Flapping their little wings, a couple of sparrows flew above their nest, which they had built between the Kambu plants (Bulrush millet) on a field. Workers on the field were busy reaping the crop. As the farmer cum owner of the field was overseeing the work, his wife ran to him and told him that there were a few baby birds in the nest. A tender-hearted man, the farmer stopped the harvest and said that the work would resume only after the nestlings grow up and learn to fly with their parents! In an age, when contentious farm laws are enacted to corporatize agriculture, it is surprising to chance upon a farmer's care for a sparrow's family nesting on his land. A chapter in the book Thiyaagam Vilaintha Sempulam, written by Ponmudi. Si. Subbayyan, a Coimbatore-based Tamil scholar and poet, speaks of the farming couple Periyappan and Chinammini of Kannampalayam protecting the sparrow's nest.
Flapping their little wings, a couple of sparrows flew above their nest, which they had built between the Kambu plants (Bulrush millet) on a field. Workers on the field were busy reaping the crop. As the farmer cum owner of the field was overseeing the work, his wife ran to him and told him that there were a few baby birds in the nest. A tender-hearted man, the farmer stopped the harvest and said that the work would resume only after the nestlings grow up and learn to fly with their parents! In an age, when contentious farm laws are enacted to corporatize agriculture, it is surprising to chance upon a farmer's care for a sparrow's family nesting on his land. A chapter in the book Thiyaagam Vilaintha Sempulam, written by Ponmudi. Si. Subbayyan, a Coimbatore-based Tamil scholar and poet, speaks of the farming couple Periyappan and Chinammini of Kannampalayam protecting the sparrow's nest.
The gracious farmers in the yesteryear rural Coimbatore were compassionate even to venomous snakes. If they sighted a snake, they would not kill it, but beg it to leave the place by buzzing the name of 'Vaazhai Thottathu Ayyan', a popular deity of Coimbatore. In case, a person had come across a snake, he/she would be strictly advised to visit the Vaazhai Thottathu Ayyan Koyil near Somanur to overcome the ophidiophobia.
At a time when such characteristics from the yesteryear Kongu culture are hardly handed down to the present generation even by word of mouth, Ponmudi. Subbayyan has documented them in his book. Each of the chapters in the book, which is written first in prose and then in verse, depicts the memorable incidents that happened decades ago in Subbayyan's native village Kannampalayam near Sulur. The author, who is an octogenarian, narrates all the stories in his book with an emotional touch and introduces the reader to the people whom he saw, met, or heard of from his ancestors.
One of such memorable characters depicted in the book is 'Valliyakka' - a woman with radical views of life, whom revolutionary thinkers like Periyar E.V.R dreamed of. Popularly called 'Aanpillai Valliyakka' ( The man called Valliyakka) for her. confidence, hard labor, courage, and physical strength, she lived at Kannampalayam around seven decades ago. Being the sole companion to her father after the death of her mother and younger sister due to smallpox, Valliakka labored hard on a par with the men of her village. In an age when women had to stay indoors carrying out the routine household chores, Valliayakka proved her strength by tilling and toiling on her land all alone. She effortlessly lifted heavy gunny bags filled with grains, threw them on her bullock cart, and drove it by herself to different places day and night. She unloaded them at the shandies of Irugur and Sulur and sold them to the buyers thronging the markets. On a night, while she was on her way back home from Maruthamalai, she was waylaid by the robbers armed with deadly weapons. A woman of exceptional courage, she thrashed them with her 'Vandimulai', (A sharp-pointed stake), and the highwaymen bled with injuries and fell on the ground. The author, who calls the fight ' Vandimulai Por', says that the scar of the wound which Valliyakka suffered on her forehead in the fight, never disappeared till her death at the age of 70.
Nevertheless, being a woman Valliyakka had to be married one day. Though many from her kin feared marrying this woman of manly deeds, a man from the village Pappampatti did come forward to tie the nuptial knot around her neck. But her married life did not last even for a month. On a day, when she completed reaping corn in her field, she had to dispose of the corn stalks. Hence she baled them up into two bundles and fastened each tightly with the aloe vera fiber. While she carried one bundle on her head, she saw her husband struggling hard even to lift the other.
"So you are not as strong as even a woman," she said to her husband.
In a moment, she removed her Thaali and returned it to him saying " You'd better marry a girl who suits you. You are not the man that suits me. But don't worry. I will not interfere with your life"
Poet Sirpi Balasubramaniam, a two-time recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award, says in his foreword to the book :
"Pulavar Ponmudi's book proves that histories are not just stories of kings that wielded their swords and spears in battlefields, but stories of the ordinary people, who labored hard to enrich their village and earth."
Another interesting story in the book is on Sulur Subbarao, an extravagant rich man, and womanizer.
During the British rule, when the poor native farmers were unable to pay the Kanthayam (Tax ), the Brahmins, who had migrated from Karnataka and settled at Sulur, Kannampalayam, and Kalangal, paid it to the government and fraudulently got the agricultural lands transferred to their title. Subbarao, who was one of the descendants of the Brahmin community, lived an extravagant life and treated his farmworkers with an iron hand. With his arrogance of being wealthy, he sought happiness in torturing the innocent and misbehaving with the women of the village. Being afraid of Subbarao, the people locked themselves inside their homes, as he galloped his chariot on the streets of Kannampalayam.
Subbarao had a friend named Gurusamy, a photographer in Coimbatore. However, he had no regard even for his friendship with Gurusamy that one day he raped his daughter. After the incident, when Gurusamy begged Subbarao to marry his daughter, he worked out a plan to murder Gurusamy.
