About:Unique Life of Karthikeyan Ramchel: My Grandma/Mom Home @ Virudhunagar

It was like a trip down the memory lane. Yes after long years I visited my Grandma/Mom's village Rosalpatti at Virudhunagar. I think Rosalpatti would soon become part of the bigger city Virudhunagar after the rapid industrialization around the area and would no more able hold the status of village. This is good for the people around the area but bad for people like me which is very painful to see the memories associated with the place fading away very quickly.

In places of mud houses and vegetation lands, now stands the concrete structures which makes some kind of goods for the consumption of people who resides somewhere far out of the place at the cost of the individuality of a place which was terrible according to me.

Now after many years, visiting my native place has left me with another set of memories which I will treasure for many years to come. In absence of physical presence of my grandma and mom in this world, visiting a place where they lived their major part of life is always a never miss event for me. For me next to my mom and dad, the person who I love most is my mom's grandma. I remember those holidays whether its quarterly or half yearly or year end holiday I used to visit my grandma the next day of the last exam and stays there for whole holiday session and only my mom and dad knows how tough its to get me back to my school. To my support is my grandma who usually extends my stay by recommending leave for few more days for me.

It was fun staying in my grandma/mom home with those couple of sheeps, three cows, one calf, nearly 15 chickens/hens, couple of cats(one owned by me and another by my sister but both of use don't take care of it. my grandma looked after them and now one of the cat is missing. I donno whose one is missing as we couldn't identify the now grown up cats which is nothing short of a forest cat size), a dog, lots of land(includes the well irrigated land which is called as 'thottam' by locals and dry black soil land which is based on the rain) and a tractor.

I used to get up by the smell of famous "narasus" coffee made up with fresh milk from our cows and hearing the sweet early morning sounds of birds which stays in the huge banyan tree right next to our home. Hmmm never going to get that again.

Here are the pictures I took from my recent trip,

Picture of Virudhunagar old bus stand... Virudhunagar is birth place of very famous Indian leader Kamarajar former CM of Tamilnadu and key in getting the Indira Gandhi to Indian Prime Minister post amidst the 70's political crisis and got the name as "King maker". I'm proud to be linked to this place.

Another picture of the Virudhunagar bus terminus...

Entrance to my Grandma/Mom home... this is currently occupied by my grandma's sister who is also my one of my most favorite...

A now dilapidated home which was once used as connection between two homes...

A now fractured kitchen... here only my grandma used to make me sweet 'paniyaram'( a sweet hot flour cake roasted in oil) whenever I come here in holidays...

My another grandma(my grandma's sister).... In the shelf she is looking, you can find lots of palm leaves which has some inscriptions and she never allowed me touch that... reason she says is whoever holds that other than their owner never lived a successful life... hmmm what a nice way of safeguarding..

Front side of the my grandma home... its now renovated...

The huge banyan tree I was referring previously.. this was planted by my ancestors...

A scene in front of the old home where my another grandma lives now...

A look at the inside structure of the old home...

The banyan tree, which is home to hundreds of birds... I remember climbing up the tree to catch the parrots in which i was unsuccessful at all my attempts..

A pond behind the tree... seems needs this big water storage for its growth...

A front side of now renovated grandma home...

A small garden in making....

A beautiful home named after my grandma 'Venkata-ramanajum-ammal'...

This is a picture of our well irrigated land which is now left uncared...

A look at that village's most active junction ;)

A hand pump... We take water from this place whenever water become very scarce.. mostly during summer times...

A way which leads to the agri land which we owned until some year before... the place has completely changed now... no trace of any agri activities... I used to pick brinjal, tomato and bring to this place to load into the tractor to get those to market place called as "sandhai" by locals...

A locals game...

My aunts home in the same village in another side...

A land left without any care which once was busy with agri...

My granddad's home... surprised at why my grandma and granddad's home are different??? it is indeed different.. my grandad was married to two... my grandma and another one is none other than my grandma's another sister(not the one who is in one of the picture)... its typical custom they used to follow.. and weird reason I got from my grandma when I asked her is "to save the wealth from dividing to many hands".. but it makes sense since India is overwhelmed with dowry system and many daughters means dividing lands to many son-in-laws...