An impressive political speaker, Dr.Veeramani had his fledging oratory training through his teacher Dravida Mani who conducted free coaching classes after

Mr. Dravida Mani (Teacher)

school. Classes were conducted at the ‘Ramalinga Bhaktha Janasabhai’ Library, where students got to read thought provoking dailies and periodicals such as Kudi Arasu, Dravida Nadu etc. Dr.Veeramani’s embryonic reformative ideas got their first streak of light during these classes conducted by his teacher.

During those days, political party meetings were very active and were filled with merry activities such as flag march  and singing in order to gather crowd. On the flip side, there were also agitations and commotions from the opposition parties that were intended towards ruining the meetings.  Dr.Veeramani’s elder brother K. Govindarasan narrated an incident that happened during one of Periyar’s meetings held in Cuddalore in the year 1938. The details of the incident even got published in “Kudiarasu” the same year. This incident made a profound impact in the mind of young Veeramani towards fighting against social injustice.

Perumal Naidu was a popular businessman in Cuddalore, who was deeply in awe with Periyar’s rationalist thoughts. Accepting Perumal Naidu’s invitation Thanthai Periyar conducted his daughter’s ‘self–respect’ marriage, which shunned dowry and other religious discriminatory practices. Later that evening a meeting was held at O.T.,, Cuddalore. To cause chaos during the meeting, a few miscreants chased pigs among the crowd and threw faeces stuffed egg shells at Thanthai Periyar who was giving a speech then. Inspite of the disturbance and the foul smell, Thanthai Periyar went on with his speech, unperturbed. In fact, he added more fire to his speech and inspired the gathering. Awe struck by this unrelenting courage, Govindarasan was instantly impressed by Thanthai Periyar’s fiery speech and so were the others.

In the later days, all such oppressions, embarrassments and riots became part of Dr.Veeramani’s political life too. But they helped him lay a strong foundation for the reformist’s path towards rationalism and development.