Iravatham Mahadevan is dead! His contributions for Tamil and educations are well known. The only reference I wish to mention here is from my personal association with him. One cannot forget the timely help he extended to us in procuring much needed land for an school at Manali New Town for the Vivekananda Vidyalaya there. Now it is known as GRTM VV.
It was not easy to procure a vast patch of developed land that would be necessary for constructing a school having classes up to XII th std under CBSE from the then MMDA. We the School Development Committee members knocked several doors for help. That include, then Ponneri constituency MLA who was one among the three members in MMDA overseeing its management for the TN Govt. and an employee of Ashok Leyland Ennore. Nothing moved.
It was Late Mahadevan who graciously took us in his car straight away to the MMDA office and talked to then Member Secretary Aluwaliah and fixed the issue after prolonged discussions. A great soul Aluwaliah too left the world much earlier. Had it not been for these two great human beings we could never dreamt an school of that stature and standard in an area that was untouched by modernity in 1990s.
May his soul rest in peace!