The Travancore Nesan found an enduring place in the holy pedestals of its readers’ minds. I lost count of the people who said of Isakki, “Now that’s a man born to wield the pen!” In a way, he was indeed deserving of these praises. Who could now question his ability to use his pen to make everyone think?

For credit goes to Isakki—and Isakki alone—for creating an entire popular movement with his pen. It was he who first demanded that the municipality cut down the tamarind tree. He advanced so many compelling reasons for it! Like a trained student of history, he analyzed the tree’s long past. God only knows where he dug up those old stories from! He wrote as if the tamarind tree had told him its own story from the time it had just sprouted a few leaves all the way up to the present day. Or else, he might have conferred with our beloved, long-dead Damodara Asan!

He wrote that the tamarind tree was a harbinger of bad luck. That it was cursed. An inauspicious omen. How beautifully he wrote that old story of Chellathayi’s suicide by hanging on that tree, adding his own new flourishes to the narrative! He brought a new perspective to an old story, arguing that the rotting of the dried-out leaves and withered branches that fell into the pond had made it reek so badly that it ruined Maharaja Pooram Tirunal’s procession.

He exposed a secret that had not come to people’s attention in all these years. When the tamarind pond was filled in and the new road was laid, he wrote, the British engineer in charge of that project said in his original submission that the tamarind tree needed to be cut down, but some miscreants had intervened at the last minute and stopped it from happening. Isakki demanded to know which power in the world would offer just compensation if a branch from the decrepit old tree were to fall on the head of a little girl from a poor family walking back home from school. He beseeched every compassionate human being in town to take one look at the crowds that gathered beneath the tree, in front of the cinema and the stores, and then imagine what would happen if the tree were to fall on them suddenly.

There were several letters to the editor printed in the Travancore Nesan. Many wrote in support of Isakki’s proposal. One reader pointed out an old incident in some village in north India where a tree had fallen down and killed many people. Isakki also included the opinions of several eminent scholars, whom he had interviewed in person. Everyone was impressed by the fact that the entire academic community was in unanimous agreement with Isakki’s views on the matter.