Guest guest Report post Posted March 24, 1995 hi all, I am Varadhan. I have joined this list yesterday. This is an intro about me. I came to the United States in Aug 1993. I came here to do a Masters in Industrial Engg. from Iowa State University. I completed my B.E. in Mechanical Engg. from Crescent Engg. College, Madras. My name is Srinivasa Varadhan. (Srinivasa because Srinivasar is our 'kula theivam' and I was born in the nakshathiram thiruvONam.. Varadhan because we are from Kanchipuram). I come from a very othodox family. I can trace back my lineage to Thirumalai Anandanpillai (he is the father of AlarmElmangai, the wife of ThiruvEngadamudayaan). Thirumalai Anandanpillai is my last name. I will post a small writeup about Thirumalai Anandanpillai later. My hometown is Kanchipuram. I lived for 13 years there before I moved to Salem. My grandfather lived in Kanchipuram when we were in Salem. So, we visited him almost every month and we were in Kanchipuram during all the major festivals like Deepavali, Pongal etc.. For a person from Kanchipuram, major festivals also mean the following : Brahmotsavam during vaikaasi month, the thirunakshatirams of ramanujar, ManavAla Maamunigal, Nammazhvaar and various other utsavams in the temple. My grandfather is responsible for what I am today..He was a tutor and taught me the basics of mathematics and physics along with Shakespeare, Milton, Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son and Speeches of Winston Churchill among other things. He was also deeply religious and taught me sanskrit, vishnu sahasranaamam and around 1000 divya paasurams of the dhivya prabhandam. My schedule used to be around 2 hours a day with sahasranaamam, dhivya prabhandam and sanskrit texts like saakuntalam. Another hour or so was spent on English literature and another half hour or so in World history (especially the Second World war etc..) and geography. He was a kind of 'local dhaada'. I never used to go to school till my fourth standard or so..still used to get through because my grandfather taught me everything taught in school anyway. After we went to Salem, I did not get much of teaching in most of what my grandfather taught me on a regular basis. So, a lot of things that I knew are kind of not very sharp now. My interest in vaishnavism was always there. But for some reason, it surfaced on a big scale after I came to the US. I spent a lot of time last year brushing up what I learnt from my grandfather. Now, I am trying to continue from there. I hope that the intro was not boring. Varadhan P.S. : Being from Kanchipuram, I have witnessed (and taken part in) a lot of vadakalai vs. thenkalai fights there. If it is appropriate, I will post some of the fights here (though the issues involved in them had nothing to do with philosophy whatsoever). I am adding this as an afterthought after following the vadakalai-thenkalai thread on soc.culture.tamil :-) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
