History

Round Table 9 started its efforts in helping the community with small projects directed towards service. Over the years, we have grown from strength to strength and today we are building big projects and have moved over from community service to community development.

RT-9 was inaugurated in November 1966 with Jagadish Chandran as Chairmen, Gulati as Vice-Chairmen, and founder members Suresh Gokuldas, Kishorilal Shroff, Suresh Kirtilal Mehta, Ramani Sankar, P.R.Prabhakar, Jagdish Mehta and K.S.Subbiah. Within two weeks, all were in Secunderabad for the National AGM. " We were young, we were enthusiastic, and we were also very brash," remembers Bob Chandran. "We were two weeks old in Secunderabad and we bid for the '67 AGM, offering to hold it in Coonoor. And the other Tables appreciated our enthusiasm and gave it to us. We didn't know then what we were letting ourselves in for, but we really worked at it and the Coonoor AGM is still remembered for its excellent organization."

The Coimbatore Tablers were quick to enter into the spirit of Tabling, whether in work or in fellowship. Traveling to the Secunderebad AGM, Tablers from Madras and Coimbatore booked a whole bogey for themselves and their families, set up a bar in it, and made the journey one long picnic in a home away from home! At Secunderabad, they persuaded the Railways to allow them the use of the bogey shunted to a siding during the AGM, so that they virtually lived in it for three days and returned in the same bogey to Madras.

Fellowship also meant taking a Tabler and his wife at their word when they said "come over any time"; waking them up in the middle of the night with demands for food and drink for several Tablers; and being made whole-heartedly welcome!

So "fellowship" was, apparently, having fun together; but it went deeper than that. There was sincerity in friendship between Tablers and an unspoken acceptance of comradeship that came to the fore at moments of crisis. For example, there had been a lot of fun at the Coonoor AGM ('67). The party, one night, broke up at 1.30 am; at 2.30,Tablers at the AGM venue received a message that a fellow Tabler, George kanakalil, had driven back to Ooty after the party and had suffered a fatal heart attack on arrival. The way in which Tablers rallied around the bereaved family and took care of all arrangement that night showed an aspect of Tabling fellowship that is seldom, if every, talked about but which every Tabler knows exists. And the next day, it was business as usual at the AGM. The sharp awareness that this brought, of the presence of life and death together, made a lasting impression on many of the young Tablers.

Tabling in India was more then a decade old; but it was one of the newest Tables Coimbatore RT-9, which was all of two years old which provided the movement with the first Ladies Circle. The wives of RT-9's Tablers had been meeting informally while their husbands were "Tabling" and, wishing to do something more then merely socialise, they had begun to involve themselves in community service, working with orphanages, collecting old clothes, etc.

Says LC India's Founder-President, Shashi Gulati: " We had no idea of setting up a formal organization. Our husband's Tabling brought us together at regular intervals (many of us, of course, were already friends of long standing) and we did not want to become a cards-and-gossip group. We decided that, apart from helping the Table in any of its projects, we would give our own time to community service. And we did this for several months. Then a visiting British Tabler asked me if we had a Ladies Circle. He was astonished to learn that we had never heard of Circles and he not only told us about it but also discussed the matter with RT India President Krish Chitale in Madras and, on his return to England, got British Circlers to send us information about circling.

"President Krish Chitale was contacted and his enthusiasm and encouragement provided the impetus for the formation of the first Circle in India. The formal decision to start Coimbatore LC-1 was taken at a morning coffee party at my residence in February 21,'68.The circle was inaugurated on October 23 that year and chartered on August 30,'69,appropriately by RT India President Chitale."

Founder President Shashi Gulati said:" Circle means friendship, tolerance, respect for each other's options and sincere appreciation of the work done by anyone within Circle. Service is the outcome of this basis feeling of understanding.

What did Round Table mean to its members in those early days? Talking to some of the pioneers of the movement, one is told repeatedly, "It was more informal, intimate, than it is now. Even at AGM the gathering was so small that you knew, you had friends anyone, everywhere in India."

"Tabling was such a passion with us that many Tablers saw it as the most important thing lives. There was an expatriate, Gordon Howley was taking in Macmillan. His boss told him one day that Tabling was taking up too much of his time and that he had to choose between the two Macmillan or round table? Gordon promptly resigned from his job and thought it was the natural choice to make! Of course, as an expatriate, he had to go home after that, but he didn't give up Tabling..."

"The thing about Round Table is that you can always find people who can be relied on."

"Tablers time and again say, we put all this into Tabling; we put our hearts into; but we got it tenfold."