How Tamil theatre raised funds for the Ramakrishna Mission Students Home in Chennai

Thanks to the huge patronage it enjoyed, Tamil theatre was actively involved in raising funds for various charitable and public causes. Many theatre groups staged dramas whose proceeds were used for educational institutions, hospitals, benefit funds and calamity reliefs. During World War II, the Madras Governor’s War Fund greatly benefitted by the staging of several Tamil plays. For instance, M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar’s performance of Pavalakkodi in 1941 at the Sun Theatre in T. Nagar raised a sum of Rs 7,000 which was donated to the cause. One of the prominent institutions to have been immensely supported by Tamil theatre was the Ramakrishna Mission Students Home in Mylapore — thanks to the efforts of C. Ramanujachariar.

Born in 1875, Ramanujachariar graduated with a BA from the Presidency College and joined the Madras Secretariat as a clerk. While still in college, he became part of the group of followers who gathered around Swami Vivekananda during the latter’s stay in Madras in early 1893, before he left for Chicago to participate in the Parliament of World Religions. When Vivekananda was given a grand reception in the city in February 1897 upon his return from the West, Ramanujachariar got an opportunity to closely interact with him and was drawn into the Ramakrishna movement.

One of the prominent institutions to have been immensely supported by Tamil theatre was the Ramakrishna Mission Students Home in Mylapore — thanks to the efforts of C. Ramanujachariar.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu Archives

When Swami Ramakrishnananda, who was sent by Swami Vivekananda to spread the message of Sri Ramakrishna in South India, came to Madras in March 1897, Ramanujachariar became one of his ardent supporters. In 1905, Ramanujachariar’s cousin C. Ramaswamy Iyengar was moved by the plight of four boys from Guntur who had come to the city seeking help for their studies but found none. This gave the impetus for the founding of a home to provide free boarding and lodging for indigent students coming to the city for their studies, and thus was born the Ramakrishna Mission Students Home, with the blessings and guidance of Swami Ramakrishnananda. Ramanujachariar became closely involved with the activities of the Home since its inception and after Ramaswamy Iyengar’s demise in 1932 became its secretary.

In 1917, Ramanujachariar founded a drama troupe called the Madras Secretariat Party, comprising his colleagues, to use theatre to support charitable causes, particularly the Students’ Home and the Ramakrishna Math. Ramanujachariar was the director, lead actor and composer…all rolled into one. When Swami Brahmananda, the first president of the Ramakrishna Order, came to Madras on three occasions, Ramanujachariar used the proceeds of a benefit drama to purchase the land on which the old shrine of the Mylapore Math stands today. During his 1921 visit, Swami Brahmananda watched a performance of Mira Bai staged by the Madras Secretariat Party at the Victoria Public Hall, in which Ramanujachariar played the part of Rana. Later, on Swami’s suggestion, Ramanujachariar translated and performed the Bengali drama Bilvamangal in Tamil.

Besides Ramanujachariar’s colleagues, the Madras Secretariat Party comprised members such as renowned violinist Parur Anantharaman and several residents of the Students Home such as Mannargudi Sambasiva Bhagavathar, who would later became a noted harikatha exponent, and Anna N Subramanian, who went to become a renowned author of religious books. In his reminiscences, noted philosopher TMP Mahadevan, who was also a resident of the Home in the 1920s, states that rehearsals used to be held in the campus on Sunday mornings and were much awaited occasions.

In December 1936, Ramanujachariar got together a group of actors from the Madras Secretariat Party, the Suguna Vilasa Sabha and a few other amateur drama troupes under the banner of The Madras Premier Amateurs and went on a tour of the Malay states to stage a series of performances to raise funds for the Students Home. The arrangements had been made by an advance party led by Rao Bahadur M R Ramaswamy Sivan, who had retired as the first Indian Principal of the Agricultural College at Coimbatore. It was not Ramanujachariar’s first fundraising venture in the region though. Besides theatre, he was a well-known figure in the world of Carnatic music (his contributions to the field have been well-documented) and counted several legends of the art form amongst his friends, one of them being Musiri Subramania Iyer. In February 1935, he had organised a tour of Subramania Iyer to Malaya.

Over the course of three weeks in January 1937, the troupe staged 15 performances across all important centres of the Malay states such as Malacca, Seremban, Kuala Lumpur, Klang, Penang, Ipoh and Singapore. The plays performed included Nandanar, Leela Sukhar, Raja Bhakti and Rama, the Ideal Son. The tour was a grand success. In 1940, the Madras Secretariat Party embarked on Bombay tour, staging four performances to raise funds. A curtain-raiser for the tour, which appeared in the Bombay Chronicle stated that the troupe had staged 198 performances up to that point since its inception, out of which 172 had been for the benefit of the Students Home, and rest being for causes such as flood relief, anti-tuberculosis fund and girls education. According to the book Palace for the Poor, which profiles the history of the Students Home, the total funds collected through dramas staged by the Secretariat Party exceeded Rs 5 Lakhs, which went towards the corpus of the institution. In the 1940s, Ramanujachariar founded and mentored the Ramakrishna Kripa Amateurs, through which he continued his journey of fund-raising through theatre. Ramanujachariar passed away in November 1956.