Page 7 - Memoirs of Sarasworthy Somasundaram

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அபபு Amarasingham
Young Amarasingham was a teacher. When the American mission inaugurated a
Training Centre for Doctors at the Manipay Mission Hospital, he had a sudden urge to enrol
for training. He was accepted, (and was, I believe in the first batch to pass out).

On completion, he returned to his Island-Home in Pungudutivu, and set up in private
practice. He was good and quite popular in the Island Community. (The Island folk talk of
கைறகி-Kar Rasi- Lucky Hands.)

In the course of his work he often felt frustrated if he lost a baby at birth because he
lacked facilities to help the mother more. One day he suddenly decided he would go ahead
and fashion an appliance he could use. He called a black-smith and between them they
designed a “forceps”. One that could be used to facilitate the delivery, but not in any way
be harmful to the mother, or to the baby. And they did design a “Forceps” which was used
by Amarasingham in his work, with success, for many years.

Amarasingham was a very gentle person. His grandchildren loved him. He never
chided us. We, especially Balasingam Annan loved having fun with him.

a. Blowing out his Cigar with the Papaw stem

Appu was in his room seated on the side of his bed, lighting his ‘Cigar’சுறுட்டு (a big fat
Cigar, he would roll up himself from his stock of tobacco). Balasingham Annan saw this and
ran into the garden, plucked a Papaw ‘stem’ from our tree and stole stealthily towards
Appu’s room. (Papaw stems are light and hollow on the inside). He poked the stem through
the side window and pointing at the Cigar, gave a hard blow through it. (Of course by now
we’d guessed what was up and so the other grand children were scattered around
watching). The match stick flickered, and blew out. Appu, suspecting a draft through the
window, turned to the other side and struck another match. Balasingham Annan was quick
to re-focus his papaw stem and blew a second time at the match stick, which naturally blew
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out. Of course by then, அபபு had guessed what was going on, but he didn’t shout, he only
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said “தமபி, சுமமொ விடடொ”
turned into the room and lighted his Cigar. Balasingham Annan had vanished.

b. Puppam hiding in the rolled mat.

One holiday, there was quite a gang of cousins at Amara-Giri. We were playing “hide-and-
seek”. Puppam had cleverly crept into a mat, rolled up against a wall. The “seeker” had
caught all the cousins, except Puppam. In the end we all joined in the search. Suddenly one
pair of eyes spied a food under the rolled up mat. (Perhaps the mat had swayed too). Appu
was as usual in his arm chair, smoking. We went up to him with “Appu, Appu, there’s a
snake in the mat and we are scared.” He walked up to the mat, probably guessed what was
up and smiled, ‘smack’ went his walking stick. Not a hard ‘smack’ of course! Puppam
screamed- “It’s me, it’s me!” We all laughed. Appu smiled, Puppam smiled back.

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