Sri Rama Navami has been celebrated nationwide for the past thousands of years in our country.
Sri Rama Navami has been celebrated nationwide for the past thousands of years in our country.
The whole country becomes the Janmabhoomi of Lord Rama at the time of the celebrations. R.S. Puram in Coimbatore is no exception to the same and the celebrations connected with the birth of Rama began during the time of the Second World War.
One Government official had moved over to the residence of his son in law, Sub Inspector Ramanatha Iyer at Ponnurangam Road in R.S. Puram during the year 1942 along with two portraits which depicted the coronation of Lord Rama. The officer wanted somebody to recite the whole of Ramayanam in front of the two Rama Pattabhishekham portraits and the son in law Ramanatha Iyer identified one Kallidaikurichi Sankara Sastrigal (Retd Principal of the Kallidaikurichi Sanskrit College) who was teaching Upanishads to retirees in the neighborhood.
This went on for two years with Sankara Sastrigal taking up the recitation and a new development took place during the third year. A huge Pandal had been laid in the residence of the neighbor Binny Subba Rao for the Upanayanam of his first son B.Nagarajan and the Sub Inspector Ramanatha Iyer approached him with the request to hold the Sri Rama Navami utsavam in the same.
The generous Binny Subba Rao obliged but Ramanatha Iyer got transferred all of a sudden. It was at this time that he handed over the portraits of Rama Pattabishekham to Binny Subba Rao and requested him to go ahead with the festivities. He had been a contributor from the very beginning.
Binny Subba Rao began celebrating Sri Rama Navami with full gusto for 18 days year on year. In fact, he was to stay in the tiny outhouse and put up a big bungalow for his family but he dropped the idea in order to conduct the festivities every successive year.
The Purushasukhta Homam, Rama Janana Kathakalakshepam, and Seetha Kalyanam used to take place under the guidance of Noorani Ananthakrishna Sastrigal. The festivities were flagged off by Sir C.P.Ramaswamy Iyer, Justice P.V.Rajamannar, Judge Chandrashekhar etc., during the early years. The crowning glory was when His Holiness Abhinava Vidyatheertha Swamigal of Sringeri inaugurated the event. Binny Subba Rao used to have 3 concerts a day for 7 days and would give an opportunity for everyone. This kind of built a cultural foundation for Coimbatore. Famous artists including Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Chitti Babu, Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, his son Santhanam and grandson Viswanathan, Madurai Somu, Lalgudi Jayaraman, Mandolin. U. Srinivas, Balamurali Krishna, Karaikurichi Arunachalam etc., have performed at “Lalitha Nivas", the residence of Binny Subba Rao. In fact the family used to travel to the Thiruvaiyaaru Thyagaraja Aradhana to fix artists for Sri Rama Navami and the great Pudukottai Gopalakrishna Bhagavathar, his son Sanjeevi Bhagavathar and grandson Ravi Bhagavathar have done bhajans here for decades.
A large number of people used to be fed with prasadam and Binny Subba Rao ensured that everyone was treated equally irrespective of wealth or status. Leading Hari Katha exponents like T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal have held the audience for years while the Ramayana Upanyasam was done by the great scholars - Sengalipuram Anantharama Dikshithar, Thethiyoor Subramanya Sastrigal, Prathivadhibhayankaram Annangachariar, Velukkudi Varadachariar and his son Velukkudi Krishnan, Nochur Venkataraman etc., Those were the times when a loudspeaker and a pandal were located in the neighbourhood in order to let more number of people enjoy the events. A number of people from the nearby villages used to come by bullock carts and cycles along with tightly packed kattusadham (flavored rice) for their dinner.
M.S.Subbulakshmi herself had been a part of the audience during a concert by Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and V.V.Giri was another leader who had attended the celebrations. Binny Subba Rao was very particular that everyone took part in the event and he used to invite people in person. The people of the region used to voluntarily contribute in their own sweet way and Binny Subba Rao never made a request for money. His sons S. Nagarajan, S.Balasubramaniam, grandsons N.Ramesh, B.Vijayanand and great-grandson V.Anirudh have been following his tradition with full vigor.
