Dharmarajapuram

 

Dharmarajapuram is a scenic village ensconced amidst lush green paddy fields about a few hundred meters off a state highway from the state metropolitan capital to an adjoining district headquarter.

I first set foot in this village about two decades ago when I identified a piece of land by a village road to build a small house in the rural milieu. I decided to move to the rural countryside and enjoy the bounties of nature that that were on offer here. I could fancy myself enjoying a siesta, after a sumptuous meal, on a jute woven cot under the shade of a neem tree at a corner of a paddy field on a sunny day, with the afternoon breeze blowing in from the coast, about 25 miles away, as the crow flies.

The first few months breezed along and I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh paddy-scented air and the bountiful ground water pumped from the nearby barrage across the Kosasthalai that meanders down to the Bay of Bengal. Life was peaceful, time almost stood still and I often wondered why I hadn’t located this heaven earlier.

All that glitters is not gold. And so, I discovered in phases, over a considerable period of time, that all things nice and beautiful do come at a cost.

A couple of months passed by, when Santhan, a lad of about 20, an electrician, gave up his life, unable to reconcile himself to the consequences of conflicts within his parental family. He had helped me fix up the ceiling fans in my house.

Three more months later, Saraswathi, a young girl, just out of school, jumped down the barrage and ended her life when her family reprimanded her for failing in her public exams. This girl was very talkative and lively. She would prepare tea at her home and serve to the masons working at my place when my house was being built. I was dismayed that downtrodden youth in the village hardly value their life. They would rather teach a lesson to their parents at the cost of sacrificing their own lives.

The third quarter saw yet another life ebb away. This time, it was a young man, about 40 years of age. He was a clerk in the district magistrate court. He was given to drinking and succumbed to sclerosis of the liver.

Before the onset of the next calendar year, Sekhar, a plantain farmer living on the outskirts of the village, consumed a lethal insecticide, unable to bear the trauma resulting from his wife’s elopement with a distant relative. Sekhar was a modest farmer who used to frequent my home to supply plantains and banana at very economical prices. His youngest son, a high school student, died soon after, when a state transport bus accidentally ran over some students right in front of the school due to brake failure, in a neighbouring village. 

And so began a cycle of untimely deaths with unfailing regularity over all these years. Notable among them were Raghu Reddy, my neighbour who sold the land to me to build my house, the plough farmer Velan who used to anchor his pair of bulls (Kona Nandi & Kripa Nandi) in an open land adjacent to my place, Ponvannan, an ever-smiling old man who used to herd his cattle every day in and out of the village, Sanka Reddy, a cable TV agent who died when a truck ran over him on the highway near the village, his wife Ramadevi, who died of a sudden cardiac failure, Sitaram Reddy’s wife who had only a few months before been operated with total knee replacements, Madhavan, the owner of a local petty restaurant, Pugazhenthi, the local village sarpanch, Sudalaimuthu Konar, a small time poultry farmer and many more from the village folk.

The latest to hit the bucket was Khader Basha, who eked out a living by selling meat during weekends. On other days, he would be busy procuring the goats from Chittoor district or doing odd masonry jobs in and around the village. He was only about 53, suffering from many disorders, including diabetes and high blood pressure, brought about from years of alcohol abuse, besides a liberal use of tobacco, both in the form of fumes and its oral consumption.

Surprisingly, covid as a pandemic, hardly claimed a couple of lives in the village during the year 2020-21, when Dharmaraja seemed to have taken a respite here and looked to other directions to claim his victims.

The demography of Dharmarajapuram of about 800 odd people consists of Reddys (the caste Hindus), Konars, (small time farmers who also breed cows), Pillais (who used to maintain land records-but not anymore) and the downtrodden, who live in the outskirts of the village.

A recent conversation with Sitaram Reddy revealed something intriguing and mysterious. His narration ran thus…

 “Many decades ago, most of the land, predominantly leased out for agriculture in and around the village to landless labourers, were owned by a brahmin from Kancheepuram. He hailed from a lineage of priests who conducted daily pooja routines and managed a famous Vishnu temple in Kanchi.

Since most of his lands were not maintained by the landlord himself, but leased out to small farmers, he had failed to keep track of taxes that were payable and accruing on the lands. During the pre-independence era, the Kanakku-Pillais (Patwari/Karnam) were bestowed with authority and responsibility of administering the land, collecting land revenue and the maintenance of land records. This practice paradoxically and unintendedly endowed them with sky-high powers of determining title to land and property, which they often misused to usurp the assets on personal whims and fancies.

