Sivabhogam Ramaswamy

At Wimbledon, on Tuesday, July 23, 1907, Australasia beat British Isles 3-2 in a cliffhanger to lift the Davis Cup.

A good 5,330 miles away, in Angarai, Tiruchirapalli, then a part of British India, a seventh and last baby was born into a middle-class home. She was named Sivabhogam. Patriarch A H Ramaswamy Iyer and his wife Annapoorani would have loved to have a boy, but the Gods didn’t work that way. However, one day in the future, Sivabhogam would walk into history, becoming the first Indian woman chartered accountant. Its significance is not lost on anyone who realizes that the literacy rate among women in Angarai as per the 2011 census is a paltry 39.5 percent

Seven years later, to the date, on July 23, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire delivered an ultimatum to the Serbian foreign ministry. As per the terms of the warning, the Serbian government must accept an external inquiry into the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Serbia was to suppress all anti-Austrian propaganda. The failure to comply with the order lead to the calamitous First World War. Also in 1914, in far away Madras, the Queen Mary’s College was established, which is where Sivabhogam would graduate. At that time, India was at loggerheads with Britain, fighting for her self-determination. The seven-year-old, a latter-day disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, was confused since her country was also a part of the Axis power, lead by Britain!

Sivabhogam stayed at the Lady Willington Hostel in Chennai. Here she came into touch with Sister R S Subbalakshmi who became a significant influence in her life. The training in Indian tradition and culture that Subbalakshmi infused motivated Sivabhogam to become a freedom fighter.

The Sister, originally called Akka (South Indian lingo for ‘Sister’), did pioneering social work. The first Hindu woman graduate, Subbalakshmi grew up in an era when girls were pushed into marriage early, and should their husbands die, they had to tonsure their head, wear white saris, live on one meal, and forbidden from attending festivals. Herself a child widow, Akka passed her Matriculation with honors, won two gold medals in her FA and graduated from Presidency College with a First Class. She spent the rest of her life working to make widows independent, self-supporting, and useful.

For her graduation, the diminutive Sivabhogam chose the then famous Queen Mary’s College (QMC). A government-run institution, it is the second oldest college in south India after Sarah Tucker. The college played a crucial role in women’s education and empowerment. Sivabhogam’s time at college, like that of most Indians of her generation, was marked by a fervent zeal for India’s independence.