Interesting personalities.

I'm gonna talk about two ordinary men who'd led extraordinary lives. The commonality between the two, despite the fact that they represented differing generations, is that they passed away almost simultaneously in the wee hours of last Sunday. And so here I go:-

(a) Swami Athuradas.

He was the motiff of the Kurichy Athurasramam and is synonymous with the promotion and popularisation of homoeopathy and costless system of treatment with native medicines. He hails from near my muthachan's birthplace of Neelamperoor. He would've crossed 99 years of age on 16 Jul!

He was christened 'Vasudevan Nair', who was restless in his growing up stages and wandered as an 'avadhooth' in Bengal including the cradle of the Ganges. After taking on a spiritual path, from the wisdom gained through holy books, he also acquired knowledge on homoeopathy and various systems of native medicines. Armed with this knowledge, he returned to his native land which he once despised.

His forays include the following:-
(i) Helped scores of youngsters with free education in the homoeo medical college that he'd set up.
(ii) Set up a 'Gita Mandir' to promote prayers of all religions.
(iii) Set up a housing colony for the poor in Malampuzha.
(iv) Established 19 working women's hostels in various parts of the state and neighbouring ones and
(v) Set up 2 Central schools, a slew of nursery schools and other educational institutions.


(b) Sri TP Sundararajan, IPS.

He shot into prominence when he'd moved the Supreme Court that the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple - a prominent landmark of Thiruvananthapuram - had immense wealth in its secret vaults that needed assessment to prevent any fraud or theft. Consequent to the court's directives, a team that started the assessment has confirmed the presence of the riches and it's temporarily been asked not to open the remaining vault - again by the court - till adequate security measures are put in place by the government.

The alley that leads to the western entrance of the temple has the 'agraharam' - the brahmin neighbourhood. 70 year old, Sundararajan, a practising Supreme Court lawyer, was a bachelor and staying with his elder brother in that locality. An ardent devotee of the Sree Padmanabhan, he used to visit the temple religiously every morning and evening! He belongs to the 1964 batch of IPS officers, was in the Central Intelligence Bureau during Mrs. Indira Gandhi's tenure as PM and later sought premature retirement to nurse his ailing father.

Tailpiece.

Two different men ignited by a passion from within and stuck to their calling with perseverence. Probably, this was the script written for them by the 'Master script writer'. RIP Swamy Athuradas, Mr. Sundararajan.