Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

Noticing it, Bhagavan said, “Yes. That is right. Will not people
criticise adversely if Jagadeeswara Sastri’s son, a bachelor living
in a Gurukula (the house of a Guru), has an unbecoming hair
style?”
In 1943, Gurram Subbaramayya Garu came here with
his daughter of five or six years of age. As you know, she had
no mother. Noticing that she had a plait of hair on either side
of her head, Bhagavan remarked, “What child! Only two
plaits? Why not have two more in front and two in the centre
of the head?” So saying Bhagavan laughed. Bhagavan had
passed similar remarks before whenever he saw other children
dressed up like this. Now this child felt ashamed, came to me,
got her hair done into a single plait and went to Bhagavan.

Smiling at it and saying it was good, Bhagavan told her father,
“Look, European ladies who come here, wear sarees, tie their
hair in a plait and put some flowers in it and thus try to appear
like our ladies, while our people try to adopt their style. What
to do?”
Sometime in 1943-44, a European by name Mr. McIver
used to live here; on a Dipavali day, he wore a Salem silk-
bordered dhoti in the orthodox style, covered the upper
portion of his body with a similar cloth, prostrated before
Bhagavan, put on his forehead holy ashes and kumkum, went
out of the hall and sat there with closed eyes in padmasana
style. Bhagavan began smiling to himself, looking at him
through the window. Meanwhile Rajagopala Iyer came into
the hall, whereupon Bhagavan, laughing loudly, exclaimed,
“Look at that. McIver Sastri has come here. There he is,
sitting over there. Really, if anyone were to see him now,
could they say he was not a Sastri? While all of you put on
suits and boots, instead of wearing dhoties, he dressed himself
up like a Sastri. The only thing that is wanting now is the
sacred thread. As our people are discarding even that, there
is no difficulty even on that score now. Look at him!”
Whenever Bhagavan speaks to native Indians, he
normally talks to them in their own language, namely Tamil,
Telugu or Malayalam, but never in English. Even though
they know this, some of our young men put their questions
to Bhagavan in English. Sometimes, there will be nobody to
translate or the translation will be found difficult. If on such
occasions, we enquire why those people could not put their
questions in their own language, Bhagavan would say, “You
want to know why they ask me in English? That is because
they want to test Bhagavan. They have gained some
knowledge of the English language. Should not all people
know about it? Not only that, they sincerely believe that their
language is no good for such an important matter. The
infatuation for that language makes them feel like that. Poor
people! What can they do?”