Fun Saturday Morning at Tarakkad
The post below is a reproduction of the Notes I wrote up in late June 2007 after a visit to our ancestral family home in Trakkad, a large TamBrahm village in the heart of Palghat town.
Sometime in mid to late 2004 we attended the wedding of my cousin Rajan's son, held in Palghat - a lovely occasion when many cousins from my maternal family were present as also my sister Shobha or Shobhi with her husband & son. She had also brought along my father who was staying with them in Coimbatore.
On the morning of the wedding father took Vasumathi & I round Palghat - a city he had been to college in - & also showed us our ancestral home in Palghat.I had, until then, been unaware that such a house still stands in place. We had little time & did not go in - I took some snaps & it was then back to the wedding.
On a subsequent 2007 visit to Palghat I had the time to revisit the house & talk to the residents. The Notes I made then (from immediately below & up to the sub-heading Epilogue/Sequel) are reproduced below.
The thought in publishing these Notes has been that - with the passing of generations - authentic sources of any family's history are increasingly fading from memory though they are not only so valuable but such fun too! This post should help in ensuring that @ least some aspects of the family annals are preserved from falling into oblivion.
Let us recall the lines from Troilus & Cressida & then I will take up the story :
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: .... .... ....
The Visit or Visitation
My friend & class-mate Rohinton Cursetji & I visited Ottapalam near Palghat in June 2007, to attend the wedding of another friend/classmate's daughter. This was on the 22nd of June 2007.
The next day saw quite a bit of action as we first went to see Kalpathy in Palghat, a large Pattar village (Pattar being the colloquial Kerala term for Tamil Brahmins settled in the state for centuries), clean & immaculate as the other Pattar villages, only much the biggest.
The Old Family Home - Tarakkad
Then Rohinton & I drove round to the nearby & equally big Pattar village of Tarakkad where, in 2004, father had shown me & Vasumathi the ancestral house of our Trikkavu, Ponnani family. It is on Shivan Kovil Street, at the top of & slightly to the left of a T junction on the street i.e. on the top bar of the T where the street running up from the Simhanadha Bhagavathi temple meets it.
This is the house my paternal great- great-great grandfather Peria Narayana Pattar (PNP) had, perforce, to sell in about 1825 upon his move to Ponnani some 55 miles to the northwest. According to father, the move had become necessary as PNP had guaranteed someone's loan &, when the guarantee was enforced, the house went. And his timber business too had to be liquidated.
The house is a middle-of-terrace house (as they all are in the Palghat Brahmin gramams or settlements) since sub-divided or partitioned into 3 houses, each of which, by itself, is a modest structure perhaps some 1200- 1300 sq feet in area. But, all 3 taken together, the undivided house is an impressive structure of about 4- 5000 sq feet + though the architecture is similar to the other gramam houses i.e a carry-over from Tanjore villages.
Well, I thought it wise to ask for permission before shooting pictures lest there be any objections. And there was a schoolboy inside the verandah and, along with him, a young girl of about 19 or 20 who was his sister. She insisted we step in, which we did. Little did I realize then that it was a defining moment of the trip for me, for I crossed the threshold in more senses than the literal. It was fast- forward to the past from thereon.
7/163 Shivan Kovil Street, Tarakkad - my 1st photo of the ancestral home. Note how it has been partitioned into 3 portions & also the Tulsi Maadom or masonry housing for a Tulsi plant @ right.
Meeting the Family of the House
Her name was Gayatri & she was quite good-looking & fair, a college student. When I explained that I had reason to believe that my family owned the property a long time ago, she told me what she knew of its provenance in her family - this being that her grandfather's grandfather had acquired the property a long time back and that the conversion or division into 3 separate dwellings was undertaken only late in the life of this 2 x great-grandfather.
This was most interesting, for it seemed to corroborate my hunch that perhaps the house was a single, undivided property in PNP's time. She went on to say that she will get her (paternal) grandfather to join the proceedings as he could surely tell me a lot more about it all. At precisely which moment, & as if on cue, that worthy stepped out on to the verandah dressed in a very wet towel! He had obviously just come out of the bath &had wanted to find out what was going on out in the front of the house.
