4. Natesan's early Life

 

Natesan : Early Life

 

Subbier had constructed a fairly huge house opposite NVN mansion and by end of 1880. He had a large family of six children three sons and three daughters. The eldest was a son Kalyana Sundaram born in 1890 followed by daughter Gyana a couple of years later. Duraisamy, Kasi and Lakshmi were born between 1894   and 1906.  

1908! Great events were happening in India and in South Africa. Many mile stone events connected with the Indian freedom struggle marked that year. How these events are going to have a direct bearing on the life of Subbier’s yet to be born child is what this book is about!      

 Mohandas Gandhi was making waves in the political circles of India and Great Britain to protect the interest Indians who came there as indentured labour. Gandhi’s effort bore no fruit even after his visits to London twice for pleading with the Prime Minister and other political leaders for scrapping the Immigration Bill of Transvaal. He was arrested, imprisoned and released more than once.   The Indian Business throughout the Transvaal in South Africa was suspended on July 23, 1908 on the call of Gandhi. This was the first ever Satyagraha of Mahatma Gandhi.

 Subramania Bharati with V. O. Chidambaram Pillai and Kanchi Varathachariyar supported Tilak who  openly supported armed resistance against the British while attending  the historic Surat Congress Session in 1907. Faced with the prospect of arrest, Bharati escaped to Pondicherry (Puducherry) in 1908 which was under French rule.  From there he edited and published the weekly journal India, Vijaya, a Tamil daily, Bala Bharatham, English monthly, and Suryodayam, a local weekly in Pondicherry. These were banned in India. V. O. Chidambaram Pillai and Subramania Siva were arrested in Tuticorin ( Thoththukudi)  on 12 March 1908 for delivering inflammatory speeches. Following their arrest, a serious riot broke out in the neighbouring Tinnevely (Tirunelveli) in protest.

Hutatma Shivaram Hari Rajguru was born on 24 August 1908 .  He  was an Indian revolutionary from Maharashtra, a   colleague of Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev, and took part in the assassination of a British police officer, J. P. Saunders, at Lahore in 1928. Their actions were to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai who had died a fortnight after being hit by police while on a march protesting the Simon Commission. On 23 March 1931 he was hanged by the British government along with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev Thapar.

Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar colleague and a great follower of Subhash Chandra Bose, was born on 30 October 1908.   He became the leader of the All India Forward Bloc and was elected three times as a Member of Parliament. 

During September 1908, Hyderabad was experiencing a vigorous monsoon rains. A devastating flood occurred on 28 September due to a cloud burst drenching the city and its suburbs with 17 inches of rain. The Musi River which flows through the city rose 60 feet devastating the lives and properties of the people of Hyderabad and killing 50,000 people. The North East monsoon was particularly severe in Thanjavur district also and given the copious rains during the South West monsoon, Cauvery was flowing in full vigour. Added to that was a cyclone battering Nagapattinam and other coastal areas, whose effects were felt as far inward as Nemam!   

Subbier was greatly worried as his wife Chandrammal was expecting their sixth child. Gyana, their eldest daughter was already betrothed and was looking after her younger siblings. Electricity was still a four decades away to reach Nemam. The news of devastating floods started trickling down and a cyclone was predicted by local astrologers and Panchangam. Though the domestic helps, the Maruththuvachchi 

(local midwife) and other elderly female relatives were at hand, Subbier resigned to his usual place, the watershed in his coconut thoppu (farm).

