Honouring our Ancestors, our duty
Many cultures around the world honour their ancestors with festivals. Hungry ghost (China), Obon (Japan), Chiseok (Korea), Día de Los Muertos (Mexico), All Saints or All soul's day (Europe), Samhain (Ireland & Scotland) etc. Even Halloween was originally meant to be a festival to appease the spirits of your ancestors with its origins from the Irish Samhain festival.
In India, today 2nd October, is Pitru Paksha Mahalaya Amavasya, the holiest day for honouring the ancestors without whom we would not be there in this world. I Did some Hindu rites in the morning remembering and symbolically feeding 3 generations of ansectors both men and women, both on my father's and mother's side. It made me wonder, how all of them directly contributed to making me who i am with thier genes inside me. Imagine the struggles, our ancestors might have gone through to bring us up. Wow. Thank you all.
1. Tupil Vedanta Desikar
I trace my paternal lineage to Tupil Vedanta Desikar - a poet saint scholar who lived almost 800 years back. I proudly carry the village name, where he was born and resided as my family name.
Vedanta Desika was one of India's greatest spiritual masters, Gurus, or Saints. In India, Gurus were both spiritual teachers and masters of logic and science. He could teach anything from philosophy, poetry, maths, science, languages to erudite scholars. TO masonry, carpentry and sculpting to common man. He wrote over 120 treatises in Sanskrit and Tamil. PM Modi said in his letter, he is Sarva Tantra Swatantra (master of all disciplines). I have written a separate post on him. His entire life was offered as service to the others. More about Vedanta Desikar here.
https://indian-culture-nash.blogspot.com/2024/04/sri-tupil-vedanta-desikar-great.html?m=1
Apart from Sri Vedanta Desikar, I feel proud about a few of my other recent ancestors.
2. T Rangaswamy
T Rangaswamy, my paternal great grandfather, a highly educated philanthropist & civil servant, MA and gold medallist in Madras university, who rose to become the deputy collector of Madras. He was such a simple man, when they offered to name a street after him in Madras, he politely decline d and instead asked them to name the street after Lord Ranganathan of Srirangam. Thus you have the famous Ranganathan street in T Nagar Chennai, named after him.
3. Dr. T S Raghavan
His son, Dr. T S Raghavan, my paternal Grand father, who did his PHD in botany from Kings college London in 1935, when literacy rate in India was under 1%. He became a cytogenetist and contributed to India green revolution by finding new hybrid varieties of rice, sugar cane, wheat, coconut etc. He was also a very loved professor and HOD Botany of Annamalai University for many years.
4. T Govindarajan
His son and My father T Govindarajan, an economics graduate, who had a flair for English writing and a keen sportsman, a sportswriter for THE HINDU newspaper and served them admirably for 35 years. He became president of SJFI Sports Journalist Federation of India. I have written separately about his life. A man of high integrity, zest for life, substance with style, plain hearted and kind even to strangers. His was a life unparalleled and left a deep impact on my personality.
5. Josyam Ramaswamy
Also, on my Maternal side.. Great grandfather Josyam Ramaswamy a mathematician and classmate of maths genius Ramanujan. His ancestors were court astrologers to Maratha kings like Serofoji Maharaja of Tanjore and hence his surname Josyam.
6. J R Krishnaswamy
His son and my maternal grandfather, J R Krishna swamy, a charted accountant from the British Indian era, a freedom fighter inspired by Gandhi gave up his suits and mill cloth, in favour of hand spin Khadi cloth to help his fellow indian poor weavers. He was very spiritual and truthful and honest to a fault.
7. Jaya Govindarajan
Not to forget my mom, my last living direct ancestor, Jaya Govindarajan the first female graduate in our family back in 1950. She studied BSc chemistry, when girl children hardly studied beyond 8th grade and when literacy in India was under 5% in 1950. I wrote a separate tribute to her.
8. All grand moms
And to all my grand moms and great grand moms who gave birth to many children and bought them up so well.
You can never thank your ancestors enough for raising you. The only way to repay them is to pay it forward by bringing up good children who serve the society well. Let's spare a moment to thank our ancestors and pledge to make the world a better place.
Few pics of my ancestors
A favorite photo with my Paternal grand parents Dr. T S Raghavan and Hema Raghavan. Also with my dad mom aunt sister and brother. Yes I'm the little boy sitting on my mother's arms.
Maternal grand parents Lakshmi & J R Krishnaswamy.
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