The sons of Binny Subba Rao stated that, “We do the utsavam for public benefit and from the beginning, there has not been a single interruption due to the grace of Lord Rama. The service providers who include a Muslim flower vendor whose family has been there from the beginning signal a harmonious celebration. It will be interesting to learn that the chapparam used for placing the portraits of Lord Rama has always been brought from the Poo Market Makaliamman Temple. People like Radhakrishna Sastrigal, the son of Sankara Sastrigal have been with us for over 70 years.
The Silver Jubilee of the Sri Rama Navami Utsavam was done really well during the times of our father. A lovely silver Rama Pattabhishekham was given to my father by the people of Coimbatore due to the efforts of jeweler P.A.Raju Chettiar and a sandalwood one was presented by the women who participated in the festivities.
Our family has also been conducting the Chandi Homam on behalf of the Sringeri Sharadha Peetam for 62 years. It takes place where ever the Acharya is stationed. We began from Kaladi and have been to places like Sringeri, Gwalior, Bombay, Delhi, Sengottah, Salem etc., our father was given the title "Guru Bhakta Choodamani" by Abhinava Vidya Theertha Swamigal, the Sankaracharya of Sringeri. A lot of preparations had to be made in advance and the pravachanakarthas had to be fixed a year in advance for Sri Rama Navami. All of this has been possible due to the grace of Lord Rama."
Binny Subba Rao (1901 - 1984), the force behind the Sri Rama Navami celebrations at Ponnurangam Road in R.S.Puram was born as one of the 8 kids of O.Ramiah who had taught C.Rajaji in school. He had served in the military during the First World War in Mesopotamia and later on became a sandalwood oil trader. His real name was Subramanyam but this workaholic visionary came to be known as Binny Subba Rao for having been the force behind marketing Binny Mill products all over the south. He used to travel for 25 days a month and was the father of textile wholesale in this part of the country. He was initially employed at Messrs Ramnarayan Girdhardas by Ramnarayan Chellaram and was made a partner due to his extraordinary abilities.
In Coimbatore, his business was known as Ramco Swadeshis and a number of big textile mills used to deal with him. In fact, mill after mill used to approach him and he never had to approach even one of them. He helped a number of merchants to become well established and his old clients included shops like S.Bheemiah Chetty and B.Narayana Naicker (Coimbatore), Veeriah Reddiar (Alleppey and Kottayam), Nallaperumal (Nagerkoil) and Rmkv (Tirunelveli). There was a time when he used to go to Bombay on a special flight in order to discharge his duties. He was in the textile committee which made allotments and was known for his straightforward approach. His task for the Binny Mills earned him the epithet Binny Subba Rao.
He was happily married to Savithriammal (came from a Jagirdar family) and the couple were blessed with Nagarajan, Nagalakshmi Lakshmipathy, Lalitha Shankaran and S.Balasubramaniam. His culinary skills were proven on a number of occasions. Binny Subba Rao was associated with the Coimbatore Cloth Merchants Association from the very beginning and he was also on the local advisory committee of Karur Vysya Bank for years. The hard-working merchant was quite close to the Sringeri Mutt and used to act as the bridge between Coimbatore and the revered institution all his life. He was a great devotee of Goddess Sharadhambal and did much during the formative years of the temple at Race Course. A number of family issues that used to crop up in a number of entrepreneurial families of the south used to be sorted out by him.
“Lalitha Nivas”, the residence of the family of Binny Subba Rao becomes a veritable Ayodhya at the time of the Sri Rama Navami celebrations. Hundreds of thousands of people consider these festivities as part of the cultural and religious heritage of our country.
The good work of Binny Subba Rao and his family will continue to be enshrined for eternity in a country which loves and cherishes the Maryada Purushottam, Lord Rama from time immemorial.