Chandrammal, however was not overly worried and delivered a male child around 8 O’clock at night. It was a breech delivery! The first thing that she touched to see the baby when it was handed over to her was to feel its eyes and heaved a sigh of relief, shedding copious tears for she was blind! Born literally with a silver spoon in her mouth, her father had hundreds of acres of fertile lands near Anbil and Pachchampettai.  Her father’s younger brother was a great philanthropist going by the name Pachchampettai Natesa Iyer. There is a road named after him in Lalgudi town in recognition of his philanthropic acts of helping the poor during famines. A memorial arch was erected along the Railway track near Pachchampettai by the Railways in recognition of his donation of lands for the Railway line! Whenever he was traveling by train, the train would stop near this arch to enable him to entrain and detrain though there was no Railway station or authorized stoppage! The time of birth was noted and informed to the family astrologer. He was named after his grand uncle as Natesan as per convention! The locals predicted that the child would go places during his life time as he entered the earth with his feet first!

Chandrammal was not born blind. About a year after the birth of her fifth child, she lost her eyesight due to small pox. It was a miracle she did not succumb to it. Very strong willed mentally, she learnt not only to live with her blindness but master it within a couple of years. Subbier being a chronic asthma patient, the running of the large family and overseeing the accounts of farming of almost a hundred acres of land fell on her fragile shoulders. She convinced her husband to build a house for their eldest son and make provisions for the betrothal of her other two daughters. Her second son was not very keen in his studies while the eldest was planning to become lawyer after graduation. By the time the daughters were married off and the eldest settled down in Thanjavur, the holding had shrunk to less than sixty acres.

Subbier’s sister Kalyani was married to PS Sivaswamy Iyer and he was already a rising star in the British Indian Administration. He was a member of Madras Legislative Council  He rose in prominence as Vice Chancellor of madras University, selected as Member of the Executive Council of the Governor Madras Province etc. before Natesan was even born! He was made a Member of the Viceroy’s Council on Military affairs.  He was instrumental in establishment of Royal Indian Military Academy at Dehradun for training native Indians to get King’s Commission in the British Indian Army overcoming stiff opposition from the British aristocracy. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in   1908.    He was made a Companion of the Order of the Star of India in 1912 and was promoted to a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India in 1915. It is said that he built a High school at Tirukkattuppalli in 1900 for the education of children belonging to a hundred villages around on the express wish of Kanchi Paramacharya!

 Subbier more or less left all the responsibilities to run the household on Chandrammal and that is perhaps the reason his second son was more into other activities than studies. Natesan did his primary schooling at Nemam. As a baby and young boy, he is to mimic his mother by going around the house with his eyes closed along with her mother and developed an innate ability to go around the house even in pitch dark.  Once he saw a surrounding and made a mental picture with his eyes open, he was able to negotiate in that place with his eyes closed. Little did he know at that time, this skill though not practiced in the intervening years would save his life as an adult in the jungles of Burma (Myanmar) quite a few times!  Though he was intelligent, he was far more inclined for physical activities.

 During his school days, Natesan was deeply impressed by the speeches, articles and poems of Subramaniya Bharati. Mahatma Gandhi had plunged into active politics after his return from South Africa in 1917.  . The Indian Army during World War I contributed a large number of divisions and independent brigades to the European, Mediterranean and the Middle East theatres of war in World War I. Over one million Indian troops served overseas, of whom 62,000 died and another 67,000 were wounded. In total at least 74,000 Indian soldiers died during the war. The Indian Army fought against the German Empire in German East Africa and on the Western Front. While some divisions were sent overseas others had to remain in India guarding the North West Frontier and on internal security and training duties.   These betrayals were highlighted in vernacular news papers and magazines like Ananada Vikatan.  Though young, Natesan was deeply perturbed to learn about the betrayal of the British Government in denying the Dominion status to India at the end of the First World War as promised by them earlier.

In 1917, Montagu visited India and held talks with the various representatives of Indian polity including Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He, along with the Governor-General of India Lord Chelmsford, brought out a detailed report titled Constitutional Reforms in India, also called the Montagu-Chelmsford Report. This report became the basis for the Government of India Act 1919. The report was important in that for the first time, concrete steps were taken to include more Indians in the administration of their own country. Elections were introduced which no doubt brought about a political consciousness among educated Indians at least. But the reforms fell short of satisfying the grievances and legitimate demands of Indian nationalists. The Viceroy still had vast powers to undermine the effectiveness of the legislatures. Also, the franchise was very limited and narrow. The report was rejected by most Indian leaders.