But, when the purpose of my visit was explained, he quickly went in and reappeared a moment later dressed in a mundu. He asked about my background, wanted to know my father's name & proudly confessed that he shares the name with father, it, however, being T.S.Venkatachala Iyer in his case. He spoke good English, though most of our conversation was naturally in Tamil, & revealed he was 89 years old. He is quite a sprightly and healthy 89, very fair & I could see how young Gayatri came to be so fair herself.
T.S.Venkatachala Iyer - a handsome fellow @ 89 (in 2007)
The History of the House : the Changes in Ownership
Let us get back to the story. Venkatachala Iyer said his paternal grandfather was one T.S.Mahadeva Iyer &, given that VI is 89, I guess TSM was born sometime around 1850. T.S.Mahadeva Iyer bought this house over 100 years back from a man who was in debt & who, therefore, had to sell the property. Venkatachala Iyer said the debt was about Rs 6000 which must have been a not insubstantial sum for those days i.e. before or around the turn of the century. The property was divided into 3 dwellings somewhat late in Mahadeva Iyer's life as he had three sons and a daughter. So a division became necessary, for in those days people did not migrate beyond Palghat as has been the case since the late 1930's & 40's.
When I recounted my exploits in Palghat to Vasumathi she, who misses no historical detail howsoever slight, reminded me that father had indeed said, while showing us the property in 2004, that the house had changed hands again after PNP's (great-great-great grandfather's) time, that the name of the buyer was said to be Mahadeva Iyer & that the seller was reportedly in debt & the sale thus induced.
Very interesting that the successive owners of the house had fallen into debt. And it is gratifying to know that father's account of the house's provenance is now confirmed. Father had said his grandfather (my great grandfather & PNP's grandson) had related this background to him & that father had been shown the house by him when they visited Palghat once. So, there we have it, the validation of our family's account of the property and its fortunes. But there is more to come.
Shivan Kovil Street, Tarakkad - note the T-junction @ right & the Tulsi Maadom. The ancestral house itself is just to the left but out of the frame.
An Interesting & Piquant Conversational Joust
Now, Venkatachala Iyer said I must meet his elder sister, Rashamma, who could tell me a lot more about the property & I was naturally keen to see her. Because women usually have more interest than men in such matters & I expected she could give me a few rare nuggets. Also, ever the keen student of anthropology, I was by now looking for a little more insight concerning this family i.e. Venkatachala Iyer's (VI) family.
Which left me unprepared for the unexpected turn the conversation with her took & the old lady's acute & astute recall of my own mother's family.
I was led inside the house & we passed through a fair-sized hall or koodam into the central courtyard, thazhvaram or mittham, which is enclosed by roofed passages on all 4 sides with the courtyard itself open to the sky. There, sitting under the eaves surrounding the open central space, was an old lady dressed in a nightie or full-length frock. She was sitting on a bench & was introduced as VI's elder sister, all of 95 years old, a remarkably perky & cheerful looking 95.
She announced that she was 95 & that she spends most of her time sitting in this roofed passage skirting the courtyard. She had just had her 2nd coffee of the morning – " Ippa thaan rendam kafi kudicchane". And then she went on to say that she has a daughter, a medico, living in the UK with her husband Gopalan, a retired engineer.
Rashamma
The old lady, Rashamma, had been to Singapore, Canada, Scotland & London – wherever the daughter has lived but she has decided to travel no more as it is too cold in Dundee, Scotland where the daughter now lives.
And then she got down to business, asking me where my family comes from. The mention of Trikkavu in Ponnani - my paternal family base - brought forth questions about whether I knew Eashwaran & the P G Parameshwara Iyer family. I was not sure about the 1st named but I said my cousin Usha - from my maternal family of Thoppil Matom in Parur - is married to the eponymous grandson of PGP, now the head of the family & living in Palghat. I added that my aunt Chellamani, Usha's mother, also lives in Palghat now, not with Usha but in her own house. At this the old lady really got going.
Rashamma seemed to know all about Chellamani & her late husband Ambi, a former Police Officer. She wanted to know my exact relationship to Chellamani. I said my mother & Chellamani were paternal cousins i.e daughters of brothers. The conversation - the focus of which had shifted now from my father's to my mother's side - then went as follows :
Rashamma : Oh, I know there were 4 brothers in Parur (my mom's hometown), let me see, there was the retired Super of Police, Vaidyanatha Iyer, & what was the name of the gentleman who practiced law in Ernakulam?
