Autobiography of Adhyatma Ratna Kumbakonam C N Guruswami Sarma Chapter 18- Melur leaves me

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

ADHYATMA RATNA KUMBAKONAM C N GURUSWAMI SARMA (1900-1968)

CHAPTER 18

MELUR LEAVES ME 

To add to the misery of every one calling me "thodukali" and as if that prophecy had to come true, one day my grandfather died. Was it also my making? For the first time in my life I was in the august presence of death. The great soul passed away and I was almost daily weeping in secret   for him and I felt I had lost the only comforter in life and the only friend in the world.

The great law that made life possible for me at melur having snapped, other interets began to prevail upon my mother's sister and affection to me was a bit stayed off. My life also had to take a turn. I had passed the highest examination at the Melur Primary American Mission School  and my education had to be perforce in a different place. My friends in those days were very few and I lost sight of them later in life except one Sitaraman son of Chidambaram iyer an old valkil of Melur. He is figure in my story later. 

One fine evening I was taken by my senior uncle with a cloth bundle consisting of two or three shirts and dhoties with some class books in the night cart to Madura. I writhed over the sacks of grain the bandy and had no space even to sit up. I remember the fare to Madura was 2 As for my uncle and one anna for me. The cart was driven behind a train of carts which went before it and the journey began by about 9 in the night. It was pitch dark outside and I did not enjoy the music of the bandy men which I had been used to hear on such journeys to and fro Madura. It was a very bright hot sunny morning when I reached the shandy on the southern bank of the vaigai river, the place where all such bandies used to come and gather. Straight from there I was taken to  "Brahma Gnana sabha " or theosophical society building. in Sandaippettai street where my father was looking after things.  I was told that he, with the famous R Narayana Iyer the leading advcocate were instrumental  in putting up the splendid building and decorating with furniture etc.. My father was conducting meetings there staying there itself , being a widower. he was fully engaged in writing some commentaries along with one sundarraja Sarma of periyakulam.who was publishing a journal with my father and called it probably "Brahma Vidya". My father was never lending his name to any published books including the translations of the ten upanishads. They were published in the name of A SIva Rao who was a Registrar and was a devoted friend. In addition to the above three  (ie Narayana Iyer, Sundarraja Sarma and my father) came for conerences one A. Rangaswami Iyer  - a reputed lawyer in Madura living in the same street. My maternal grandfather's younger brother one Ramappa as he was called was a Logic professor in the Madura College along with his wife Thaiyu ammal housed me and fed me off and on when I was not dinning with my father and with Mr Narayana Iyer. I slowly came to knwo from that old and kind lady some thing about my father and the details of my life. She was a nice old lady. she recounted how my father who belonged to Pudukkottah state ancestrally learnt English from his brother one Rangaswami and passed at Srirangam the in the Training school tests and got educated under Sir Baden Powell (Ref 1)  at Madras  where his brother Rangaswami was practising as a vakil of the Madras High Court. Having passed the then Civil Services Examination along with illustrious compeers like Mani Iyer and others, he chose Education Department  and was posted first as headmaster at Udumalpet and how service at various places and circles like the then Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and lastly Madura circle. He first married or got marrried to his own maternal uncle's daughter(Pudukkottah Puja Mama's daughter) and lost her within few years of wedding. My father in his older age used to recount to me and my sisters that that lady was intensely philosophical and a vedantin by instinct, and how on the first marital night she was regaling my father with the reading of "Gnana Vasishtam". having lost her early in life, he was continuing as a bachelor or a widower none being interested in him to such a degree as to get him married. WhIle at Sivaganga, it is said that he became a disciple of Sadasivendra (Judge Swamigal) an avadhuta under whom he had initiation in the Upanishads and Adhyatma Vidya. It appears his brother in law and uncle's son Chidambaram iyer by name was sent with a message by the then Rajah of Pudukottah to The Zamindar or rajah of Sivaganga and how with his sweet voice he regaled the Rajah and his Dewan by reciting Krishna Karnamritham slokas and how Raja ordered his Dewan Jalli krishna Iyer to get the youth married with his family. By royal order, the ammanji or the cousin of my father got married and settled in Sivaganga itself under Royal patronage. My father's elder brother and his English tutor and Vakil who had mastered "Rasselas " and could recite it even in his dream was a spend thrift drifted back to Sivaganga he having no face to go to Pudukkottah having sold off his patrimony along with my father's share even without going to that place. He had one son who died in his teenage and soon after his wife left leaving only daughter Sundari by name. having none to care for him, he got his daughter married to chidambaram Iyer's younger brother who was an employee of the Zamin at Tiruvadanai. it appears he died soon after that.When my father joined his spiritual preceptor at Sivaganga there was another young man ex employee of the Survey Department.who was a close chela of his. I learnt soon after that he became an avadhuta himself and resided at Sendamangalam, More about this great man later on as and when he figures in my later life. My father then was a much respected government servant and he got certificates from the British Government that he was the pioneer of education in Madras and was the Chief inspecting school master of two circles. While on an inspection of a school at Tiruppuvanam (or Thiruchchuzhi) he had the good fortune to look into the answers written on a slate by a young boy and he found that the only answer "Sivamayam" was found on it. The boy's father was a teacher in that school and his face became red with shame at what he thought was the colossal ignorance of his own boy. My father seemed to have patted the boy and carried on a solitary conversation with him and then called his father and told him that his son was a great gnani who will be world famous and requested the father to let his son have his own way. This young boy ater bloomed forth as Sri Ramana Maharishi of Tiruvannamalai and I had the good fortune to hear the story told me by swamiji's own lips when I went for his Darshan in 1929 and narrated to him who was my father. and how I had an affection for Madura District only. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Editor's note:
Ref 1: Sir Baden Powell (1857-1941) the man who gave birth to the scout  movement served in India as the Commander for 5th Dragoon Guards from 1897 for some time.We are not able to emphatically state that he would be the person mentioned here as my grandfather's father would have studied in Madras probably in 1865-70 around which time sir Baden Powell might have just joined the British Army.Possibility of another Baden Powell cannot be ruled out.
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