A touch of conservation from Bamiyan to Ajanta and Angkor Wat 

MYSURU

When 93 year-old S. Subbaraman, received a telephone call on Wednesday from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, the news delivered to him came as a bolt from the blue.

Mr. Subbaraman was informed that he was a recipient of the Padma Shri award in recognition of his services and contributions to the field of archaeology and conservation.

‘’It took me totally by surprise because I had retired almost 35 years ago from the Archaeological Survey of India and assumed that I was forgotten,’’ said Mr. Subbaraman who was the Superintending Archaeological Chemist of ASI at the time of his retirement.

Born on December 21, 1929, in Kollegal, Mr. Subbaraman completed his intermediate studies in Coimbatore and stood second in the entire Madras Presidency. Then he went on to acquire an honours degree in Chemistry from Loyala College, Chennai and worked as a food analyst before he was identified by Dr. S. Paramasivam, a doyen among conservationists, and who asked him to join ASI.

‘’My first conservation work was at Jain caves of the 9 th century a few km from Vadamathimangalam near Tirumalai in Tamil Nadu’’, recalled Mr. Subbaraman. ‘’After that I was asked to go to Ajanta where I was posted for 3 years,” he added. At Ajanta, he had to remove the Shellac coating applied by Italian expert L. Cecconi who was commissioned for restoration by Nizam of Hyderabad when the monuments were under his care.

Mr. Subbaraman subsequently worked on restoration of the Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan from 1969 to 1977 and was the team leader when then Minister for External Affairs Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited the country and handed over the restored monument to the Afghanistan government.

Mr. Subbaraman also prepared the report for conservation of Angkor Wat in Cambodia after the Pol Pot regime was overthrown by the Vietnam forces. Other notable works were carried out at Brihadeshwara temple in Thanjavur, Leepakshi in Andhra Pradesh, etc., and he was in charge of the southern region of the chemistry branch of ASI at the time of retirement.