N.S.R. Road at Sai Baba Colony in Coimbatore stands for Needamangalam Srinivasa Iyengar Ramaswamy Iyengar. NSR was a lawyer and patriot. He was keen to help the downtrodden and had put in his lot with the workers. The advocate attended the Amritsar Congress in 1919. G.Kuppuswamy Naidu, the founder of Lakshmi Mills had attended the meeting along with him. NSR did a lot of good work and suffered due to his patriotic activities. He was incarcerated at a time when he was suffering from TB. His beloved wife Kanakavalli Ammal ensured a steady supply of imported medicines, however the authorities did not give NSR the medicines. He passed away young and NSR. Kanakavalli Ammal took on the role of maintaining the family thereafter.
N.S.R. Road at Sai Baba Colony in Coimbatore stands for Needamangalam Srinivasa Iyengar Ramaswamy Iyengar. NSR was a lawyer and patriot. He was keen to help the downtrodden and had put in his lot with the workers. The advocate attended the Amritsar Congress in 1919. G.Kuppuswamy Naidu, the founder of Lakshmi Mills had attended the meeting along with him. NSR did a lot of good work and suffered due to his patriotic activities. He was incarcerated at a time when he was suffering from TB. His beloved wife Kanakavalli Ammal ensured a steady supply of imported medicines, however the authorities did not give NSR the medicines. He passed away young and NSR. Kanakavalli Ammal took on the role of maintaining the family thereafter.
Kanakavalli Ammal lived until 1971. She was the daughter of Nadathur Desikachariar and Seethammal who hailed from the Nerur Agraharam near Karur. The couple began their life at Sullivan Street and moved over to ' Gokulam ' on Government Arts College Road later. This had been the residence of advocate C.M.Padmanabhachar (1864 - 1919). It was a huge 32 room house and it was here that NSR created a co operative stores for workers in the company of Ramanathan Chettiar. His wife Kanakavalli aided him in his efforts.
Kamalamma was a patriotic person. She was interested in contributing towards the freedom movement. Mahatma Gandhi had visited N.S. Ramaswamy Iyengar once and Kamalamma gave away her ornaments him. This was her personal contribution for the nation. Many others in the region followed her path.
The couple, NSR and Kanakavalli aka Thangammal were blessed with six kids - Kamalamma, Champakalakshmi, Seethamma, Srinivasan, Vijayaraghavan and Santhanam. Kamalamma was married to an ICS officer and he passed away at Andaman those days. Kanakavalli Ammal looked after the daughter who was widowed at a very tender age. She started a home school for the sake of her daughter. An Anglo Indian was engaged to teach her first aid, English & etiquette. A Parsi taught her embroidery while Mannargudi Rajagopala Sharma taught her Sanskrit and a Tamil Pandit taught her Tamil. Kanakavalli Ammal learnt Sanskrit from the same teacher and travelled to Varanasi in order to write her Sanskrit exams. The progressive Kanakavalli understood that her daughter was not alone and she used to collect similar young widows and get them educated in her household. A horse drawn cart was used for this purpose. All the young girls used to be fed before they were dropped back in their respective homes.
The second daughter Champakalakshmi was married to Natteri Vijayarghavachariar and her son in law happens to be the famous lawyer N.T.Vanamamalai. Her family elder Natteri Krishnamachariar had hosted Ida Scudder, the Founder of Christian Medical College at Vellore. Seethamma Varadachariar lived for 104 years and she was the third daughter.
Her husband was a constitutional lawyer. He had drafted the constitutions of a number of princely states. This family were the sammandhis of TTK (former Union Minister T.T.Krishnamachari). The Kasi Diaries by Nadadur D Varadachaiar, the husband of Seethamma talk about the social and political events in the life of this constitutional lawyer and journalist.
N.R.Srinivasan, the legal advisor to SIMA (Southern India Mills Association) was the first son and N.R.Santhanam, the third son had been with the TVS in Chennai. The second son N.R.Vijayaraghavan was a banker and he used to be assigned the job of unravelling financial frauds. Vijayaraghavan continues to do memorial rituals every year for his sister Kamalamma who had lost her husband at a very tender age.
Madabushi NSR.Kanakavalli Ammal was an eminent scholar. She was conversant in Telugu, Sanskrit, English, Manipravalam and Tamil. The kind and resolute lady used to help a number of poor relatives all her life. She had followed the footsteps of her husband in this regard. A well designed office box used to be with her and it had compartments which could hold stationery, stamps, ink, pens and other items required for communication. Kanakavalli would go to go the bank, draw the money and request her son Vijayaraghavan to send the money order to the needy. She would have a ready stock of money order forms. She was known to to read all the magazines and used to keep the change ready on the weekly release days. The change would be given to her son Vijayaraghavan and he used to get the magazines for her. She had an exquisite collection of jewellery and they were listed and valued. She gave her exclusive pieces to her descendants impartially.
Kanakavalli Ammal had translated a number of Sanskrit works into Tamil. She was the first lady to translate Malathi Madhavam by Bhavabhuti into Tamil. Her master piece in terms of translation happens to be Leelasukhas Sri Krishna Karnamrutham. The manuscript was found in mint condition due to the efforts of her daughter in law Mythily and son Vijayaraghavan. Her handwriting resembled pearls. Leelasukha had lived before the advent of Vedanta Desika. She had been greatly devoted to Swami Desikan and the Vaishnavaite tradition. Kanakavalli had led a silent march of women belonging diverse backgrounds from Town Hall to Singanallur those days as part of the freedom struggle. This resilient lady had faced a lot of hardship but she maintained her composure all her life. She was very good in Carnatic Music and Tamil folk songs. Her geli pattoos (fun oriented songs) were excellent. She used to the sing the seer varisai songs, songs on the girl and boy getting married. It was all part of oral literature in Tamil and much of it has not been recorded.