This was followed in 1919, by the passage of Rowlett Act and the Jalianwalabagh massacre of Sikh personnel.  This act authorized the British government to arrest anybody suspected of terrorist activities and to detain such people arrested for up to 2 years without trial. It empowered the police to search for a place without a warrant and It also placed severe restrictions on the freedom of the press. The British government’s primary intention was to repress the growing nationalist movement in the country.

The situation in Punjab was alarming as there were riots and protests against the Rowlett Act and Punjab was put under martial law. On the day of the festival of Baisakhi on 13th April 1919 in Jallianwala Bagh, a public garden in Amritsar, a crowd of non-violent protestors had gathered. Also among the crowd were pilgrims who had come to celebrate Baisakhi. Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab at that time ame there with his troops and after blocking the only narrow entrance to the garden, he ordered his troops to fire at the unarmed crowd without giving any warning. The indiscriminate firing went on for about 10 minutes resulting in the deaths of about 1000 people and injuries to more than 1500 people. This tragedy came as a rude shock to Indians and totally destroyed their faith in the British system of justice.

Though PS Sivaswamy Iyer was an appointee of the Viceroy as member of His Council, he condemned the massacre and criticized General O’Dwyer. These events were debated in the family circles of Nemam creating a deep impression in the minds of boyish Natesan.   

By the time he turned ten, he could climb a coconut tree, swim in Cauvery and float like a log! He was well versed in all agricultural activities. A keen observer and a quick learner, he mastered carpentry and masonry. His needle work would put even an expert darner to shame! But he was also a rebel. He was one of the firsts in the entire family to caste off his tuft for an English style haircut! He would wear a Lungi (sarong) to the horror of other villagers in the Agraharam.  He had his friends from all castes and would even share his food with them much to the consternation of orthodox relatives. Some of them in his later life would be his farm hands!   But this very quality of his was to save him from great difficulties and even save his life later in life!

Though young, Natesan was abreast of the political turmoil in India under the leadership of Gandhi. The frequent arrests, fasts, releases from prison of Gandhi were talk of the town and created a lasting impression in his young mind. The boycott of foreign clothes and their bonfire in cities , towns and villages imbibed a sense of national spirit even among the school going children though mny were too poor to afford anything foreign! 

By the time he finished his high School, the finances of Subbier became very precarious with the result he had to discontinue after his first year for Fellow of Arts at St. Joseph’s College, Trichinopoly (Trichy).   Returning to Nemam he took lessons in Typewriting to get a job!  A voracious reader of English, he mastered Shorthand and typewriting by the time he was twenty one. Gifted with a good hand, he acquired a good command over written and spoken English! 

The British India was going through very difficult times after the First World War and jobs were very scarce. He appeared for the Madras Province Public Service Commission for the post of Typist though he was qualified for the post of a Steno. In those days, even after one had cleared the selection, the appointment would be given on vacancy whenever it arose with the condition that the age of the applicant should not have crossed the stipulated limit on the day of appointment! In many cases the candidate might get disqualified due to age bar though he was selected when he was well within the age limit! Keeping his selection in UPSC as a reserve, Natesan therefore applied for the post of a Clerk cum accountant with M/S Abdul Kader & Co, Penang for a monthly Salary of Rs. 100.

In the mean time his betrothal with Dharmambal, the second daughter of PN Subramaniya Iyer, a leading Lawyer of Thanjavur was finalised. His first daughter was already married to Ranganathan, his second Cousin from Rangu Iyer family.  (The family tree is in the Appendix). Dharmambal’s elder brother was his class mate in St. Joseph’s College! He informed the Government of Madras to forward his appointment letter whenever it was issued to the address of his father-n-law and left for Penang!