AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ADHYATMA RATNA KUMBAKONAM CN GURUSWAMI SARMA (1900-1968)
CHAPTER 22
My entry in Pudukkottah
One very foolish act of mine has to be recorded if I have to be true to myself. In one of the store rooms in the Lodge, there was stored some boxes called "Magic Lantern Boxes". I had seen magic being performed but I never knew anything about magic lantern. I naturally thought that the possession of some of those things contained in the boxes will give some power to perform magic. So I stealthily got hold of the key of that room and in a dark night I opened the room and in pitch darkness opened the magic lantern boxes and I found only glass plates and nothing mystic or even esoteric. I was absolutely disappointed at my "house breaking" producing no tangible benefit to me or bestowing any powers to display before the crowds some uncanny shows. I retrurned the key to its place and later on when the boxes were brought out and the slides shown on a screen through a projector in the dark hall, I learnt that the whole show had nothing to do with magic and that I was a fool. This incident I could never forget. It showed me how much nervous strain and fear and tremblings and sweating was necessary to do one unlawful act. I was almost frustrated after I found I was a fool.
Some months passed in this usual routine and my mother's annual ceremony had to be perfoemed by me in a Purohit's house and there was a common discussion as to where I had to be putup so that I can concentrate on my studies. My eldest sister but one Meenambal by name was married, it appears to one of my uncles, who was given in adoption to another maternal grandfather's brother who after service at Ettayapuram Zamin was living in a village near Melur called Vannambaraipatti His name was Subbier and his wife, a beautiful old lady was Soundarammal who was an adept at making "athirasam" which delicacy she always brought to the delight of my father " The Pudukkottah son-in law" !! It was discussed whether I should be left with my sister Meenambal at Tiruppattur where my brother-in-law was a clerk in Sub registrar's office. My father decided it was not to be there. My father's elder brother's son one Ramachandra Iyer who got educated by my father at Madura in his younger days was a leading lawyer at Pudukkottah. that time. Even today every one knows my paternal family and name of Chinna Ramachandra Iyer whose loco-parentis was my father always. After brilliant career as an advocate though he had his small sexual failings in that he had a permanent concubine , more social than a wife in his house and was driving in a coach and a pair keeping up the ancient family prestige at Pudukkottah state, he died leaving four sons and a widow, an imperious lady by name Mangalambal. My father was respected in that household and probably he had it in his mind that it might be good to me if I should join the young boys ie my cousins Sreenivas and Venkittu and study there with them. He probably never wanted to worry the young couple my sister and my brother-in-law at chingleput who were themselves having no separate household apart from my maternal aunt and her husband as well as my brother-in-law's brother ( Elder brother got married to my grandfather's mother's sister and younger brother to my grandfather's sister-Ed) . It so happened therefore one day my father and myself started for Tiruppattur and after a night's stay there went to Tirumayam and from there by Jatka to Pudukkottah reaching the big house there in East main street called "Rama Vilas" at 8 PM on a dark night.
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