From gardener to facilities manager: S Ganapathy’s 40-year British Council journey

On the last day of a 40-year career that has undergone the unmissable seesaw of life, S Ganapathy, who began as a gardener at the British Council (BC), chose to reminisce the long swathes of time at the organisation. When the premises permanently closed in March earlier this year, he walked through the grass lawn that he once tended to.

In a crisp pinstripe shirt, he recorded this journey of going back to where his life started in the form of a cinematic video. He sent it out to friends, family, and colleagues, and when he did, he ensured that it went out with the song ‘Venpani Malare’ from the film Power Pandi, in the background, romanticising the years gone by. “I think I’ve lived a successful life. It is not often that a gardener and maintenance person who once cleaned toilets, retires as facilities manager, South India,” he said.

Unlike those who are able to enter formal workspaces with the privilege of education and pedigree, stories like that of Ganapathy’s prove that those from economically and socially weaker sections of society can thrive when there are egalitarian systems to climb up the ranks with proportionate compensation in place.

“My family moved from Vandavasi to Chennai in 1966 when I was very young. My father was a construction worker and my mother worked as a domestic help in several houses. By the time I was in Class X, the natural assumption was that I would enter the labour force and end up working so as to bring in money to the household. We lived in a slum near Loyola College so I studied under the street light. It wasn’t until I joined the BC upon the recommendation of NS Prabhu, a mentor at whose house my mother worked, that I was able to see perceivable changes in my life,” he says.

Getting on

Back in 1986, when he cycled to BC for his first day at work for a wage of ₹55 a month, Ganapathy was not let in by the security guard. In the initial days, he did all kinds of odd jobs. Cutting grass, trimming trees, taking care of maintenance work, and filling in when they needed a security personnel. “My superiors and the regular readers at BC made me realise that educating oneself is essential to rise up the ranks,” he says.

Over the next 15 years, until 2003, Ganapathy qualified himself. He now has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Tamil, another Bachelor’s degree in Library and Information Science, and a third in Law. He also went to an English-learning institute to improve his communication skills.

Through his career, Ganapathy says that investing prudently helped his family life and career. He took loans, trying to secure permanent housing for his family, and tried paying off debts, taking up second jobs as a milk man and auto driver. Tenacity, he says, is the only trait that pushed him forth.

“Whenever life knocked me down, I would cry — but then immediately think about how to rise again. I struggled for food and education and have not wanted others to experience the same. It is why I set up a tuition centre in Nungambakkam for six years, and have since then, tried to help as many people gain an education,” he says. Today, Ganapathy has plans to enrol as an advocate at the Madras High Court because he would like to assist his second daughter who is studying the degree. “Next year, when she begins practising, I want to be available for her. I can serve as her driver, peon, assistant, and researcher. It’s a good life,” he says.

Does he still garden? “How can I not? Today, it is spiritual to me,” he says.