The dubashes never cease to amaze. A couple of weeks ago, a comment on my YouTube channel or my Insta feed asked me if I knew of Enugula Veeraswami, a Dubash of the East India Company, who went on a pilgrimage to Varanasi. I had never heard of such a person. I then searched online for references and came up with what I can only say is a treasure trove.
His life can be stated in brief as follows — born around 1780 or so, Veeraswami or Veeraswamiah, was the son of Enugula Samayya Mantri. Not much is known of the father beyond the fact that he died when his son was very young. Brought up by his mother (sadly like all Indian histories, there is no mention of her name), Veeraswami became proficient in English, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit by the age of 12, and was employed by the Board of Trade even at that age. He rose to become interpreter or Dubash to the Collector of Tirunelveli. By the age of 15, he was in Madras and over time became the head interpreter at the Supreme Court.
A resident of Tondiarpet, Veeraswami was a man of many charities, remembered in particular for the public kitchen he set up during a famine in Guntur during the 1830s. When he retired from service, the Company commended him for his work, and he was gifted a gold snuff box. A man of scholarly temperament, he was a close friend of Telugu lexicographer C.P. Brown. He was also very close to Komaliswaram Srinivasa Pillai, who was the biographer of Pachaiyappa Mudaliar and a pillar of his eponymous trust.
