Three Generations of Vaniamparambil Family

Three Generations of Vaniamparambil Family 

Mathaikutty, the patriarch, ordered his son, Kuttayi  to buy the property adjacent to the family property in the interior of Pandanad. Kuttayi, who never disobeyed Mathaikutty, dutifully bought it availing advances. It made life tough  for Kuttayi and his family. 

Soon, Kuttayi,  bought another property at the behest of Mathaikutty in five tranches at Pandanad Junction. Life became extremely difficult for the family as the debt mounted.

Mathaikutty, then encouraged  Kuttayi  to construct a  building at the Pandanad Junction . Kuttayi, a clerical hand in a private hospital at Chengannur, took a loan from Vijaya Bank , Mannar submitting a plan for a two storeyed building  with seven shops  on the ground floor and the residence for the family on the first floor. It was envisaged to rent out the shops and repay the loan with the rental income.

When the first floor was not built the Bank initiated the recovery process. Kuttayi met the Regional Manager of the bank at Kottarakkara who was good enough  to cancel the recovery procedure as Kuttayi had been prompt in meeting the EMI schedule. 

Later, Kuttayi  built  a two room extension to the shop building. The family   of four - Kuttayi, his wife, Rahel and sons,Shaji and Bejoy -  stayed there for a while. as there had been a critical shortage of funds to complete the construction of the house that had already been half way.  The family stood together and sailed through the difficult days. It was a place of laughter and happiness despite the plethora of adversities.   At last Kuttayi managed to source the funds for the completion of the construction of the house that had been stalled through selling 40 cents of landed property  he had  at Budhanoor. The  house Vaniamparambil stood there waiting eagerly for the occupants.   It was a great relief for the family when they shifted from the two room facility to the three BHK luxury.

Happiness never stay long. Kuttayi's wife, Rahel, suddenly fell ill. It was cerebral hemorrhage. Rahel passed away in no time, leaving the rest of the family in distress and sorrow.

Mathaikutty had passed away by then. As time wore on, Kuttayi had aged and he suffered a heart attack.  Though Doctors wrote him off, God didn't. It was in 1973. Doctors said he won't get up. He got up. Hale and hearty he lived upto 2012. Then calamity struck again. An innocuous fever took Kuttayi away.

When he was convalescing  at Parumala at the residence  of  Shaji in 1973,  it was Shaji who suggested it would be good if Kuttayi could write a will to obviate legal wrangles if he died intestate. 

Kuttayi had no disagreement.

He said he wished to bequeath the Vaniamparambil House and the adjacent shops to Bejoy. Bejoy was employed at Chennai at that time.  He said he would bequeath the property in the interior of Pandanad to Shaji . This property had a very negligible value in comparison with the former.

Kuttayi said he wanted to pass on  20 cents of his riverfront property at Parumala  to  Bejoy,  and  the rest, 40 cents, to Shaji. The hitch was the whole property had no documents that had  reduced its value to a pittance.  Further, Kuttayi's  rights to the propety had been disputed by a few of his relatives who were threatening to drag the issue to a civil court.  At the end, Kuttayi   had to sell off the property at  a  lower value. Kuttayi disbursed the proceeds among the sons without holding anything for himself. The gain, however, was paltry.

 

Shaji, a clerk at the College at Parumala,  told Kuttayi  to do whatever he deemed right.

Bejoy, by this time, managed to obtain a transfer to Chenagnur. He was with the Postal Department.  Bejoy stayed with Kuttayi. He continued to do that even  after his  marriage. 

Recurring flooding of the house made Bejoy shift his residence to Mavelikara.

Kuttayi was both at Pandanad and Mavelikara . Shaji would visit Kuttayi and stay with him for a few days whenever he was at Pandanad. 

It was  the prayers of Kuttayi and Rahel that had carried the whole family through even after the parents were gone. Whatever the children had become could only be attributed to those prayers from deep within the hearts of Kuttayi and Rahel. They never prayed for themselves. They prayed for their children and everyone in their orbit.

While Shaji and his family  were at Pandanad, they had always listened to Kuttayi  praying  fervently with tears flowing for Vaniamparambil not  to fade  away from the face of Pandanad. 

 
The electrician  Ranjith, after Kuttayi's demise, revealed to Shaji  that Kuttayi had told him he would have renovated both the shops and the house eliminating the prospects of flooding if he had access to some funds. It was not to be. Unfortunately he had no pension or better retirement benefits like his children. He had given away everything he had for his wife's treatment  and the children's  needs. There was nothing left.

In the course of time both the Vaniamparambil House and the shops had fallen into disrepair. They had begun to crumble. Bejoy had no idea to renovate them. According to him, he was disinterested in spending even a single Rupee on their maintenance. It was as if he rued  he  had been saddled with the prime property at Pandanad against his wishes.

However better senses prevailed after a few years of total neglect of his own property, and Bejoy went ahead with the renovation of the building that housed the shops. 

They look suave now. 

Shaji is happy Bejoy has fulfilled Kuttayi's wishes for  the shops.

Vaniamparambil remains dilapidated in the prominent junction at Pandanad.   The people around poke fun at the deliberate neglect of the house that Kuttayi and Rahel had built with their own blood and toil.

The pertinent question is, if the one who owns it wouldn't renovate it who would ?