Part I An insight into the people of Thiruchendurai (of 1940) - By Sethuraman

Even before Gnani wrote those lines in Kumudam ‘O Pages’, I had nurtured the idea for many years-- attempted writing and after a few articles left off. Several attempts were made in the past, but with the advent of internet and facilities to preserve one's writings I am venturing again.
A part of the story had already been circulated to interested individuals, and I am at it again.

A village is made of its people, and of the events that occur there. People may be there today and gone tomorrow, but the events will still continue. If the young ones in the family take some interest in the village and keep its tradition in tact, the village could still be flourishing. Youngsters from many families in the village leave it, in search of a job, better facilities and comforts, but some families do remain and it is in their hands the village survives. Tiruchendurai is no exception, and most of its younger generation had left the village, and are stationed all over the globe now -- but they still think about the village and its present residents.

Thiruchendurai at 1940s

If one is to talk about Tiruchendurai, the foremost family that comes into mind is that of Justice T.V. Seshagiri Iyer. From available records TVS is one the six sons of Vaidyanatha Iyer, through his second wife Komali.. TVS also had five sisters in this lineage, and one of them Seethalakshmi married Venkatachalam Iyer of Karattampatti, to whom Srinivasan (of Srirangam House) was born in 1866.

Coming back to Seshagiri, his other brothers are Narayanan, Mannarswamy, Ramu, Venkataraman and Subbaraman... the sisters are Sanamma, Seethalakshmi, Thailambal, Subbammal and Kalyani....

Of the first two brothers, no detailed information has been recorded. It is said that Mannarswamy was the person who greatly helped in the younger brothers’ education. His wife, a pious lady, resided with the Seshagiris, after the demise of Mannarswamy. There is some family information about Seshagiri, Venkataraman and Subbaraman. These will appear in latter parts of the article.

Seshagiri married Kalyani, and had two daughters, Bhagi and Nagammal long time residents of 'Govardhan' in Alwarpet, Madras.

His house at Tiruchendurai village was called 'Periyaam" (big house, literally it was and still is the biggest house in the village) - a palatial courtyard, a garage on the right side of the house, located between the house proper and the nandavanam (garden) of the adjacent Perumal Koil.. The house extended up to the nullah in the western backyard. It had a big hall, four large rooms, in the ground floor and the first floor, and a very big terrace from where you can have a panoramic view of the River Cauvery on the north, and lush green rice fields beyond the railway lines, and the little irrigation canal, on the south .. on the north you could also see the western ramparts of the Chandrasekaraswami Temple, and the somewhat dilapidated temple gopuram... The speciality of this house is its 'spiral stair case' and to my knowledge it is still functional !!

The kitchen area was in the western most part of the house, and considering the size of flats in Madras, a family could easily live in the kitchen itself. There is a well, ever full, with sweet water (thanks to the river Cauvery).. The feasts of the village, temple, traditional, and whenever a marriage takes place, are used to be held in this heritage house.

When in the thirties, Dr. Seshadri and family came to the village, they were billeted in this house only and continued to remain there until such time he brought property in the East Street in front of the post office. Before Dr. Seshadri, the house was occupied by one Padmanabha Iyengar belonging to the family of Kodiyalam Rangaswamy Iyengar. This family took very active part in the activities of the village.

Wanting to keep this treasure in the family, Ramakrishnan also a grandson of Venkataraman, bought this property from the TVS family, and when Ramakrishnan found it somewhat difficult to manage and maintain the house, he sold this property, to T. V. Chandrasekaran, (son of one of the unsung heroes of the village, Pandal Venkataraman).


TVC is a Teacher by profession, and had worked at the Hindu High School Madras for many years before retiring to the village -- more on this family later) .. The other residents in this house were Coffee Srinivasa Iyer, and Ambulance V. Ramachandran (whose grandson Sriram is one of the creators of the Jeeyapuram blogsite)

The tiny house adjacent to the Big House, was that of Kaveriamma, daughter of Chellammal, and a niece of Seshagiri .. Her son Muthukrishnan resided in this for some years, and after his marriage moved to Bangalore.. Then A. Ranganathan a Railway Employee stayed at this place with his family, and after that T.K. Subramaniam, a nephew of Srinivasan moved into this place.

The youth brigade of the Sixties along with T.K.Subramanian. (Ambi, DV Sarma's son (Nilakantan's brother) Sundaram (now a practising physician) TMT and others) House next was the one in which Subbaiyer (V.G.Subramaniam) used to live / his son Dr. S. Ganapathisundaram was in the army Medical Corps, married to Mangalam and one of their daughters is a ‘daughterinlaw’ of the village, spouse of T.V.Ganesan a grandson of Srinivasan.
On to the next, this house belonged to Sirugambur Ramaswamy Iyer, and his grandson N. Sanjeevi spent his childhood days in the village before moving to better pastures.

Muthappa (Mathrubhutham) lived next door and his family in due course moved out of the village – Pichai to Madras, to join the Easuns, Rajam to Telephones, and Chandru to Karnataka to the Railways. Daughter Kamala moved along with Pichai. This house nurtured a prolific Tamil story writer in Rajam, the second from the village.