Self : That was T.R.Padmanabha Iyer, Chellamani's father, the 3rd of the quartet.
Rashamma : Right, & remind me of the name of the eldest.
Self : Rangantha Iyer, & my mother's father, brother No : 4, was ….
Rashamma (interrupting me) : Yes, Ramakrishna Iyer, I know.
VI (shoving his oar in) : And did you know Sundaram Iyer, the retired Post Master?
Self : Of course, he was my great aunt Chelli's husband & they settled down in Parur after his retirement.
VI : He was our maternal uncle.
Rashamma (impatiently ) : "Iruda, naan kelkkattum" (this to VI, meaning "pipe down, will you, let me talk to him" - she was really beginning to warm up by now & clearly enjoying our tete a tete even more than I was). And your mum had 4 atthais (paternal aunts) did she not? Besides Chelli there were Thangam, Ponnamma & I forget the name of the 4th.
N.B : 1. I couldn't help her there but I was later taken to task by my sister Shobhi & cousin Vasanti as to how I could have been so slow on the uptake - the lady in question, Meenakshi, was my own paternal g'mother Meena's mother, strangely enough, the mother & daughter shared names.
2. This Meenakshi provides the link or descent connection between my mother's Thoppil Matom (TM) Parur family & my father's Ponnani Trikkavu family. Besides that patrilineal relationship, she is also - through the TM line - my maternal great aunt!
VI (shoving his oar in again) : And how about the son of one of those Atthais, Narayana Iyer, did you know him?
Self (by now reeling under the swift lefts & rights) : Oh, you mean the 1 who was in KL?
VI : Besides KL, he also lived in Singapore & built a grand house in Parur where he lived on retirement.
Self : Yes, I know the house you mean (it hadn't looked so grand to me but I withheld comment) but we are closer to the family of his younger brother, Ramanathan, because he married another cousin of my mom, Ammini.
VI : Yes, I know & Ramanathan was somebody senior in Peirce Leslie.
Self : In fact, cousin Rajan, Ammini & R's son, celebrated his son's wedding here in Palghat in 2004 & I attended it. The lad & the bride are both medicos. It was @ this wedding that I again met Janaki, the daughter of Narayana Iyer.
Rashamma : Even Rajan & his wife, what's her name, are medicos. (True, & I supplied the name Bhavani).
VI (proudly) : You know, I am well-known for bringing about marriages, its my hobby so to say, & I was the one who suggested & wrapped up Rajan's son's marriage too. It was held in Pallipuram village here (True again). Give me your daughter's horoscope (a rapid change of course, this).
Self (gallantly rising to the thrust & parry) : Could I ask a couple of questions about the house? Was it already subdivided when your grandfather bought it?
At this Rashamma took over & said, no, it was not. She went on to say that, when the late Mahadeva Iyer bought it over 100 years ago, the house was in a dilapidated condition ("paazh adanju irundhudham") but an integral, single-family dwelling ("orumichu irundhudhu"). It was the late Mahadeva Iyer who restored or renovated it, again as a single house on the original plinth, &, much later, divided it into 3 units. This because he married his daughter to a domestic priest or purohit ("oru sadharana vadhyarukku kudutthaar") & the couple was given the right-hand side unit. Their descendants live in it presently. The middle unit is owned by a cousin, Krishnaswami from Delhi, who wishes to keep it in the family & has the unit under lock & key. So, for over 100 years this house has been with the same family!
What is more remarkable still is that the house was a single, integral unit when our great-great-great-grandfather, PNP, owned it some 200 years back & it remained so till, possibly, the 1 st war.
The Biggest House in Any Palghat Gramam
Since we were given a tour of the house & the back garden, I can say that my estimate of 4-5000 sq feet built-up was quite on the dot & the back garden ran about 200 feet out from the plinth. Mr Venkatachala Iyer & Gayatri said their unit stood on land 10800 sq feet in extent. This gives a total plot size of 32400 sq feet for the whole property or 0.56 acre, a very large plot indeed by Palghat gramam standards. In fact, father did bear me out when I said that I had not come across such a large plot in Palghat villages. PNP must have been very well to do to have owned such a big property. I suppose the timber trade was a good business in those days what with all that Teak & Rosewood from the Nilambur & Nelliampathy forests.
