My village and me

Chelakkara , the village to which I belong is in the Thalapilly thaluq of Trichur district , Kerala. It is a valley , which is fertile, pretty and rich. I am Tail speaking Kerala Iyer and we iyers used to live in Chelakkara Grammam. Though an agraharam, it was independent houses (called Otha Madam) . There used to be more than 100 iyer houses. These houses were bought or perhaps usurped by the Iyers from the Nairs of that area. My father was able to reel out names of the original Nair houses for each Iyer house. Most of the iyers of Chelakkara were abysymally poor. One of the iyers of Chelakkara fondly called "Institute Ramachandran" used to run a commercial institute to teach Short hand and typing. Equipped with this knowledge , iyers of Chelakkara used to reach Mumbai and get employment there. Another iyer belonging to Chelakkara used to run a hotel in Mumbai and he used to give lodging and boarding to these youngsters. Once employed, they all used to send monthly remittances to their parents. Slowly the poor iyer village vanished. Most of them preferred to settle down in Mumbai.
Chelakkara was a cosmoplitan village , those days. It has Tamil speaking Muslims called Rauthars in Pathu Kudi, Telugu speaking Nayakkars in Naykaa koodaram(they were expert well diggers), Tamil speaking Chettiars in Chetti Theruvu, a sprinkling of Kannada speaking Embranthiris besides, the huge malayalam population belonging to several castes. Dr.Anthony an LMP was the God to those living in Chelakkara village. Initially posted as a doctor in the Primary health Center, he adopted the village. He helped each and every house of Chelakkara by treating them initially free , and taking money when they got it.I hope to continue this blog , yet another day.