Celebration of the centenary year of Smt. SARASWATHI PATTABHI RAMAN

Smt. SARASWATHI PATTABHI RAMAN

To celebrate

the centenary year of

Smt. SARASWATHI PATTABHI RAMAN,

THE C. P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR FOUNDATION

cordially invites you to a

Harikatha

by

Dr. PRAMEELA GURUMURTHY

(Head, Dept. of Music, University of Madras)

on

KANCHI KAMAKSHI

on Friday, November 12, 2010, at 6 p.m.

Dr. SAROJINI VARADAPPAN

(President, The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation)

will preside

at THE C.P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR FOUNDATION

1 Eldams Road, Alwarpet, Chennai – 600 018

Please join us for tea at 6 p.m.

The Harikatha begins at 6.15 p.m.


Born to Dr. (Captain) P. Krishnaswami and Kanthammal, Saraswathi

married C.R. Pattabhi Raman, eldest son of Sir C.P. Ramaswami

Aiyar, in 1925.

Though educated at Bedford College, Cambridge, U.K., Saraswathi

Ammal was a charming combination of the old and the new. She

represented the best of Indian tradition. She always wore a nineyard

sari, with her diamond ear and nose rings, and a bulakku.

She was the personification of simplicity and a font of charity. No

request for help was unanswered and, at her death, a stream of

visually, hearing and physically challenged people who had been

helped by her came to cry over her dead body. She was a devout

Hindu who never missed her prayers, and an ardent devotee of

Kanchi Kamakshi. She became the family matriarch at the age of

18 on the passisng away of her mother-in-law, looking after the

properties at Madras, Kanchipuram, Damal and Ooty.

In 1967, following the death of Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar (in 1966),

Smt. Saraswathi and her husband Sri C.R. Pattabhi Raman gifted

the ancestral property – The Grove, Teynampet, Madras 18,

consisting of a 200 year old house and an acre of land – to the C.P.

Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation. This noble gesture was to have farreaching

effects. The Foundation is, today, a hub of activity in

Chennai – cultural, educational and environmental. The Foundation

educates financially handicapped children; those with autism,

dyslexia and learning disabilities; and rural women, tribals and

craftspeople straining to survive.

All this would not have been possible without the infrastructure

developed through the generous gift of Smt. Saraswathi and her

husband. The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation salutes this great

woman and philanthropist.

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