I don’t feel lonely, says sole inhabitant of Meenakshipuram

It’s quarter past four in the evening when we arrive in Meenakshipuram, in search of Kandasamy, who has been the lone inhabitant of the village for the past few years. All around us are dilapidated buildings, spread well apart from one another, the still standing bright red roof tiles a contrast to the dilapidated houses, replete with crumbling walls and windows. In the ghost town, it is easy to spot Kandasamy’s house. It’s the only one with a door, and his TVS 50 is difficult to miss.

“Please, come in,” he says with a wide grin. “Mind your head the doorframe is low,” he warns. Clad in a lungi, and walking briskly, it is hard to take in the fact that he is 71-years old and living all by himself.  The steps to the house are carpeted with a jute sack. It is a traditional construction with an outside pillar supporting the roof, a window made of cement grille and two thinnais (cement benches) on either side of the door. “Have you been the only person in the village for years now?” “Yes, I spend most of my time in this room,” he says pointing to the tiny living room that has a cot, and a plastic chair on which rests a television set. Iron pegs are placed strategically along the walls, holding his earthly possessions. Are you not lonely?” I ask him. He grins widely and walks further into the house. “No, I am not lonely at all. It’s all in one’s mind. Plus, I have Raja and Rani, my two dogs” he adds, with a chuckle. But, Raja uses the interview to slink away, and only Rani is around, and in a mood. I peek into the kitchen and an assortment of stuff is piled there. A grinder holds the pride of place. “I sold my farm (around 5 acres) nearly thirty years ago and used the funds to marry off my two daughters. My two sons made it clear early on that they did not want to go into farming, seeing how farmers were struggling. Either the monsoon played truant and ruined us, or the procurement price was too low for us to make any kind of savings. Both of them decided to become cab drivers,” he says. When he says his wife Veeralakshmi passed away decades ago, it has sort of prepared him for a life of a singleton. “I do everything myself. I cook once a day and have three square meals,” he says with a smile. I ask him if his children look after him.

Rani fusses. She wants attention. He pets her for a few minutes until she settles down and returns to the conversation. “My second son checks on me once or twice a week. I got a cell phone three years ago, so I am in touch. People in other villages (3-4 km away) know me well. I will not move out of here. My son asked me to move in with him, but I will not. I have so many memories tied to this place. I am an ardent fan of MGR. When I was young, about four, five of us used to walk to the talkies in Pudiyamputhur near Ottapidaram or take a bullock cart, in time for the second show. Life was very different then. There were no roads, only farms. We did not have cell phones, but we all stayed in touch daily,” he adds.  Now there is television and radio, he says. And of course, the cell phone.

Kandasamy says he likes being active. That explains why he ran a canteen for a few years in a factory, 10 km away from his home. “I used to serve tea, idli, puri etc. I used to have two masters and I had another person to help me with supplies. However, I had to discontinue that after three years.” Why? What happened, I ask. “The company was un able to make payments every month. How will I play suppliers if I get income only once in two, three months? I will not get that kind of credit from suppliers and what is the point of doing a business if you have to constantly borrow to keep it going?” he asks, pointedly.

“This is where I was born, where I grew from a boy to a man. This land is everything to me. But I did tell the 60, 65 families to return to the village, when they all attended the festival at our Amman temple here last week,” he says.

He is referring to the families who made an exodus from Meenakshipuram. Once a bustling farming commune where cotton and kambu were sown and harvested in plenty, the village, a mere 29-km from Thoothukudi town and falling under the Keezha Chekkarakudi panchayat, turned into a ghost town a few years ago, when water scarcity forced them to move out. “People had to travel to Chekkarakudi to fetch drinking water. It was a daily hardship. The roads were bad and people want good infrastructure these days. There were 150 families living here when I was a boy. A few years ago, there were hardly 60 or so. After the water scarcity, they have moved out, abandoning their farms, running into acres,” he recalls.

Today, the only farming happening around here appears to be harvesting wind energy, I point out, showing him the number of mills dotting the landscape. “Yes, many people are permitting installations of windmills on their land now,” he says, adding a number of young locals play mediators. It is a green life of another kind.

Former inhabitants, however, continue to visit the temple every Tuesday and Friday. Many of them ask the temple priest if their problems will be solved if their children will get married. “No one is asking him if it is a good time to return to their abandoned homes,” he tells me. Kandasamy had been the dharmakartha of the temple until a few years ago. Now he has handed over that job to his younger son.

Recalling the exodus, Kandasamy says, “Our land is on a higher plane, and getting water was a huge problem.” I point to the water tap in his house. “Oh, that? Today we do not have a drinking water problem. Last April, Thanthi TV interviewed me. As soon as it aired, people from the panchayat office visited me, inspected the village and ensured that the connection was given. Today, water is not a scarcity here, only other humans,” he says with a shy grin. “I do not know if the other families will return. They have all put down roots somewhere else,” he adds. We both look out at the wasteland—half dry, half green lands – through the grille door. Wind drives through the half roofed thavaram where we are seated.