My recollection of the people of my village 70 years back

My recollection of  the people of my village  70 years back

By

P.R.Ramachander  of Chelakkara

Through my write up about Pulakkottu  madam  , I renewed my contacts with some  of the people of  Pulakkottu  madams

   Then I thought , why not I write  about the people  my village  Gramam(Agraharam) .There was a problem with that  , In my 80 years of life , I have  stayed  in my village  only for 3-4 years. I have forgotten most  of the mamas(70 years back ) of my village. Then I thought  , recollect some  of the prominent ones

    There  were nearly 120  houses in the village . (when some auspicious function takes place in any house , they will break 108 coconuts before Ganapathy  and distribute one coconut per home in my village. We used to get 2 or 3 coconuts free per month) Two of the families  had migrated  from Ayilur (Chami  Vadhyar  and station Master) Two families had migrated  from Puthucode(Mine and that  of Anantha rama sastrigal).There was one family   from Pazhambalacode. AS I had mentioned in my earlier write up about 5-6 families  had settled  there from Pulacode  Many teachers who retired  from the local  Government  school  as well as government servants   who retired  in chelakkara preferred to settle there. I remember PRP meshu, Venkidachala iyer , Uruli mesh  , Yettan mesh, viswanatha iyer , Revenue  inspector, anchal  meshu, station meshu , Vaidhyan Narasimha iyer  from Kuzhal mannam   etc. one Ayyan satrigal  who was a Sanskrit teacher(I do not know his original village) had settled there. His  home was in the shore of our kulam.His home was called Kulangara  madam., There was one family  who had migrated from Kambangudi. The peculiarity of these families  were   that they  did not have  relations  in chelakkara.  

    There were  few who were not tamil Brahmins  .Embranthiri, Psharodi  , Pappada karan, Chelkkan  etc were   some oif them

     Before 80 years  the number  of educated  families were very few. Most interestingly   two  were graduates  but preferred  to run a shop in chelakkara. Some of them were   school teachers  in local  village schools. There were two astrologer families, I remember  few families who  had come back after  retirement  .One of  them was  Kasi viicha Vaitha mama  .Most of the  of the venkam pattar family, the  vaidhyanathan konthai family  the Yettayakottu   family and  Mruga vaidhyan family  were educated even at that time

  Two brahmins were running  grocery shops  in the village one  kada Rasa and another  Venkatraman(he was an iyengar  and went away) I knew  6 people who had shops in Angadi  ,There was  a vaidhyan  Krishnan from gramam  who was practicing  in Angadi . His younger brother was running a typewriting short hand institute. There was a stationary shop owner who was agent for Hindu, a cloth merchant , vessel merchant., a coffee powder shop owner who later  started  a pickles factory  in the village, Strangely there was a Mama who built a Pukkah  building Cinema theatre  in the gramam.There  were two professional cooks and one retired nurse.

   Most  of the chelakkara  families were vadamas   but there  were few Brihathcharanam also.There was a person called  Kutti Krishnan Karnor(I do not know much about him)  and there  was a person called  Kanakezhuthu  Shivaraman who used to keep accounts  in another Brahmin house .

  Large amount of migration took place from Chelaklkara .There is a Chelakkara  Welfare  association in Mumbai   who rent a marriage hall one day in every year and all members  with their family spend 24 hours there. There is a chelakkara  Friends  Association in Palghat,The descendents of Chami  Vadhyar family are running thefamous Thangam Pickles in Palghat

  My googfle search revealed that there  was famous artist from chelalakkara  in a  cheriya gramam , Chelakara .I neither recollect cheriya gramam   nor any artist  in Chelakkara  (  http://wikimapia.org/17736941/Artist-Anantharama-Iyer )