By today Mrs Lalitha Rao’s Subhasweekaram should have been completed with all dignity at Mrs. Lalitha Rao’s son Tesh’s place in North Carolina. It was a great shock when we heard from Chellam and Hari that she had to bear a lot of body pain till she passed away at the hospital on September 14 , 2024 at 11:15am.Often many institutions and cultural organizations have a start only due to a small set of families dedicated to the main cause. In the case of Chicago Tyagaraja Utsavam, it all began with the help of Dr S.T. Rao and Mrs. Lalitha Rao of Madison, Wisconsin. The simplest requirement from day 1 of the CTU was that people who attend the function should be happy not just with music, but also with good food as part of such a start. Nowadays we can call people for Navaratri Golu, Marriage reception, and whatnot, without any one of the organizers knowing any Indian cooking. There are enough caterers around and Indian restaurants and temples to supply lunch or snack or dinner items without the host doing any cooking . The kitchen teams’ main task for many festivals these days is to decide an appropriate menu which is a mixture of South Indian, North Indian and even Italian snacks , and spend hours on efficient distribution of these items to different caterers.
That was not the case in 1977 when CTU started at Madison, Wisconsin. Mrs Lalitha Rao was willing to invite 50 people, cook a succulent lunch, snacks and provide coffee. Dr S.T. Rao was willing to bear the whole food cost. Hailing from the Marathi Brahmin family of the Tanjore district, their pride was to sustain Carnatic music and especially mimic Thiruvayyar Tyagaraja Aradhana in some form.
I am trying to recall some of the the first attendees:
S.T. Rao, Lalitha Rao, (kids Asha, Tesh)
T.E.S. Raghavan , Usha Raghavan ( kid Deepa 6 years old)
Ravindra Bapat ( My Graduate student )
West Bend Subramanyam, Mrs Prabha Subramanyam ( kids Vegahahini, Sriram)
T Parthasarathy, Ranjani ( kid Srini 8 year old)
Krishnamachari, Kalyani ( kid Bhooma)
Dr K.S. Rajan , Chakku ( kids Malini, Neena)
Dr Seshadri , Mrs Saroja Seshadri (kids Vyju and Sumi )
Prasanna Rao, Manjula Rao
Dr Raja and Vasantha Raja
Dr B.N. Sridharan and Lakshmi Sridharan ( kid: Anjali)
Swamy
S.A. Balakrishnan and Chellam Balakrishnan (kids Sudha, Vidya)
Dr Rangaraj and Sridevi Rangaraj
Mark Bala and Usha
Narasinga Rao , Mrs Narasinga Rao (?)
Yedavallii Subramanyam
Rajeev ( violinist)
Some folks who were graduate students from Dr Rao’s department
Dr Chaks and Vatsala
The ace menu items were Banana chips, Cabbage Pakoda, Bell pepper sambar, Porichakoottu, rasam, payasam , Alu , cucumber pachadi, Pongal vadai , Thayir Sadam, lemon pickle. ALL MADE BY LALITHA RAO WITH AT BEST VEGETABLE CUTTING AND FRYING HELP FROM DR. ST RAO. It is one thing to make many items, but it is quite another thing to make them with great flavor and superb proportions. Lalitha Rao in my opinion was simply the master cook.
Mrs Lalitha Rao was always worried about Rao as a chain smoker and when he said he quit smoking one day with a deep promise, Lalitha Rao invited us for a special dinner, celebrating this promise.
Till 1987-88, we used to go to Madison almost every alternate week and Raos used to surprise us with a new home computer, computer games , dot matrix printer with the ability to make address labels for CTU, a new VHS player all had to be maneuvered by ST Rao, given as gifts to Lalitha by her kids Tesh and Asha. Of course Lalitha Rao never even used them once!! Their house at 202 Marinette trail , Madison was virtually heaven to us and to our kids Deepa and Tara.
Lalitha Rao’s specialties were also awaited during the annual Pongal party. Even though she started working full time in an insurance company, she never quit the traditional festivals, and always invited guests for Pongal parties. Virtually 80 to 100 people will be attending the party and many were Indian students both graduates and undergraduates from Madison, Milwaukee, and so on. It would have cost a fortune, but their grand attitude and generous entertainment, I am yet to see from any one in our community. ( Of course I should say Usha Ranganathan with her magnificent Navaratri golu).
To me I would say, that one exception among us even in those days was Savitri and Mani ( ASP Iyer’s daughter and son-in-law) .
Like Lalitha Rao and ST Rao, they have always lived for others.
Our biweekly trips between us came to a sad grinding halt when they moved to Columbus , Ohio. The frequencies reduced drastically and the contacts were mainly during our annual CTU during Memorial Day weekend. To the best of my knowledge, Rao’s health deteriorated fast and Lalitha Rao would do all sorts of special functions for his health improvements. Once Asha and Tesh were married, Lalitha’s adaptability to US life , especially after Dr Rao’s passing away meant many complex decisions moving back and forth between USA and India. The last time I saw her was at my son in law Sampath’s mother Rukmini Mami’s funeral. It is a pity I had to recognize many close Madison friends and their relatives only at her own funeral time. She truly loved Balamurali’s music and poured her affection on almost all young kids.
We owe to Lalitha Rao, the superb recipe for Cabbage Pakoda and the thin sliced Banana chips.
In grief and gratitude,
TES Raghavan