking up the idea of writing his own book, and that makes him himself what he really was- a renowned archivist and scholar.
Who was Enuga Reggy? A South African Indian who was appointed as bureau chief of the first bureau opened at the United Nations to fight the apartheid in South Africa. It was the anti-apartheid cell and he was in-charge of it. Enuga Reddy from that little cell, flashed ideas and messages across the United Nation, across the world. The boycott of South African goods, the championing of the South African struggle by the Indian government, all of these add patakas coming from Reddy’s knowledge.
I find it hard to believe that he is not living there somewhere in the US as I used to drink from him, every time I visited the US as a source of both -inspiration and as a guardian, a mentor, a rare human being who did not reach out for recognition, praise, anything but just stayed quietly sitting on some of the greatest treasures of the world, namely details on Gandhi and details on the anti-apartheid struggle.
I truly love you, Enuga and will imagine you are there, your tall calm figure with those large compassionate eyes.