The lady had faced a lot of difficulties and she found solace in prayers. She was very solicitous and helpful to all the poor people known to her. Kanakavalli was disciplined and displayed great maturity. She used to host people in their Ooty home - Lesley Cottage. Her husband N.S.Ramaswamy Iyengar was known to send people with small chits and she would help those people with money. Kanakavalli never uttered a negative remark about others all her life. "Grandmother had a few bottles which contained raisins, nuts and kalkandu. It was near her bed and she had one of each as desert after her meal. She wrote letters regularly to her near and dear regularly. Her British office Case had all that she needed for running her day to day life. She had made her own letter pad with Vaisnaivaite symbols and she stopped patronizing foreign stuff on the advice of grandfather. Granny had also written 100 pasurams from the Divya Prabandham and got them printed in an Indian press," reminisced the grand daughter Sujatha Vijayaraghavan.
Sri Krishna Karnamrutham was written prior to Jayadeva's Gita Govindam. A copy of the original text was sought by the great Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486 - 1538 AD) on the banks of the river Krishnavena in Kerala (Thrissur) . Gaudiya Vaishnavaites consider this work to be very important. NSR. Kanakavalli Ammal had belonged to an old and traditional family. She had lost her husband in an early age and had faced several reverses in life. However this did not deter her from undertaking literary work. She never got upset and accepted joys and tragedies with great equanimity. Kanakavalli and her family were the followers of Srimad Poundarikapuram Andavan Swamigal.
A few incidents in her life are sufficient to understand her approach to life. The story of the family deity and the events leading to the construction of the Kadal Nokki Mahalakshmi Sannidhi at the branch of the Kanchi Sankara Mutt at Vizag demonstrate her resoluteness and the hand of destiny which stood by her all the time.
The NSR family had Tirupati Venkatachalathy as the Kuladeivam (family deity) from time immemorial. One of the ancestors of N.S.Ramaswamy Iyengar had a dream one day. Lord Venkataramana came in the dream and had stated that the family could henceforth visit the Thoraiyur Prasanna Srinivasa Perumal known as Malai Perumal henceforth. The elders found the temple and every successive generation developed the infrastructure of the hill temple. Kanakavalli Ammal found it difficult to continue with the same after the passing away of her husband N.S.Ramaswamy Iyengar. However the good looking Mythily, daughter of advocate R.T.Varadaraja Iyengar who had a practice in Thoraiyur became the second daughter in law of Kanakavalli Ammal by marrying her son Vijayaraghavan in 1946 and the family got reconnected to the Thoraiyur Malai Perumal Temple.
"The marriage of my parents is backed by an interesting story. My maternal grandfather had taken several horoscopes of prospective bridegrooms to His Holiness Chandrashekharendra Saraswathi of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam. The horoscope of my father Vijayaraghavan was ' picked ' by him. This happened in 1945 , but my maternal grandfather did not approach our paternal family. My grandmother Kanakavalli Ammal saw my beautiful mother Mythily in Sri Rangam and wanted to explore the possibility of her getting married to my father. She came to know that Mahaperiyaval (His Holiness Chandrashekharendra Saraswathi) had picked the horoscope and therefore she got them married without even getting the horoscopes matched for she believed in the blessings of the Sage of Kanchi. My mother and grandmother got along very well", stated Dr.Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, Professor of English - Pondicherry University.
A Swarna Lakshmi icon was worshipped by the family of N.S.Ramaswamy Iyengar. It was made of gold and the family members used to offer prayers to the deity everyday. An interesting story unfolds due to a burglary. "One day a thief took away the Swarna Lakshmi idol and melted it. Some strange incidents took place thereafter. Finally a person surrendered and the gold was returned to us. It was made into three pieces and one was given to our branch of the family. My mother had placed it in a wooden cup filled with rice. Grandmother took the incident with great maturity. Neither did she crib not get angry. An interesting event took place later. Mahaperiyaval of Kanchi wanted my father to construct a ' Kadal Nokkki Mahalakshmi Sannidhi ' at the Sankara Mutt in Vizag. My father was a banker and he contributed towards the effort by giving away the recovered gold which was part of the Swarna Lakshmi. It was used for making the Kadal Nokki Mahalakshmi icon," added Dr.Sujatha Vijayaraghavan. She is greatly devoted to the Sage of Kanchi and has taken the steps to publish her grandmother's translation of Sri Krishna Karunamrutham.
N.S.R.Kanakavalli Ammal belonged to a tribe of women who had served the nation. Several unknown women woke up to the clarion call of the leaders and sacrificed their all towards the cause of freedom. The country would not have been free if not for their sacrifices. However we revere just a few leaders by remembering them in many ways all through the year. Women like Kanakavalli had struggled a lot in life. She was soft spoken, sophisticated and took her tribulations in her stride. Kanakavalli considered herself to be more fortunate than the other voice less women who lived through those difficult times. Most of them did not live to see freedom, nor did they lead a comfortable life.
"I want the memory of my grandmother N.S.R.Kanakavalli to be a tribute to those silent and noble voice less women who had struggled a lot for the family and the country during tumultuous times," stated Dr. Sujatha Vijayaraghavan. Well said.