President’s Speech

“My Dear Devotees & Friends,

I am really blessed with the unique honour and privilege by Sri Amruthavalli Thayar Sametha Sri  Lakshmi Narasimha Perumal and Sri Yoga Anjaneya Perumal, to address this gathering full of devotees during its Golden Jubilee year as the President of the Charitable Trust Sri Lakshminarasimha Swamy Thathiyaradanai Kainkarya Sabha. I have to thank my dear committee members of the sabha for their faith and confidence to elect me to this position in 2001.

This sabha was established on the 17th November 1961 and today we are celebrating the Golden Jubilee. The Seeders, I mean the Founders of the sabha are:

Sri M Dursaiswamy Iyengar Sri P A Santhanam Iyengar Sri S G Santhanam Iyengar

Sri K T Chakra Charlu Sri P C Srinivasan and Sri T Ramaswamy Iyengar

On behalf of the present committee and all the devotees who helped us serve the devotees to this extent, I am paying my homage and humble namaskarams to the founders of the sabha. Sabha’s first office was established in the premises of A Bhashyam Iyengar’s paint shop and our sincere thanks for his magnanimity and his support to the sabha in the initial stages

Secondly I have to pay my homage to Late Singarachariar trustee of this holy Vasantha Mandapam for letting this to the Sabha and his adopted son Sri Venkatanarayana Chari who has given this mandapam on a 20 years lease and for a nominal annual rent. As you may all know Sri Venkatanarayana Chari is a highly learned person proficient in Sanksrit, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi besides having good command over English language.

Among the founders, Sri S G Santhanam Iyengar, Sri T Ramaswamy Iyengar and Sri P C Srinivasan were very active and managed the sabha’s activities.  Especially Sri Ramaswamy Iyengar had been very much dedicated and hardworking in each and every activity of the Sabha. With the initiative of Sri S kannan one of our former committee members Sri Ramaswamy Iyengar was instrumental for erecting the first ACC roofing for the dining area. Sri Ramaswamy Iyengar was running the show as Secretary since inception until 1987 i.e till he breathed his last in 1987.  Sri S G Soundararajan  has continued as secretary until he was elected Vice President in 2002.. Sri S G Soundararajan, an advocate by profession is the senior most office bearer of the sabha involving himself in every activity of the sabha till today besides rendering legal advice whenever there was need.

My predecessor Sri P C Srinivasan had helped the sabha monetarily to a great extent in the initial stages.

Our Secretary Sri B Krishnaswamy and Joint Secretary Sri Kasturi have been doing untiring job of mobilizing funds  for the sabha besides their physical activities like procuring provisions serving food etc. Their support to the sabha’s performance was immense especially during the infancy of the sabha. I would like to mention here that 25% or more of total collection to sabha for the last several years has been through their contacts and efforts.

Another office bearer of the sabha whom I should thank is Sri S Kannan of Chittoor former committee member. He has rendered relentless service by arranging almost all materials required for the thathiyaradani irrespective of the nature of the item like provisions, milk, vegetables or for that matter civil and electrical items and gas cylinders. He was instrumental with support from Sri T Ramsamy Iyengar in erecting the first ACC roofing for the dining area. His contribution to the sabha has been exemplary.

I will be failing in my duty if I don’t  thank our auditors late S G Rangaswamy who audited our accounts honorarily from inception until his demise in 1999 and thereafter Sri V N Padmanabhan who have been honorarily auditing sabha’s account till date. I also want to thank all the committee members present and past for their  untiring hardwork in the smooth functioning of the sabha, particularly Sri N S S Vasan for his excellent job in the past decade or so in procurement of all relevant materials for the thathiyaradanai and for controlling the stores inventory efficiently and effectively.

I am concluding my talk by paying homage to some of the persons referred above who have reached their heavenly abode and my sincere thanks to others who are still working for the smooth running  of the sabha.”

Taking over from the Preseident, Joint Secretary Sri S Narasimhan alias Raju spoke splendidly in tamil and  extended tributes to the donors without whose help the sabha could have little achieved the present stature.

The Donors who really deserved to be mention here were those who contributed in Fives, Tens and Twenties in Sixties, Seventies and Eighties when the sabha was in its infant stage. These amounts were substantial in those years and it helped the sabha to a very great extent.

Among regular donors the staff of Hindu were prominent. Starting from Rs.105/- in 1976, to Rs.11500/- in 2010, they have been contributing year after year without any break and with substantial increments every year.

The Sabha is grateful to the following regular contributors without whose support exponential increase in the expenditure on inputs could not have been met.

  1. Srinivasa Raghavan
  2. Eithigiri Padmanabhan
  3. Sengamalam Ammal
  4. K C Krishnaswamy
  5. Srinath Vijay & Mukund
  6. N C Kannan (USA)
  7. P B Vijayaraghavan
  8. K C Narasimhan
  9. PAC Pattabiraman
  10. Ganesh and Prakash
  11. Kanchana Ananthakrishan &
  12. Krishnan T V

We identified the following persons whose service to or involvement in our Sabha’s activities has been exemplary and invaluable. We honoured them on this auspicious occation with one gram Gold Coin as a small momento.

  1. Sri Krishnamoorthy and (Late) Jagannathan were our chief cooks who rendered highly dedicated service to the sabha almost from the inception for nearly 4 decades. Those days their renumeration from the sabha was not matching market standards. Still the cooks would come for the service with us even rejecting more attractive renumeration from elsewhere.
  2. (Late) S G Rangaswamy audited our accounts honorarily from inception until his demise in 1999.
  3. Auditor Sri V N Padmanabhan has been auditing our accounts honorarily from 2000 to till date.
  4. A T K Venkatanarayana Chari, Trustee of Vasantha Mandapam who has leased out Vasantha Mandapam for 20 years and for a nominal rent for conducting the thathiyaradani during Karthigai monthe every year.
  5. S Kannan our former committee member who rendered relentless service to subha as explained by the President in his speech.
  6. All the cleaning staff lead by Sri Duraiswamy. Sri Duraiswamy and his wife Smt Venkatamma are working for the sabha since inception

We take this opportunity to pray to Lord Narasimhaswamy, Goddess Amirthavalli Thayar and Lord Yoga Anjaneya Swamy to bless us in our endeavour to carry on with our humble objective.