The then local Patwari in the village, Mani Pillai and his brother, Ranga Pillai were the administrators of land in and around the village. The former, was the elder of the two who turned out to be  unscrupulous and an usurper of others’ property by giving out the flimsiest of reasons for resorting to punitive actions.

Mani Pillai sent a notice to the landlord to pay up the taxes due on his property within a stipulated date, the notice being awfully short, giving the landlord only a couple of days to take any action in this regard, failing which the Pillai promised that all such land would be confiscated for consequent auction.

The landlord arrived at the village a week after the notice was received and to his utter shock and dismay, learnt that his land had purportedly been auctioned and that the proceeds of the assets were hardly sufficient to pay up the arrears of land revenue. The Patwari had usurped all his lands by transferring title in the name of his kith and kin.

Awestricken, dumbfounded and frustrated, the brahmin wailed uncontrollably, gradually turning his frustration to an act of retribution. Seething with anger, and under a state of extreme mental agony and utter stupefaction, he cursed Mani Pillai and his ilk, throwing up the soil from the wetlands as he left the village, that the Pillai’s family will completely disintegrate and face destruction of family lineage and and that they would no longer be able to enjoy the properties of the usurper and that all such farmers who buy such land from him will also face such destruction.

Mani Pillai's house now presents a picture of dilapidated ruins unoccupied since ages.

There is hardly any family in the village that does not own hereditary land or property in these surroundings!

Chronicles of Kancha Bhatta 1

It was a rather weird acquaintance when I first met Kancha Bhatta on a street near my office. I was on a stroll after a heavy meal with a colleague of mine on the road overlooking a lake in West Mango Town. He was a short wiry boy, fair complexioned with roving eyes. He struck up a conversation by asking me, "Sir, kuch kaam milega? I was nonplussed at this rather unconventional entreaty from a stranger. Not having the heart to ignore him, I asked him, "Kya kar paoge? Kahaan se aaye ho? He retorted, "Aap mujse kya karwana chahte hain? Main kuch bhi karoonga. Chai banane aur pilane se leke saamgri bechne tak, main kuch bhi kar sakta hoon aur taiyyar hoon. Main Mumbai mein bahot saal raha, ab us nagari ko chod chadkar, yahaan aa gaya hoon"

Not willing to trust him at the outset but to afford him an opportunity to re-establish in a place alien to his comfort, I asked him to come over to my office to work as an errand boy. I was, in fact, looking out for one after the previous incumbent called up one fine day to say, "Saar naan nintaen"! (Sir, I have left)

Next morning, he showed up and commenced his work in earnest. He impressed one and all by making fine ginger tea and serving the finely brewed concoction in a most pleasant manner. The finance manager, moving over to my table with a cup in hand quipped, "finally, we have found a great guy for an office boy". 

The same evening Kancha requested me to advance him a thousand rupees to send to his family in a neighbouring country, beyond the Siwalik range. Hesitating initially, I took a chance and obliged, though my colleague cautioned me against it. 

He was missing the next day and there was no way I could contact him. But he did turn up the subsequent day, and the next and everyday thereafter. That was the beginning of a long but tumultuous association of sorts that saw mood swings dime a dozen between him and me.

Having lived and grown up in the streets in Bombay of the nineties, he was well versed in the matters of the world (he calls it "Duniyadari") and knows enough to eke out a solitary living and send a few thousands to his dependents living far away in the hills right across the sacred Sharda.

Bhatta is a living encyclopedia on all matters connected with Bollywood, from Sohrab Modi's Sikandar-e-azam of 1965 to today's Sajid Nadiadwala's Sikandar. This illiterate from the hills can, with an elephant's memory, trace, for instance, the relationship between Ajay Devgn and Shobana Samarth or describe the entire family tree of the Kapoor family meticulously from Shamsa Kapoor (who is this?) to Shehenshah Akbar of Mughal-e-azam. He can even passionately describe the ethos and emotions that actually formed the backdrop of the relationship between Yousuf Khan and Mumtaz Begum Dehlavi behind the shooting of the magnum opus over the longest period a movie was ever shot in Bollywood. He had, in the past, clicked selfies with many Bollywood celebrities from Randhir Kapoor to Sallubhai. If they did not oblige, he was content clicking himself with "Jalsa" and "Aashirwaad" behind him. These formed his "testimonials" if you can call them some.

