Kamalammal

  General Notes:

Kamalammal - known to all of us as Patti, was born in Kozhumam, in Coimbatore district in South India, and will definitely rank among the most interesting persons in our family tree.

As a story-teller, she was unsurpassed - and many of the really old stories in this website come from her. Many of the stories about Patti were best told by Patti herself - and it is impossible to capture that unique flavour in any retelling of her story.

In her memories, much more than her parents, were stories about her maternal grand father and his extended family, reputed to be among the richest men in South India at that time. Elsewhere on this web site, there is a collection of the many stories that she told us - among the recollections of her childhood are accounts of how they were so rich, that they used butter instead of oil while bathing, or how her grandmother would present them with gold coins every time they visited her.

Later, the huge estates of her grandfather were gradually wasted away by relatives, but she has told us of the independent ways of her father, a lawyer. Even after her marriage to Natarajan, she was still a frequent visitor to her maternal home, and it is arguable that she contributed as much to the maintenance of her family as her husband's earnings from the ample dowry of jewelry that she brought with her.

Just one of her memorable stories, in her telling of it, was how she and her sister (always referred to as Lakshmi Akka), waylaid the tutor who was engaged to privately teach them English at home, and told him that their father had decided to terminate his services! Although that was the end of formal education for her, she accumulated, in common sense, a store of wisdom that no school can impartover a long life of 94 years.

After her husband's death, she moved to Tanjore and Bombay to live with her eldest son. She then spent the next three decades alternatively visiting her five children. In her final years, she lived in Hyderabad, and died in 1998 at the age 93.
BIRT: RIN MH:IF5
DEAT: RIN MH:IF6
NOTE: PRIN MH:I3

Kamalammal married Natarajan, son of Calcutta Ramachandran and Poornambal. (Natarajan was born in 1896 in Madurai and died in 1968 in Hyderabad.)