And when the house was a single unit, the verandah must have been full 80 feet long and 20 feet wide & must have made for an imposing entrance hall from which PNP probably conducted a good deal of his business. I wonder if he also had a separate office though he surely must have used a godown for the timber. Now, Venkatachala Iyer proudly said to me that their house is also the oldest in Tarakkad & his sister confirmed it. So, the oldest as well as the largest structure in Tarakkad!
The oldest house and yet only 100 + years since the re-building? That didn't figure but, later, I realized that :
§ The plinth & foundation are the original ones, dating at least 300 years if not more.
§ The re-build or restoration was only for the superstructure or elevation.
§ Such re-builds can not deviate from the original elevation as the terrace or row plan and original plinth do not permit the taking of any liberties.
§ So re-builds are mere restorations of sections of the elevation in the front of the house & of the interior.
§ Restoration is imperative every 50 or 100 years to accommodate changing family needs as well as to retrofit with electricity & plumbing. Besides, the unforgiving Kerala monsoon has to be reckoned with.
The interior layout of the house, I carefully noted, was unchanged with Nadumittham, Koodam, Ugranam and so on.
So, there we have it, the biggest & the oldest structure, over a 100 years with the Venkatachala Iyer family & the previous seller had also gotten into debt. And it is clearly the ancestral house for us because father had been told Mahadeva Iyer was the buyer @ the last (re)sale. And, of course, the house had been pointed out to him.
An Intermission
An Intermission
Cursetji had been sitting with us throughout the proceedings wearing a beatific smile even though he had understood not a word of what was being talked! Equally, the old man & his sister were not clear what or who a Parsi might be but they let it pass - being intent on the Thoppil Matom agenda & most excited with the recall & discussion of TM folk with someone from that family. It was getting on for a quarter past 11 now (we had entered a little before 10), what with all the jabbering, the tour of the house & the inspection of the portraits of T.S. Mahadeva Iyer and his son Subramania Iyer (V's father). Cursetji reminded me of our lunch meeting with his friend Unni at Kollengode, about 40 KM away.
So, we said our goodbyes with many expressions of mutual goodwill & with my hosts repeatedly muttering that we have come close together, a remark the utterly astounding import of which I had completely missed whilst with them. But I felt there were a few loose ends to be tied up & decided that in the evening I will pay them a further visit. Meanwhile, there was lunch awaiting us at Kollengode.
Another (partial) view of the house
The Further Visit in the EveningWe got back by from Kollengode by about 4 & in the evening, after a failed attempt to see the L.K.Ananthakrishna Iyer Museum, we were back @ the Tarakkad house by about 6. Our hosts of the morning were pleasantly surprised to see us. In fact the old lady, on my stating apologetically the reason I was back (a few more questions about the house), said : "Onnodu Poorvika mann allava? Adhu kondu pinnaiyum izhukkarathu!"( It is your ancestral soil after all, so its pulling you back!). Unlike in the morning, VI looked natty in a kurta or jibba with a sweater over it and a scarf round his neck – keeping the chill out, you see! His wife & daughter-in-law were, as in the morning, pottering about in the kitchen but the old lady, Rashamma, came out to greet us & sat on the thinnai. The son, T.V.Subrahmanian, was out again, he being a civil contractor & builder.
Rashamma's Family
The name Rashamma, I knew, is an informal 1, so I asked the old lady's name. It turned out to be Parvathi which is also my mother's name, & coincidence, but she is known as Rashamma to all family and friends. She then told me the story of her life. Her husband was one Mr Subramanian who worked for the ACC in Coimbatore . At the mention of ACC, Rohinton Cursetji perked up only to learn that the man had died in 1943, aged 41, leaving Rashamma a widow of 31 with a 12 year old boy & two younger children, both girls. The boy too died in his early teens, of jaundice, & the elder girl, of some cause I was not told, a few years later. That leaves Rashamma the doctor daughter living in Dundee & now aged 67. Since 1943 she has lived in her natal home, the sturdy &d admirable VI taking care of her.