Recently, he got me to talk to Dharam paaji over his (Bhatta's) mobile. Dharam's personal aide is closely related to Bhatta. I was overwhelmed when the Sholay star blessed me," Jeete raho beta, khoob phoolo phalo"

One fine day, after a year of service at my home and office, Bhatta suddenly announced, "I want to go over to my native village for a month. I am homesick, would like to see my only daughter and wife and return when I get sick of my native"! I bid him goodbye and sent him on a fully paid vacation for a month. He was too impatient to have his tickets booked on train and convinced me that he is comfortable travelling on the wooden sleeper seats in the last bogies of the train to Delhi. He boarded an early morning mail at the central station hiding behind loads and loads of stuff he purchased a day before at the markets abounding near the railway station.

He called me after about 4 days to confirm that he has reached his village after changing several buses, jeeps and vehicles from Kashmere Gate, Banbasa, Attariya and Silghadi. 

A month passed and another two weeks. There were no calls from Bhatta. Then he called up a few more days later and demanded that I send him another month's "pagaar". I refused. He swore that he will never come back and that he was rathet happy boozing away his time at his village.

Yet another month later, he turned up at my door with his "bori and bistar" and announced "Tiger zinda hai"

Glimpse of a Life in Thopputhurai

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The tiled house on Draupadi Amman Koil Street, seemingly an extension of Sivan Koil South Street, close to the Amman temple and not far from Varadaraja Perumal temple, seemed to be at least a century old. The house located on a lane, opposite to the Model High School in Thopputhurai certainly has a wonder to behold.

A young lady welcomed us as we had comfortably perched ourselves on the pyol (thinnai) abutting the inner precincts of the house. She urged us to step into the inner hall (nadu kattu) through the corridor passage (raezhi) next to the open roof (mittam).

We seated ourselves on a large bench that was placed alongside a wall facing the kitchen (adukkalai) at the far end of the hall. Adjacent to us, were family and solo photographs of many members of the family and of the extended family that the house had witnessed, come and go, over the many decades of its existence.

A thin, frail and aged lady unaided by any support, walked into our midst from an adjoining room and looked intently at my mother for a few seconds and questioningly uttered, “Aren’t you my niece Janaki's daughter? I had last seen you during your marriage many years ago. Paavam, destiny did not permit my brother Kittu to live long enough to witness your wedding ceremony.”

Next, she transferred her gaze to me and remarked, “Your daughter resembles mapplai more than you”. She then pinched the cheeks of my two year old son and asked him, “Do you know who I am?”. My son moved his head from left to right and vice versa (to indicate his ignorance). The old lady remarked, “Subbulakshmi da Subbulaskhmi, your Ellu Paati (great-great-grand-mother)

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A colleague of mine, (quoted above) with her family members had been on a short trip to Vedaranyam to pay annual obeisance to her family deity. This town is not far from the coastal tip at Point Calimere where the Salt Satyagraha yatra from Trichy was concluded by Rajaji. Vedaranyam derives its name from Vedaranyeswarar temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, that was built during the reign of Aditya Chola (871-907 CE). The legend has it that the temple was closed for worship by the Gods and it was the Tamil poet saints, Appar and Tirugnanasambandar who sang peans to the Lord in order to open and close the temple door for the benefit  of the mortals.

Having fulfilled the purpose of her visit, she, with her family hailed an auto rickshaw to visit a relative’s home in Thopputhurai, a sleepy neighbourhood village, few miles from Vedaranyam,

Subbulakshmi is 105 years old and has been a witness to about eight generations of her lineal family from her grand parents to her great great-grand children. She is active enough to manage her personal daily chores sans any assistance from anybody else in the household. She doesn’t even use a walking stick. Though beset with some hearing loss, she is active enough to cut vegetables for her great grand-daughter, watch the television and pass cryptic comments, read the newspaper daily, walk out to the pyol by the street to chat with the neighbours and visitors or bargain with the vegetable vendor. She still manages the household by keeping a tight leash on the finances.

The family gathered about a decade ago at the ancestral house to perform Subbulakshmi’s Kanakabishekam. (an auspicious ceremony conducted in a family where a 4th generation great-grandson performs the event for the first generation of his great-grand father/great-grand mother). It was a grand affair with most of the relatives attending the function.

 

Subbulakshmi hasn’t travelled beyond Nagapattinam, the district headquarters of Vedaranyam taluk, yet she is seized of most political, social, economic and other matters affecting the state and the Nation.

Subbulakshmi experiences each passing day to live her moments, cherishing every minute of her life and looks forward to many more years of happy, joyous living and a meaningful existence.

