On the Banks of the Tejaswini - K. Madhavan (An Autobiography)

At the very outset, let me express great pleasure on seeing my autobiography getting ready to don a new garb and face a wider audience. My life-narrative, originally written in Malayalam, attempted to show how in the wake of the nationalist movement, a sleepy and relatively obscure region of Malabar in Kerala woke up to the call of the Mahatma, shook off its languor and contributed in its own way towards the political independence of our country as well as the uplift of her downtrodden. I hope, in its English avatar, the book will strike a chord with its new readers and reveal that for all their uniqueness, my life-circumstances, struggles, triumphs and failures paradoxically mirror the experiences of countless other freedom fighters and social activists that synergistically shaped up a massive people's movement and won freedom for our motherland.

I was born in 1915 in the remote village of Kanhangad in Kasargode taluk situated in the northern end of Kerala. Until 1956, Kasargode taluk was part of the South Canara District under Madras Presidency. Though a large number of the inhabitants were Malayalis, the administrative languages in use were English and Kannada. Like all villages in the other parts of the country, those in Kasargode taluk were under the clutches of harsh feudal laws. But I was on the luckier side, born with a silver spoon in my mouth, as the son of the junior head of the influential landed family of Aechikkaanam.

**Contents and Sample Pages**