Rashamma's daughter is married to Gopalan, the son of Narayana Iyer, the formerly Kuala Lumpur based cousin of my mother. And I had met this Gopalan a few times during my Parur visits. He is about 20 years older than me & we have had little or no interaction but I recall seeing him a few times.
When I showed the pics to Vasumathi she independently noticed the similarity of features & we discussed the idea. She feels that our hosts, & possibly a good number in Tarakkad, could also be Kaushika gotra. Interesting but I don't know if I'd take it that far. It seems more than likely, though, that my hosts & our family (but father's or mother's side?) may have had some common ancestors as recently as 4 -5 or 6 generations back. Interesting, to speculate upon.
Enough of idle speculation, what is the moral of the story. I think it is that if you go looking for trouble you will find it. I may have got rare nuggets of family info but VI is after me for Sundari's horoscope.
Epilogue or Sequel : Further Connections with the Family of VI & Rashamma
The name Rashamma, I knew, is an informal 1, so I asked the old lady's name. It turned out to be Parvathi which is also my mother's name, & coincidence, but she is known as Rashamma to all family and friends. She then told me the story of her life. Her husband was one Mr Subramanian who worked for the ACC in Coimbatore . At the mention of ACC, Rohinton Cursetji perked up only to learn that the man had died in 1943, aged 41, leaving Rashamma a widow of 31 with a 12 year old boy & two younger children, both girls. The boy too died in his early teens, of jaundice, & the elder girl, of some cause I was not told, a few years later. That leaves Rashamma the doctor daughter living in Dundee & now aged 67. Since 1943 she has lived in her natal home, the sturdy &d admirable VI taking care of her.
Rashamma's daughter is married to Gopalan, the son of Narayana Iyer, the formerly Kuala Lumpur based cousin of my mother. And I had met this Gopalan a few times during my Parur visits. He is about 20 years older than me & we have had little or no interaction but I recall seeing him a few times.
So, the penny dropped, rather late in the day. I should have twigged in the morning that there was some connection by marriage & asked instead of gawking speechlessly when all those TM Parur names were being tossed around! And it was Sundaram Iyer, Chelli atthai's husband (& VI's uncle) who had initiated the marriage. Nnow I also understood where VI got his match-making propensities from! It was all as simple as that & the phrase "we have come very close" was now comprehensible – they had assumed I knew.
VI repeated his request for Sundari's horoscope & I parried again. Rashamma asked about Sundari's looks & when I told her she is very goodlooking, Rashamma responded "Nee paakka nannaa irukkaye, pinna aval ane irukka mattaa?" (Since you have good looks, why would your daughter not be good looking?"). She certainly knew a thing or 2 about winning friends & influencing people.
But she was more interested now in talking about the daughter & son-in-law. The latter, she said, had retired but was into something akin to Yoga though she could not recall the precise name for it. Turning to Gayatri her grand-niece, she asked :" Endimme, Gopalan ippa ennavo pannaraane, adhu ennavaakkum?" (Tell me, darling, what is it that Gopalan is busy with now). It turned out to be the Art of Living!
Well, that was it, we said our goodbyes again &, as we left the house, Venkatachala Iyer exhorted me to let him have the horoscope.
Final Appreciation
As I lay on my berth in the Trivandrum – Madras Express, I recalled what I had learnt :
· I have made certain for myself that this Tarakkad house did, indeed, once belong to our family – father's identification of the house led to this visit, or, in fact, visitation, by me.
· Also, father's information that the next seller was also in debt was independently confirmed by both of my hosts.
· The house was an integral, unitary structure in Peria Narayana Pattar's time, that much being evident from what Rashamma told me.
· The house is certainly 1 of the largest, if not the largest, in Palghat & possibly, if Rashamma & her brother are right, the oldest in Tarakkad.
· The house has remained in the same family for over a hundred years now & is likely to remain so at least a little longer.
VI repeated his request for Sundari's horoscope & I parried again. Rashamma asked about Sundari's looks & when I told her she is very goodlooking, Rashamma responded "Nee paakka nannaa irukkaye, pinna aval ane irukka mattaa?" (Since you have good looks, why would your daughter not be good looking?"). She certainly knew a thing or 2 about winning friends & influencing people.
