Passage 1: [747 words]I was born into a middle-class Tamil family in the island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhileMadras state. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much formal education nor much wealth;despite these disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit. Hehad an ideal helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall the exact number of people shefed every day, but I am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with us than all the members ofour own family put together.My parents were widely regarded as an ideal couple. My mother's lineage was the moredistinguished, one of her forebears having been bestowed the title of ‘Bahadur' by the British. Iwas one of many children—a short boy with rather undistinguished looks, born to tall andhandsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house, which was built in the middle of the 19thcentury. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street inRameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all inessential comforts and luxuries. However, allnecessities were provided for, in terms of food, medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say minewas a very secure childhood, both materially and emotionally.​