AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ADHYATMA RATNA KUMBAKONAM C N GURUSWAMI SARMA (1900-1968)
CHAPTER 17
BRUTALLY PUNISHED FOR NO FAULT
One of these visits to the choultry came to be woven with a very bitter incident. There was lodged in that choultry the office of the Inspector of schools. One fat bushy brahmin was the inspector of schools. He used to call me and ask me about my father and was telling me stories as to how my fahter was an inspector like him in Sivaganga , madura and some other places in the south and how he was treating sympathetically On day, when i visited his office, he was absent and his peon gave me and my friend Gopalan two or three full chalk pieces. We thought it was very kind of him. When we were about to leave, the Inspector strode in with a cane and gave me and my friend sharp cuts with the cane on our naked backs.. My friend yelled and said that we did not take the chalk pieces and the peon gave them to us voluntarily and the peon also sad so. But the man with his reddish rolling eyes came down on us again and beat us rather furiously in the street. I threw the chalk pieces at him and was turning back home when my uncle returning from office saw this scene and believing that I had stolen the chalk pieces drove me home by the ear and gave me a good slashing by the belt and hands. The more silent I was the more the beating and no body's intervention would stop his anger. I had the first experience of this sort in my life and it was the last experience too. (Ref1). I was so much pained all over the body and my sister Ammalu put me to bed and I slept without a meal. as is fortune would have it, the very next day, my book was opened by my uncle and there was a big eight annas coin inside. This ,my sister gave to me when she left and I had kept it there not knowing what to do with it. My Uncle dashed the book on my head and said that he will drive me away from the house and that i had stolen his coin. there was another orgy of beating and I thought how I would contrive to escape and whether to go away with the sadhus. Nothing that I said seemed to dislodge the opinion and for a couple of days, I was in contempt.
Then one morning the inspector of schools came and called me in the presence of my uncle. I thought that both of them will finish me off now to pulp for things which I had not done. it proved otherwise. the man came near me and patted me on my head said that i had done nothing wrong and gave me a half s dozen chalk pieces and some sweets to eat. I would have none of it. crestfallen he left and my uncle was surprised. Any how, I lost all comfort in life from then on and as soon as vacation set in, I ran to the village to stay with my senior uncle and my boys and in that quiet atmosphere which I immensely liked with the usual routine of baths in the tank etc. But something or other did not leave me quiet there too. I was taken back to perform some shraddhas for what I was told of my mother senior who was married to my father before my mother. some ceremony was performed spiritlessly by me. All the time I was seriously told that I was a terribly unlucky fellow and a "thodukali" (தொடுகாலி ) and I was born only to "scatter sesame seeds and water" to three people all dead and about whom i had absolutely no vague remembrance. Am I responsible for all their deaths? if so, I felt I had no place in the world but I must quit but where to? .
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Editor's note:
Ref 1: My grandfather used to like a tamil song தந்தை தாய் இருந்தால் உலகத்தில் உமக்கிந்த தாழ்வெ ல்லாம் வருமோ ஐயா? sung beautifully by N C vasanthakokilam addressed to Lord Siva. I think he must have been recalling this incident when he heard this song often.
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Then one morning the inspector of schools came and called me in the presence of my uncle. I thought that both of them will finish me off now to pulp for things which I had not done. it proved otherwise. the man came near me and patted me on my head said that i had done nothing wrong and gave me a half s dozen chalk pieces and some sweets to eat. I would have none of it. crestfallen he left and my uncle was surprised. Any how, I lost all comfort in life from then on and as soon as vacation set in, I ran to the village to stay with my senior uncle and my boys and in that quiet atmosphere which I immensely liked with the usual routine of baths in the tank etc. But something or other did not leave me quiet there too. I was taken back to perform some shraddhas for what I was told of my mother senior who was married to my father before my mother. some ceremony was performed spiritlessly by me. All the time I was seriously told that I was a terribly unlucky fellow and a "thodukali" (தொடுகாலி ) and I was born only to "scatter sesame seeds and water" to three people all dead and about whom i had absolutely no vague remembrance. Am I responsible for all their deaths? if so, I felt I had no place in the world but I must quit but where to? .
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Editor's note:
Ref 1: My grandfather used to like a tamil song தந்தை தாய் இருந்தால் உலகத்தில் உமக்கிந்த தாழ்வெ ல்லாம் வருமோ ஐயா? sung beautifully by N C vasanthakokilam addressed to Lord Siva. I think he must have been recalling this incident when he heard this song often.
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