Shankar was an agriculturist in Karisulndamangalam, a remote village in Tamilnadu, born in 1850 or so and lived for about 80 years. He was managing a big family of four sons and three daughters with his meagre income from agriculture. One of his sons, Sundaram was very enterprising . He was always on the look out for doing something other than looking after the lands, working in the fields.He left the village at the age of just 15 and went to Trivandrum in Kerala. There he worked in a shop maintaining the accounts, purchase, sales and whatever work he was entrusted.he was very studious and picked up the tricks of the trade quickly. His urge to be independent and do something on his own made him to quit the job and start a trading company at the age of 20. He started distributing pepper and rice all over Kerala from Trivandrum to Mangalore by importing them from far eastern countries by ship.
His father who came to know about his success, wanted Sundaram to take his brothers in the trading company. Very generous he was, he took the brothers with him. Elder brother was entrusted with work of maintaining the office accounts and another brother was posted in Mangalore to look after the distribution network in that region
Sundaram became very popular and was a proud owner of a big shop in the main marketing centre of Trivandrum, two big bungalows and a garden in the heart of the city. Sundaram visited Penang in 1920. He was also seen sitting alongwith Europeans in a photograph taken at the Imperial bank (now State bank of India. The photgraph is still being displayed at the State Bank of India, Main Branch, Trivandrum.
Everything was going smoothly for some time. His wife was treated like a queen and was not allowed to do any work.When his wife and children stepped out of the house, they were taken only by chariot and were never allowed to walk on the streets. But after some time slowly jealousy started creeping up in the mind of his elder brother, who was with him in the office through out. He was unable to bear the popularity and respect given to his younger brother by everybody including the British.
Sundaram was looking after the marketing and all the outdoor work and the entire office work was managed by his elder brother. In those days there were not much currency notes and the trading was done with coins of different denominations. At the end of the day, the coins were packed in sacks and kept in the office. The elder brother started pilfering the coins and handing over some of the sacks to the neighbour. Because of this, Sundaram started incurring heavy loss and became bankrupt.His brothers also left him.
But after nearly one year, Sundaram with the help of some friends revived his business and was again doing fairly well. Again his father forced him to take his brothers and due to his magnanimity both the brothers started working with Sundaram. They again became very greedy and wanted to kill this golden goose and started giving an ayurvedic medicine to Sundaram to kill him slowly. The effect of the medicine started telling on Sundaram's health slowly. He was losing his eyesight and was not able to concentrate on his business. In the year 1931, Sundaram succumbed to the slow poison leaving his wife lakshmi and three sons Subramanian, Padmanabhan and Krishnan. lakshmi was too innocent and the eldest son Subramanian was just 14 years. They had to leave Trivandrum and come to their village Karisulndamangalam.On a summer day after travelling for more than 10 hours they reached the village in the morning. Luckily, Sundaram had built a house in the village, where they could go. But, the ordeal continued. In the house, the room, where the paddy was kept, was locked and the elder brother of Sundaram refused to give even a grain claiming that sundaram owed him a lot of money.
The entire family was without any food since the previous night. Subramanian decided to get the support of Mr. Balaji, a leading advocate in Tirunelveli and a close relative. He ran to Tirunelveli, which was 14 kilometers away. all along the banks of Tambrabharani river. He reached the advocate's office around 11.00 hrs. and narrated everything. The advocate was very much moved, but, since he was busy, he asked Subramanian to tell his uncle that the advocate has ordered to give the key of the room. Subramanian ran back and asked his uncle accordingly. But, again he refused.There was no other go except to go back to the advocate. Mr. Balaji accompanying him came to the village around 17.00hrs and forced the uncle to give the key. Atlast in the night they had some food.
Since there was no income, whatever savings they had, started draining. Subramnian started looking for a job in the nearby town Tirunelveli and ended up in Chandra Vilas hotel in Tirunelveli Junction. His job was to grind wet red chilli in a stone grinder from morning 8 am to evening 7 pm. One day his aunt (father's sister), who was living nearby saw him grinding and was shocked and took him to her house and treated his burning hands with coconut oil. The work was going on for some time. At times when the cashier was not available, he was asked to man the counter. While doing so, one day he met one Railway officer, who took pity on him asked him to come to his office the next day. Those days the officers had power to get clerical jobs. Subramanian was offered a goods clerk job Tundla, near Allahabad. He alongwith the family left for Allahabad and decided to go to his aunt's(father's sister) house there.
Sundaram during his peak period helped the entire family including this sister, so Subramanian thought they would extend some help. They did extend help but for a price. Lakshmi was forced to do the entire cooking, cleaning and all other sundry work for a stay and food for the family. Subramanian finding the plight of his mother, shifted his family to rented house nearby.
After two years, he was asked to appear for Ticket Collector's examination and got through and posted in Allahabad. The life was going smoothly and both his brothers were in the school. But, a tragedy struck the family. Padmanaban who was very intelligent and admired by all the teachers had brain fever and died suddenly at the age of just 14.
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