On a day, when Pappampatti Pirivu was gearing up for a temple festival, Subbarao invited Gurusamy on the pretext of photographing the festival. And there, he set him ablaze and escaped. When the case, popularly called the " Coimbatore photographer murder case", came to court, the judge pronounced the death sentence on Subbarao. But on appeal, he was acquitted. For obtaining the acquittal Subbarao paid large sums of money to the English Barrister Eardley Norton, who cleverly argued in defense of him through whatever the loopholes he discovered in law.
The innocent people of Kannampalayam could not bear the acquittal of the criminal called Subbarao. The unlettered Kongu rustic folk could not pronounce the English lawyer's name "Eardley Norton" correctly. Rather, they mispronounced "Eardley Norton" as "Eazhra Naattan" revealing how 'satanic' Norton was in rescuing Subbarao from the death sentence.
Nevertheless, on a night, a secret ten-member team murdered Subbarao at his farmhouse in Kannampalayam while he was sleeping.
The gracious farmers in the yesteryear rural Coimbatore were compassionate even to venomous snakes. If they sighted a snake, they would not kill it, but beg it to leave the place by buzzing the name of 'Vaazhai Thottathu Ayyan', a popular deity of Coimbatore. In case, a person had come across a snake, he/she would be strictly advised to visit the Vaazhai Thottathu Ayyan Koyil near Somanur to overcome the ophidiophobia.
At a time when such characteristics from the yesteryear Kongu culture are hardly handed down to the present generation even by word of mouth, Ponmudi. Subbayyan has documented them in his book. Each of the chapters in the book, which is written first in prose and then in verse, depicts the memorable incidents that happened decades ago in Subbayyan's native village Kannampalayam near Sulur. The author, who is an octogenarian, narrates all the stories in his book with an emotional touch and introduces the reader to the people whom he saw, met, or heard of from his ancestors.
One of such memorable characters depicted in the book is 'Valliyakka' - a woman with radical views of life, whom revolutionary thinkers like Periyar E.V.R dreamed of. Popularly called 'Aanpillai Valliyakka' ( The man called Valliyakka) for her. confidence, hard labor, courage, and physical strength, she lived at Kannampalayam around seven decades ago. Being the sole companion to her father after the death of her mother and younger sister due to smallpox, Valliakka labored hard on a par with the men of her village. In an age when women had to stay indoors carrying out the routine household chores, Valliayakka proved her strength by tilling and toiling on her land all alone. She effortlessly lifted heavy gunny bags filled with grains, threw them on her bullock cart, and drove it by herself to different places day and night. She unloaded them at the shandies of Irugur and Sulur and sold them to the buyers thronging the markets. On a night, while she was on her way back home from Maruthamalai, she was waylaid by the robbers armed with deadly weapons. A woman of exceptional courage, she thrashed them with her 'Vandimulai', (A sharp-pointed stake), and the highwaymen bled with injuries and fell on the ground. The author, who calls the fight ' Vandimulai Por', says that the scar of the wound which Valliyakka suffered on her forehead in the fight, never disappeared till her death at the age of 70.
Nevertheless, being a woman Valliyakka had to be married one day. Though many from her kin feared marrying this woman of manly deeds, a man from the village Pappampatti did come forward to tie the nuptial knot around her neck. But her married life did not last even for a month. On a day, when she completed reaping corn in her field, she had to dispose of the corn stalks. Hence she baled them up into two bundles and fastened each tightly with the aloe vera fiber. While she carried one bundle on her head, she saw her husband struggling hard even to lift the other.
"So you are not as strong as even a woman," she said to her husband.
In a moment, she removed her Thaali and returned it to him saying " You'd better marry a girl who suits you. You are not the man that suits me. But don't worry. I will not interfere with your life"
Poet Sirpi Balasubramaniam, a two-time recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award, says in his foreword to the book :
"Pulavar Ponmudi's book proves that histories are not just stories of kings that wielded their swords and spears in battlefields, but stories of the ordinary people, who labored hard to enrich their village and earth."
Another interesting story in the book is on Sulur Subbarao, an extravagant rich man, and womanizer.
During the British rule, when the poor native farmers were unable to pay the Kanthayam (Tax ), the Brahmins, who had migrated from Karnataka and settled at Sulur, Kannampalayam, and Kalangal, paid it to the government and fraudulently got the agricultural lands transferred to their title. Subbarao, who was one of the descendants of the Brahmin community, lived an extravagant life and treated his farmworkers with an iron hand. With his arrogance of being wealthy, he sought happiness in torturing the innocent and misbehaving with the women of the village. Being afraid of Subbarao, the people locked themselves inside their homes, as he galloped his chariot on the streets of Kannampalayam.
Subbarao had a friend named Gurusamy, a photographer in Coimbatore. However, he had no regard even for his friendship with Gurusamy that one day he raped his daughter. After the incident, when Gurusamy begged Subbarao to marry his daughter, he worked out a plan to murder Gurusamy.
On a day, when Pappampatti Pirivu was gearing up for a temple festival, Subbarao invited Gurusamy on the pretext of photographing the festival. And there, he set him ablaze and escaped. When the case, popularly called the " Coimbatore photographer murder case", came to court, the judge pronounced the death sentence on Subbarao. But on appeal, he was acquitted. For obtaining the acquittal Subbarao paid large sums of money to the English Barrister Eardley Norton, who cleverly argued in defense of him through whatever the loopholes he discovered in law.
The innocent people of Kannampalayam could not bear the acquittal of the criminal called Subbarao. The unlettered Kongu rustic folk could not pronounce the English lawyer's name "Eardley Norton" correctly. Rather, they mispronounced "Eardley Norton" as "Eazhra Naattan" revealing how 'satanic' Norton was in rescuing Subbarao from the death sentence.
Nevertheless, on a night, a secret ten-member team murdered Subbarao at his farmhouse in Kannampalayam while he was sleeping.