It is in this house Narayanaswami Iyengar and family resided for a number of years, and the boys of the village had perhaps the best guidance from this gentleman. A Teacher in the School, a playmate in Badminton in the court inside the Chandrasekaraswami Temple, and a religious guru in the evening – it is during his time, recitation of Vishnu Sahasranamam commenced, every evening around 7.00 pm and flourished for some decades.

The second big house of the village, of a duplex pattern, was next – the southern part belonged to T.V.Subbaraman, and the northern one to Rajappa, son of Ramu… Subbaraman’s children were T.S. Ramanathan, and Subbalakshmi who married R. Venkataraman an Advocate and brother of Sub-Judge R. Rajagopalan… TSR married Kalyani, of Umayalpuram and their son R. Subbaraman (Subash) is a resident of Chennai now.

Children of Subbalakshmi and Venkataraman left the village, to the northeast, Calcutta and Jamshedpur and ultimately settled down in Madras now, but with a stronghold in the village having rebuilt the old house, and being regular visitors to the village during festivals and other important occasions. The other part of the house was occupied by K.S.Chandrasekaran and Lakshmi (granddaughter of Ramu, younger brother of Seshagiri)
with their children and in course of time and after marriage of the children the house was rented out.. Alamelu and children lived in this house before the Chandrasekarans moved in.

The house next belonged to Ganapathy Gurukkal, a sivacharya of the Chandrasekaraswami Temple – his children – Parameswaran, Muthu and Kalyanam served the temple, and now Shanmugasundaram, son of Muthu is the senior Temple Priest.. And it will be interesting to know that Mahesh, son of Shanmugasundaram, now working in the USA, is a co-creator of the blog site devoted to the village http://www.jeeyapuram.blogspot.com/ / http://jeeyapuram.co.nr/

Natesa Gurukkal, another sivacharya of the Chandrasekaraswamy Temple, occupied the next house, Apart from his priestly duties, he took part in the social activities, was for sometime the President of the Balar Sangam (the forerunner of the Ever Friends Association).. His sons Ganesan and Pichumani carried on the tradition.

The building next is the Elementary school where we all studied at one time or another under different teachers and headmasters. When the number of students swelled in the forties, the School opened up an annex in the prakaram of the Chandrasekaraswami Temple

The Village well, and the handpump installed in the sixties.one sitting on theparapet of the well is Annamuthu

On the right side of the Venugopalaswami Temple, we had the village well, later supplemented by a Hand Pump, from where the villagers used to have their drinking water… adjacent to the well, there were three houses, the first one belonging to T.V.Subramaniam (a son of Venkataramana Dikshidhar from the Keela Theru)

Next is the house of the great Samaritan of the village Venkataraman, and the last that of Doraiswamy (village karnam) family.

The story of the village will never be complete if we do not talk about Venkataraman.. A person who involved himself in the day-to-day activities of the village, and also of the families resident there. Is it a festival, he is there. Is it a marriage in a family, he is sure there. Is it a death in the family – he will be there first. He shared the good and bad, gave a helping hand to every family in the village – and made himself endeared to the residents of our time then. Temple festivals e.g. Sriramanavami/Sita Kalyanam, Vijaya Dasami, Karthigai Choka Panai, Thiruvadirai at the Sivan Koil, Maha Sivarathri poojas at the Siva Temple, all through the night, and the ‘kaappu kattu’ utsavam of the village Pidari Temple always found the imprint of Venkataraman.. The village was extremely lucky in having had such a dynamic personality and a leader always willing, obliging, and expecting nothing in return. His motto, I am sure, was Paropakarartham Idham Sareeram !!

Talk about the floods of 1924 in the River Cauvery, it is common yore that Venkataraman and Ayya Ayyar a Munsif of the village (another unsung hero) kept vigil throughout the night in ensuring that the flood waters did not enter the village, by building checkdams with sandbags and bricks. No one will forget his interest, and helping instinct to the villagers.

His children are equally interested in the village, and most of them are there now - Muthukrishnan, Rajagopalan, Ramamurthy, Rangaraju and Chandrasekaran. Rangaraju moved to Tiruchi to look after his business, but is a regular visitor to the village taking part in its events. The helping tendency runs in the family.

Few more snaps of Thiruchendurai people.

A group of youngsters, taken on the terrace of T.V.Muthukrishna Iyer's house. In the photo are Visu (son of subjudge Rajagopalan- who drowned in the river cauvery - his cousin Gopalan, Kasturi, T.S.Srinivasan (who joined the Ramakrishna Math in the north) Jayaraman of Srirangam House. Visu was a very brilliant student and his death shocked the entire village.

Chandrasekara swamy temple (1950)

Chandrasekara swamy temple (2007). The one (Left) in front of the temple is Thiru. T.V. Ganesan.

- Sethuraman

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Thiru Sethuraman for this article & the photos (especially 1940s) and his continuous support and tremendous efforts to keep this site active.

We would also like to express our gratitude to Thiru Seenu and Thiru TMS for their valuable contributions and support for this article.