Chennai: Velacheri is now a most sought after neighbourhood in the city. Spacious apartments, mall and IT-corridor are making the place congested.
But long ago, this was a village with lush green fields and hard working farmers, who eventually gave up their lands. Many of them live in two-bedroom apartments in fancy tall buildings and tell the story of how Velacheri was earlier.
N Damotharan (60) is a known to many people living in Velacheri. They know him as a wealthy builder, as also a social worker.
But what many don’t know is how his family owned acers at various parts of Velacheri and eventually gave them up due to ‘development’.
Today, apart from his business, a socialist at heart, he runs a group called Kattabomman Nanbargal Narpani Sangam where he helps people and takes up several civic issues in the locality.
When ‘News Today‘ visited him, the farmer-turned-builder was arranging for an eye surgery of a man he hardly knows.
During the conversation, he refers to Velacheri as his gramam and himself, as vevasayi.
“My forefathers were born here and cultivated lands. My father Nagappa Naicker had more than six acers of land at Vijaya Nagar, AGS Colony and ByPass Road. We cultivated rice, ragi and groundnut during various seasons.”
At age 12, he began toiling in the farmland along with his father but that did stay long. “When I was 29 years old, buildings started coming up at Vijaya Nagar. Six years later, there there was a single agricultural plot at Vijaya Nagar – this was between 1964-1968. By 2005, with concrete structures propping up around the family’s agricultural land, they began getting poor yields,” he said.
“From 50 sacks of yield, it dropped to 30 sacks. It was not bringing any profit. We bought cows and goats and began selling milk. We survived by selling milk,” he recalled.
Soon, when the family felt that the government was planning to take their land to construct housing board flats, they partnered with housing societies and builders and sold the lands.
Today, Damotharan has many apartments on Bypass Road and Vijaya Nagar. He has earned wealth overnight. His sons are well-settled and his social service group does not rely on donations as he pumps in money himself. “I cannot tolerate the poor being exploited by rich people. I help them,” he said.
He has not forgotten what the tall buildings have brought to the neighbourhood – ‘Man-made floods.’ “There were floods a few years after the layouts were marked. In 1975, I was young then. Later, it became a routine. Every time, I would set out on boats to save people and supply food. Low-intensity floods, heavy rain and cyclones took place in 1985, 1995, 2005. But the devastating one was in 2015. I hired two boats to help those trapped in buildings without food.”
This time also he has already kept the boats ready but he is sure nothing would go wrong. So, does he miss being a farmer? “There was no profit, to be honest, and it is hard labour. Most of them need cows or goats to bring in revenue. It is vastly dependent on climate too and the yield can vary,” he lists out.