Meenakshi Thiagarajan passed away recently. She was 83. She was a very popular teacher of her time.
She had lived with her husband Thiagarajan and her daughters Hema and Srividhya in Sankarapuram Colony, Alamelumangapuram for over four decades.
Meenakshi Thiagarajan was born in Vaidyanathapuram, Old Kalpathy, Kerala in 1941. She was motivated by her father to pursue B.Com at Annamalai University where she was the only woman candidate in a class of 40; she went on to become the first woman graduate in commerce from Annamalai University in 1961.
She was also the first woman to secure a master’s degree in commerce from the Aligarh Muslim University, as a teacher candidate from Tamil Nadu in 1966. She also held a technical teacher’s diploma (B. Ed) from the Teachers’ College, Chennai.
She obtained MPhil from the University of Madras.
She taught at school, polytechnic and college levels for over three decades.
In 1970, she married Dr V. Thiagarajan, professor, department of chemistry, Vivekananda College, who later served as the principal at Vivekananda College.
Meenakshi was the first head of the department of commerce at JBAS Women’s College when she was appointed here in 1971. She handled accountancy, business studies, business management, banking, entrepreneurship and human relations. She retired in 1999.
In 2020, she published a course titled – Introduction to Financial Accounting on the Udemy learning platform – to give insights on the subject for students with both accounting and non accounting background, which was well received.
Both her daughters studied in P S Senior Secondary School. While one lives in Chennai, the other lives in the USA.
“My mother was part of the Mylapore community for more than five decades. She had many favourite spots in Mylapore like Bakers Café, Rasi, Sukra Jewellers, K K Garments, Bombay Halwa House and Karpagambal Mess. Gardening was her favourite hobby and she loved to buy saplings from a nursery in the Chitrakulam area,” said Hema, Meenakshi’s daughter.
Meenakshi is survived by her daughters and two grandchildren.
