Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/250

 not yet been overthrown and the British were still fighting for recognition as the paramount power, whereas to-day, an Indian Prince has taken part in the Imperial Council with the representatives of Overseas Dominions, and an Indian who had sat in the House where Burke had pleaded and protested on behalf of India has gone to his rest, having almost continued the work of Burke as a born native of this country. The name of another Indian has gone into the history of an enfranchised British Colony. Nevertheless, this vast period is between the birth of the father and the life-time of the son who is the subject of this narration. We have been, as English-educated" section, so much accustomed to measure time only by European events and Anglo-Indian achievements that these seem to have driven a wedge between our own period and that of our predecessors, and nothing seems to exist to our vision on the opposite side of the wedge.

Sir Subramanya Aiyar's father was a man of no mean powers of accomplishment in his own day in his native district of Madura. He was known by the name of "Suravally" "Whirlpool" Subbaiyar, an appellation in