But she was more interested now in talking about the daughter & son-in-law. The latter, she said, had retired but was into something akin to Yoga though she could not recall the precise name for it. Turning to Gayatri her grand-niece, she asked :" Endimme, Gopalan ippa ennavo pannaraane, adhu ennavaakkum?" (Tell me, darling, what is it that Gopalan is busy with now). It turned out to be the Art of Living!
Well, that was it, we said our goodbyes again &, as we left the house, Venkatachala Iyer exhorted me to let him have the horoscope.
Final Appreciation
As I lay on my berth in the Trivandrum – Madras Express, I recalled what I had learnt :
· I have made certain for myself that this Tarakkad house did, indeed, once belong to our family – father's identification of the house led to this visit, or, in fact, visitation, by me.
· Also, father's information that the next seller was also in debt was independently confirmed by both of my hosts.
· The house was an integral, unitary structure in Peria Narayana Pattar's time, that much being evident from what Rashamma told me.
· The house is certainly 1 of the largest, if not the largest, in Palghat & possibly, if Rashamma & her brother are right, the oldest in Tarakkad.
· The house has remained in the same family for over a hundred years now & is likely to remain so at least a little longer.
But the most important takeaway was the profound impression 95-year-old Rashamma made on me - a lady widowed @ a young age, losing 2 of her children soon thereafter, a long life centred around her remaining daughter but such a zest for life & radiating good cheer & spirits.
And what a fund of family lore - even my family's. A typical senior lady, if not matriarch, of those days with a lively interest in people & relationships - & a great memory to boot.
And her brother Venkatachala Iyer - steadfast in his care & support of the sister! I could see that their relationship was 1 of the intimacy & easy familiarity of nearly 90 years.
Some Idle Speculation
But I couldn't help wondering about an essential similarity of family features & complexion as between my hosts & our family on both sides. While we may not all look alike there are some common features – the way one looks or gazes, certain facial features, gestures & movements & so on.
But I couldn't help wondering about an essential similarity of family features & complexion as between my hosts & our family on both sides. While we may not all look alike there are some common features – the way one looks or gazes, certain facial features, gestures & movements & so on.
I formed a notion that maybe many Pattars of the Mangudi Brahacharanam subsect share these traits & that Tarakkad might, possibly, be an exclusively MB village. This is certainly more than likely as people from the various regions of Tanjore did belong to specific sub-sect groups each of which must have lived together as endogamous communities in their exclusive villages. And on moving to Palghat the practice should have been simply continued – that was the social/communal model in the old days, wasn't it?
When I showed the pics to Vasumathi she independently noticed the similarity of features & we discussed the idea. She feels that our hosts, & possibly a good number in Tarakkad, could also be Kaushika gotra. Interesting but I don't know if I'd take it that far. It seems more than likely, though, that my hosts & our family (but father's or mother's side?) may have had some common ancestors as recently as 4 -5 or 6 generations back. Interesting, to speculate upon.
Enough of idle speculation, what is the moral of the story. I think it is that if you go looking for trouble you will find it. I may have got rare nuggets of family info but VI is after me for Sundari's horoscope.
Epilogue or Sequel : Further Connections with the Family of VI & Rashamma
As I mentioned right @ the beginning of this post, the narrative reproduced above was penned by me in July 2007 - whilst the details were fresh in my mind - & relayed to many cousins & my 2 siblings. That email caused a little flutter of excitement among some in my family - because, like me, until father happened to show it to me when in Palghat, most of them were unaware that the Tarakkad house still stands.
The upshot of this was that there followed @ least 3 visits in the next few months - my sister Shobhi, my cousin Vasanti (together with my aunt Lalitamma) & my cousin Meena. Meena, in her school days, had actually lived a few years in Palghat, just a few houses down the street from VI & Rashamma. She knew them well but I am not sure that she knew the house once used to be our family's.
A garage or lean-to or potting shed (call it what you will) to 1 side of the house - the 1ly house in any Palghat gramam with such a facility. The broad back of Rohinton Cursetji adds tone to the view or No?! Venkatachala Iyer - a former schoolmaster - used to give tuition classes here for neighbourhood students.
