The story began in 1946 when the sun was starting to set on the British Empire. That year, happiness rent the air in a hamlet in Ladanendal, a village in Sivaganga, Tamil Nadu. A young couple, Police Constable M Veeramahali and his Sri-Lankan wife V Velammal, gave birth to their eldest son, M V Muthuramalingam (aka Muthu). He was their bundle of joy.

Alas, in 1953, as destiny would have it, the spark went out of Velammal’s life. The cop she married turned out to be a chronic alcoholic and years of excessively drinking affected his health. He died of the consequent medical complications when he was just 27 years old. The situation left Velammal to fend for her, along with her three children aged 7, 5 and 1. “When my father died, my Periappa and Periamma refused to give us our share of the property, as they were worried my mother, who was both young and good-looking might remarry. In grief, we shifted to my grand mother’s house.”

We will get to more of that later.

The Ladanendal-lad was never a scholar. In fact, he failed his school leaving examination. There is a backstory to it. Students who intend to do engineering choose ‘composite mathematics,’ while those who aspire either for medicine or arts or science select the more straightforward ‘general mathematics.’ Muthu decided on ‘composite mathematics,’ and promptly failed in the paper! Because he had passed every other subject, the passing mark for mathematics was only 25. He got two marks less, 23, and lost one full year in the bargain.

“But when I failed, I did not lose heart. That very evening Muthu went for a movie, Kakkum Karangal.” It was a moving tale of a widow who struggles to raise her only son. Later, the son becomes a famous surgeon and marries a wealthy girl. It ignited in Muthu’s heart the desire to strike it big. “I did not sit idling or sulking at home, and wanted to move on. I asked my mother to buy me a couple of buffalos. Of course, she refused. I approached a milk vendor and bought them paying Rs 10,000: a huge sum those days. It was my first exercise in business! And I did reasonably well.”