Brahmins of Chelakkara Village

Brahmins  of Chelakkara  Village

By

P.R..Ramchander

Though  you  see Puthucode (An agraharam  with nearly 400  houses)  in my surname, I actually  belong to a village  called  Chelakkara. (my grand father migrated  to that village) Chelakkara  means  “Pretty  Valley”  It had 120 otha madams (compounds) arranged  all around a Narasimha  Murthy   temple  belonging  to a Nambudiri  family,

   When I was  young kid(7 years old) most of the  Brahmins of the village    were   very poor. There   were   only  3-4   rich houses, Most of the people   were  cooks and   running  hotels  in different cities.

There  were a few middle class people   running commercial establishments

Provision stores 2

Ayurvedic Vaidhyan 1

Vessel merchant  1

Institute   teaching typing  1

Cloth store   1

Stationary  shop   with  agency for   magazines 1

Cinema theatre  1

Coffee  powder  shop 1

Rice  polishing mill 1

    There were two families of priests , 3 or  4 cooks and two  astrologers

Among the rich people  one was the Principal of the biggest college in Travancore state, His son was  head of department of mathematics  in  Private  college in Trichur, one who was secretary  in  the ministry  of shipping and transport, another  Joint secretary  of ministry of Petroleum, Assistant Director of Public Health of Tamil Nadu, A retired  Vertinary surgeon, one a retired Doctor from Army.There   was highly paid  employee  in one of Bangalore  public sector undertaking , one professor  in Indian institute  of science

    There were  also few  rich land lords..Few peopled had  retired as clerks  in Mumbai  and had one back. One widow’s son in law   was the secretary  of  Maharaja  of Patila.

When I was about 10  , every year  10-15 people   studied typing and went to Mumbai  and got employment as clerks/stenographers  and almost all families  lived  out of the money  sent by them, Some of them went to Calcutta  because there  was a highly paid employee  in Remington there  who helped people of his native place.Since there  was no college  in Chelakkara,  from poor families  very few  graduated,

   When  I completed  my post graduation , from the poor families  I was one of the very few to do so .

Suddenly  opportunities  in middle east  opened up .Large  number of children of chelakkara  clerks went to the middle east and their parents did not come back for living in chelakkara.. Two families  in Chelakkara   started  doing  Kadugu mangai business ,Interstingly thefamous thangam pickles  are also from Chelakkara.

  The children of the employed middle class  families started  studying . Now a days   very large  number  of well employed  people   are from this village

  Today  I came across  one of them. After  graduating from IIT , he went  to Harward   to study international law. About 1`5 years  back he met me and told that he would practice law but  wants to study Vedas. He  went to Benares  and studied Vedas. When I knew him , he was  teaching  Vedic applications  in science  and engineering .Today my another  friend informed  me that , he  is now a topmost lawyer in arbitration matters. He runs a Veda patashala at Chennai and a goshala near aarkonam and is  deeply involved in Vedic promotion.(Om Charitable trust )