Further Inputs & Gleanings
Please note that the following - other than my Father's inputs concerning the house in Tarakkad - could be thought (& in fact, might be) tedious detail. But, in a family history post, it is important to make sure that all relevant information is made available - if only for later reference @ some point in time.
For example, there is a 3rd cousin - who has just come into contact with me - of the Calicut (Chuppamani) family who'd find a rich load of biographic info concerning her own family in my uncle Kunjappa's inputs below. That should help with the family tree she is building.
Those who consider the info below too tedious or trivia can always skip it.
The most important supplementary gleanings were supplied by my father Doraiappan, my uncle Kunjappa (father's younger brother Neelakantan) & my cousin Vasanti.
Father
The upshot of this was that there followed @ least 3 visits in the next few months - my sister Shobhi, my cousin Vasanti (together with my aunt Lalitamma) & my cousin Meena. Meena, in her school days, had actually lived a few years in Palghat, just a few houses down the street from VI & Rashamma. She knew them well but I am not sure that she knew the house once used to be our family's.
A garage or lean-to or potting shed (call it what you will) to 1 side of the house - the 1ly house in any Palghat gramam with such a facility. The broad back of Rohinton Cursetji adds tone to the view or No?! Venkatachala Iyer - a former schoolmaster - used to give tuition classes here for neighbourhood students.
Further Inputs & Gleanings
Please note that the following - other than my Father's inputs concerning the house in Tarakkad - could be thought (& in fact, might be) tedious detail. But, in a family history post, it is important to make sure that all relevant information is made available - if only for later reference @ some point in time.
For example, there is a 3rd cousin - who has just come into contact with me - of the Calicut (Chuppamani) family who'd find a rich load of biographic info concerning her own family in my uncle Kunjappa's inputs below. That should help with the family tree she is building.
Those who consider the info below too tedious or trivia can always skip it.
The most important supplementary gleanings were supplied by my father Doraiappan, my uncle Kunjappa (father's younger brother Neelakantan) & my cousin Vasanti.
Father
Following my visit of June 2007, my father gave me inputs that are interesting in their own right for what they reveal about the strong ties that bound our family to the Mahadeva Iyer family. Also, what father said to me about his knowledge of the provenance of the house helps round off the story :
1. He always knew that the house was an integral, single-unit dwelling in the old man's time. He also knew that the property was split into 3 only later in T S Mahadeva Iyer's life.
2. He had always known that it is the largest house in Palghat.
3. As a student @ Victoria College, Palghat he had been to the house several times to pay calls on the occupants as our Trikkavu family knew the VI Tarakkad family well.
4. Naturally so, for the T.S.Mahadeva Iyer family are connected to us several times over by marriage alliances over the years.
5. The most notable instance being that TSM's wife was a cousin of Ponani Manni i.e my grand uncles wife & herself a cousin to him & my grandfather.
6. There are other connections by marriage which he did not elaborate on over phone (but, Vasanti supplied me with that info - see below).
7. Another interesting connection with that family is that T S Mahadeva Iyer's cousin (I think father said cousin) was married to the eldest of my mother's 3 maternal uncles from Calicut (Ambi Mama, who I have never seen as he died somewhat early).
It is now clear from the above that the facts relating to the house were common knowledge in the Ponani family, at least up to the 1940's, as there was regular contact with the Tarakkad family. It would seem the fortunes of the property were keenly followed @ Ponani, certainly up to the life-time of Narayana Pattar our great-grandfather.
Uncle Kunjappa
My uncle had the following info to supplement with:
T S Mahadev Iyer was a Vakil, a lawyer, by profession. He had 3 sons :
- Chuppamani
- Ambi
- Doraiswami
no info about daughters.
1. Chuppamani had a daughter called Kamalam. She was married to Narayanaswami. He was a port conservator & was the son of (our) paternal great-grandfather, Narayana Iyer's younger brother named Subramaniam (also known as Kozhikode Chuppan)
2. Narayanaswami & Kamalam had 2 daughters. 1 died very young before marriage, her name was Gauri
3. The other daughter was Rajam, last known living with her son in Coonoor, Nilgiris. Since I am now based partly in Coonoor too, wonder if I could trace this branch - doubtful.
4. Ambi's daughter was married to Sivaramakrishnan who is related to my dad & uncles in 2 ways :
5. he is the brother of dad's aunt Kunjammai ( Sharada). This Sharada is the great-granddaughter of our paternal great grandfather, Narayana Iyer's sister Ammini.
