EJJI'S FAMILY - PAGE 3

Continued from EJJI'S FAMILY - PAGE 2. Picture numbering continues here.

No. 15: Sarika Ejji and Rishi Pal Singh

No. 16: NANDANA 1 on Edward Elliots Road, (now Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai), Mylapore, Madras (now Chennai), India. The offices of Ejji Domestic Services and Ejji Maintenance Contracts,functioned from here.

No. 17: From left top row standing: Ejji, Sriram, Ravi, PK. From left sitting on chairs: Usha Sriram (with Veena Sriram), Shyamala Ejji, Pattammal, Jani, Prema Ravi (with Vignesh). From left sitting on floor: Priya Ravi, Shyam Sriram, Sarika Ejji & Rasika Ejji

More about the family..... and their eccentricities

We can claim to be a rather eccentric family. Sure you would have known other eccentric families. But our family has two very special advantages. We have been consistently eccentric for more than three generations. And we have no rivals!

Right from the word go, things have always been different with us. We had a great-great grandfather who was a tax collector for the British East India Company who always traveled by a palanquin. It is said that since he never walked, hair grew on the soles of his feet!

There was a great-grandfather who was a land tilling “Brahmin” land owner, at a time when specific castes were there for tilling land and this great-grandfather was a “Brahmin” who was not supposed to till the land. We had a grandfather who donated all his wealth on his death to "the dogs of Madras", and as his will read, ".......since I have scant faith in human beings, I leave all I have to the dogs of Madras!"

There was yet another grandfather who went as a stowaway on a ship to Rangoon (which ththe shipping and trading empire. THE INDIAN IMPORT COMPANY, 359 SPARKS STREET, RANGOON, BURMA, with branches in Chittagong and Klang (Malaysia).

When his brothers wanted a share of the wealth he had made, he closed his business and gave a substantial portion of the shipping company and some assets to his Muslim cook! (He had this muslim cook for many years, as he had polio of the right leg and it was then thought that mutton soup every day will revive a polio affected part of the body! The same muslim family is now the leading shipping company headquartered in Madras (Chennai).

In this generation, me Ejji, who did not think twice about quitting working life early. And my family where children call parents and grandparents by first name. The list can go on. But one thing we are proud of, "We are eccentric, and very happy at that!". Period.

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