By Dr.V.R.Devika, Aseema Trust.
July 30, 2023 happens to be the 137th birth anniversary of the trail blazing pioneer woman Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy. She was the first Indian woman to graduate in MBCM from the Madras Medical College, the first woman legislator of the Madras Presidency and the first woman deputy president of a law-making body anywhere in the world.
She fought for many women’s causes of which we are now beneficiaries. She founded Avvai Home and the Adyar Cancer Institute WIA among many other things.
She wrote in her autobiography that she built a house next to a lake in the village of Thiruvanmiyur to help her husband Dr. Sundaram Reddy breathe clean air. The house she built on 40 grounds has now been built over with apartment buildings – Sanjivani by Ramaniyam, opposite Thiagaraja theatre on Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy / LB Road.
The small Ganesha temple by a tree next to the gate of this complex is called Erikkarai Vinayakar. That means that Indira Nagar area was previously a lake.
The house she lived in the late 1920s became a free dispensary for the poor after her demise. It was called ‘Rotti house’ in the 1940s as bread baked at Avvai Home was also freely given to the poor there. Now it is run by a private non-profit institution as a dispensary for the poor after changes in the structure.
Dr.Krishnamurthy sold 32 grounds on both sides of memorials (they are memorials not samadhi as they were all cremated) to Dr.Sundaram Reddy, Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy and Mandakini Krishnamurthy.
It is being kept clean and once a year, on 22nd July, WIA members visit it and offer flowers. Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy had also built a small temple to Lord Balaji to house a beautiful painting of Tirupati Venkateswara given to her by a patient. The artist is said to have sat in front of the deity at Tirupati and painted it. Dr. Krishnamurthy had added a marble statue of Lord Anjaneyar to it.
Dr. Krishnamurthy created the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Trust out of the money from the sale for the use of Avvai Home and the Cancer Institute. A separate trust was created to look after the temple and the land surrounding it. They reconstructed the temple making it larger. Shankar Subramaniam, a trustee and an early resident at Ramaniyam Sanjivani complex says they are all emotionally attached to the temple.
Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy is Adyar’s own wonder woman worth remembering for long. An appeal had been made by Women’s India Association (WIA) for the unveiling of a portrait of Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy in the Tamil Nadu assembly as the first woman legislator. We hope it will come to fruition soon.
The author Dr.Devika is a resident of Sastri Nagar and can be reached at [email protected].