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6. Doraiswami is not connected to us .
7. VI who I spoke with in Tarakkad is the son of Chuppamani.
Thus, we are, in these several ways related, affinally or by ties of marriage, to Mahadeva Iyer's family.
Vasanti
My cousin Vasanti - as we have seen - paid a visit soon after seeing the report of my visit to the Trakkad house.
Her feedback to me is as follows (with my annotations in italics) :
1. T S Mahadeva Iyers' wife was our grand aunt's 1st - 2nd or 3rd cousin - (this, we have already seen, refer to No.5 under "Father" above). The latter used to refer to her as Paruakka. I wonder if that could partially explain the familiarity of features that you noted during your visit.
2. T S Mahadeva Iyer had 4 sons (so there is 1 more to be added to the list as given in No. 1 under "Uncle Kunappa" above) - Subramanya Iyer aka Chuppamani, Krishna Iyer aka Erumai (Buffalo) Ambi for reasons unknown, Doraiswamy & Sivaraman - & 1 daughter, Thailamba.
3. Thailamaba's daughter Sitalakshmi was married to Annai athai's (our paternal aunt) son Mani & 1 of her sons (Thailamba's, I presume) was married to Annai athai's daughter Chellamma.
4. Ambi was married to Meenu, my (Vasanti's) maternal grandmother's mama's (maternal uncle's) daughter.
5. The Sharada who was married to Kunjammai's brother Sivaramakrishnan was Doraiswamy's daughter - not Ambi's (please refer No. 5 under "Uncle Kunjappa" above).
6. BTW, Kunjammai's mother Chuppu was the daughter of our great-grandfather's sister Ammini.
7. TSV, son of Chuppamani has 3 brothers and 3 sisters. 1 of them, the late Kamalam was married to Narayanaswami, son of our great grandfather's brother Subba pattar also known as Kozhikode Chuppan.
As you can see, Vasanti's is a very wide-ranging list of connections between our family & T S Mahadeva Iyer's - liable to make your head swim. But then, she, who I consider the brainiest in the Trikkavu family, can visualise & assimilate connections ranging to the nth degree.
It is not possible to insert a family tree encompassing all of Vasanti's list in a blog post - the tree will be too unwieldy to scroll around or fool around with in a blog post format. But most of you are aware she has built virtually the complete Geni tree (in conjunction with the my Thoppil Matom cousin, Shanthi). That tree on Geni should help place these individuals & families above.
Wearing his 89 years very well - Venkatachala Iyer
Finally
And how come the mention of Ponnani did not trigger any recollection of our Trikkavu family by Rashamma & her brother? The answer has to do with the fact that, I muffed it because :
A. Both of them dived headlong into a discussion of my maternal Thoppil Matom family - on account of my inadvertant mention of that family right @ the beginning of our chat.
B. Rashamma & VI both relished that conversation - related above - as it had to do with Rashamma's daughter's marital connections. And, when that breathless but absorbiing dialgoue was over, it was time to leave (with the evening visit being devoted to a discussion of their home & family life).
But, as you can also see above, Vasanti - the indefatigable builder of family trees nonpareil, that she is - really got them going when she quizzed them about Trikkavu.
And, it must be recorded that I certainly embarrassed myself when I failed to answer Rashamma's query about the name of my own great-grandmother i.e Meena Pattiammai's mother. What is even more embarrassing is that, until Shobhi & Vasanti pointed out the connection to me, I did not even know Rashamma was asking about my great-grandmother!!
The Trainer & the Tamer : Self with Venkatachala Iyer
The End of An Era
I took Vasumathi to the Tarakkad house in mid 2010 - Rashamma was 98 by this time & with failing memory. She did not recall our earlier meeting @ 1st & there was only a dim flicker of recollection when VI & I prompted her. Even VI had to be reminded of our 2007 meeting but he - 92 then - caught on @ once. VI's son Subramanian was engaged in the morning Shiva Panchayatana pooja which Vasumathi immensely enjoyed watching & noting the details of.
I subsequently heard, a couple of years later, that both had passed on. Truly the end of an era & of close family ties & memories.
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