PS: Subbulakshmi passed away at her home in Thopputhurai in the early hours on 7th April'2025

Chella's Chronicles (Concluded)

 

The large spatial rural home in the paddy rich district not far from the metropolis wore a forlorn and desolate look. The little Vinayak temple under the verdant shade of the peepul tree opposite the house also looked deserted though it was the fourth day since the full moon had brightened up the night sky. The occasional passer-by cast his glance into the house out of sheer curiosity. Clouds gathered up on the eastern horizon, threatening to burst open any time, promising a bountiful downpour. A little away from the house, across the village road, within calling distance from the temple, a group of women were busy in the wetlands, bending over to embed tufts of paddy grass into the clayey soil. A raft of ducks and about a dozen cranes in the adjoining fields were scouring the watered fields for insects and worms. The occasional chirping of birds, the desperate squeaking of squirrels chasing one another along the trunk of a coconut tree and the ‘tok-tok’ sound of a woodpecker piercing into the bark of a tree some distance away were an ethereal orchestra for the only activity in the fields.

The walls inside the house seemed lifeless and soulless for the last couple of days. Every part of the house bore an aura of burnt dung, twigs and various grains that were offered as oblation to the ceremonial fire lit up to cleanse the home after a plethora of rituals were performed in and around the house. At a corner of the drawing room, facing south, hung the portrait of an aged persona with a composed countenance that neither betrayed a smile nor was grim or meditative nor bore an austere look. Her expression probably hinted at some deep sorrow coupled with an innocence that could melt a merciful heart.

Only a few days ago, the house was agog with activities with close and distant relatives of Chella moving in and out, being busy with customary rituals and solemn rites through the day. Chella’s soul quit her mortal remains about two weeks ago after putting up a valiant fight against respiratory challenges that plagued her for a long time, thanks to her being a victim of passive smoking for years together since her father decided to get rid of her seemingly destined solitude by marrying her off to a junior officer from the military. His basket of monthly purchase of provisions wasn’t complete without a carton of yellowish ‘Charminar’ boxes from VST Industries.

The long term ‘investment’ in such cartons finally rewarded him with a malignancy in his oesophagus three decades later. He predeceased Chella by more than two decades and a half.

From Pathankot to Adampur, Jullunder, Ambala and Cuttack, she saw herself transported from place to place along with her difficult husband until the latter decided to drop sheet anchor at a public sector unit somewhere in the midst of the Eastern Ghats. In the process she bore him two sons, one of who would later retire as a banker during the year of her final adieu. The other, a maverick, would later end up leading a nondescript life in a remote village ‘not far from the metropolis’, whilst trying to bite more than he could chew during his prime, dabbling in multiple callings, one after another, all in vain.

 After her children flew from the nest during her mid-fifties, she was left all alone and decided to live her life in solitude in a modest flat purchased by the airman when he retired from service. About a decade later, she developed arthritis in her joints and struggled to continue to lead an independent solitary life, whence her maverick son forcibly took her to his nuclear family home. Having led a fiercely independent life for more than a decade, Chella struggled to get along with the family. That was when the maveric decided to domicile her in a remote village home, ‘not far from the metropolis’ with a lady cook-cum caretaker for assistance.

The two decades that followed were probably the most peaceful of times for Chella, whence she not only was comfortably ensconced in a quaint village home with an abundant supply of water and fresh paddy scented air, but also had adequate help at hand to handle all household chores, with she having very little work to do, save manage the household with the house help and the occasional casual help from the rural populace. The Kosasthalai river flows down the bridge close to the home, as the crow flies, about five hundred meters away. It was a tranquil existence sans noise or disturbance of any sort except when her grandchild and the great grandchildren gathered during festive occasions at the village home.

But all nice things and happy times do come to an end. A year after the advent of covid,  Chella fell on her way to the rest room a couple of times and ended up with weaker bones and a convexly curved up spine. She was thenceforth, confined to the wheel chair, constraining to depend upon her caretaker or son to do her daily routines, much to her consternation and dismay. But Chella reconciled herself with destiny, as days passed by.

Despite the setbacks to her physical abilities and health, Chella looked forward to every new morning with hope and expectation merely to pass the day off serenely with some food and coffee. She relished them and wanted nothing more from life. Not a whimper, sans a word of complaint or any expression of discomfort or pain, despite going through physical agony, escaped her lips. She bore them all nonchalantly with poise and quiet.

So it was sometime during the advent of the month whence annual offerings and obeisance are made to the manes, when Chella suddenly took ill resulting in difficult breathing with respiratory complications. She had, about a few years back, been diagnosed for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. As she aged, the disease took its toll on her health. At the very end of the autumnal calendar month, when she was past 84, Chella gave up a valiant fight against the messengers of Sarvabhutakshaya, who then prodded her to embark on the most difficult journey across the dreaded Vaitarani.