The Vallakottai transformation

Four years back, construction worker Ashok Kumar from Tamil Nadu was an unhappy man. His income was about ₹7,500 a month, hardly anything for a family of five, including a daughter who was soon to be married. Life, obviously, was a struggle.

Today, Kumar is still an unhappy man — but his problems are different. “I have to finish this house,” he says, scratching his beard and looking lovingly at a half-built, two-storeyed construction that he calls his home. The family has moved in, but the walls lack plastering and the ‘flooring’ is still of mud and cow dung mixture. There is pressure on his wallet, mainly due to a loan he took from a relative for his daughter’s wedding expenses.

However, a lot has happened in Kumar’s life in the last four years, transforming him from a man looking for his next meal ticket to one who has to find money to complete building his house.

Today, an owner of three cows, a bunch of calves, a few hens and a number of chicks he has lost count of, Ashok Kumar, who is about 45, says he is grateful to Lord Murugan, the resident of the 1,200-year-old temple of Vallakottai, after whom the village that he lives in is named.

It is not just Kumar that Vallakottai Murugan has bestowed his blessings upon. Just a couple of streets away, a bunch of middle-aged women, sporting jingling glass bangles and vermillion smudges on their foreheads, are all smiles.

Two years ago, very few of them could call a couple of rupees their own and not gleaned from their husbands. Some sold camphor and flowers during festivals when the Vallakottai village would attract pilgrims from the neighbourhood; some worked at construction sites. The most active of them earned ₹2,000 in their best months.

But after they wove themselves into a self-help group called, rather stylishly, ‘Vallakottai Murugan Catering Kuzhu’, (the last word meaning ‘group’) each of them earns at least ₹6,000 every month, for which they thank the Lord.

Their gratitude is really for bringing into the village a transformative agent — the Hyundai Foundation. Vallakottai is about 20 km from Sriperumbudur, where the South Korean automotive giant Hyundai makes its cars. Since Sriperumbudur itself is about 40 km from Chennai, the Vallakottai village, home to 1,500 households, lay well away from urban influences — until Hyundai stepped in as part of its Dream Village Project, a constituent of its CSR activities.

Driving change

Two years back, the Foundation picked up Vallakottai among the villages it would intervene for creating income-generation opportunities. It gathered the villagers near the temple and put to them one simple question: what kind of business would they like to do?

Ellammal (second from right) with her team

Ellammal remembers rising her hand. “Sir,” she told the officials, “I have an idea.” Lots of people from the neighbouring villages come to the village temple to conduct weddings. As many as eleven wedding halls have sprung up in the village. “They always come looking for caterers,” Ellammal said. “So, will you please teach us catering?” Hyundai Foundation’s officers jotted down briskly in their notepads.

Ashok Kumar wanted a cow. His sights were firmly fixed on the multi-storeyed apartment buildings coming up on the horizon, in Sriperumbudur. Real estate companies such as Arun Excello and Casa Grande are active, hoping for Sriperumbudur to regain its pre-eminent position as a preferred industrial town.

The township has lost the trophy to nearby Oragadam, home today to biggies such as Nissan, Apollo Tyres and Danfoss. Though it lost some corporate residents — Nokia and Caparo, to name two — to the vagaries of business, Sriperumbudur is clawing back into the reckoning, with companies like Foxconn in expansion mode. And, the township still has Hyundai and its 985 component suppliers and Saint Gobain, the glass-maker. Sriperumbudur has always been expected to teem with thousands of workers. Hence, the presence of Arun Excello and Casa Grande, whose towering constructions are visible in distant Vallakottai.

Kumar’s ancestors had been milk vendors. He kind of knew the business.

The 17 wise women and Kumar, among several others in Vallakottai, got their wishes granted. For the Foundation, it seemed good bang for the buck, for it spent just ₹6 lakh to get the women stuff like utensils and stoves, and a little more in training them in hygienic community cooking. Kumar’s cow cost ₹50,000, but the Foundation made sure he put in at least ₹10,000 from his pocket.

Ellammal proudly showed this writer the passbook of Vallakottai Murugan Catering Kuzhu, and pointed to the last line. The group had saved, after the members taking their share, a little over ₹2 lakh. Very soon, the group will have some more good news. The State government is building for them a kitchen, a store room and a lunch hall, which will be ready soon. The not-so-well-to-do perform their weddings in the temple premises; the hall could be rented out to them.

Kumar prospered with his cow. He soon got another one through a State government scheme and the two sired many. Today, the third generation sits under the trees, chewing grass. The cattle give 30 litres of milk a day; a litre sells for anywhere between ₹45 and ₹50. Feed costs ₹3,500 a month.

House-warming helps too

Kumar gets some more income from the ‘gruhapravesams’, or ‘house-warming’ ceremonies. Now, how is that? It is a Tamil tradition to have a cow and a calf walk inside the newly-constructed house, before the family moves in. They pay good money for the bovine incursions — ₹1,500 a visit. Hundreds of flats are coming up in Sriperumbudur. Kumar’s cows have received around 25 invitations in the last eight months.

The spruced-up temple pond

So, loan a cow for a while and the family prospers — is that so simple? Not at all, says Kumar. Tending to cattle is back-breaking work. Kumar and his wife work 18 hours a day.

Apart from that, their fatter bank account is through the hens. Selling chickens and eggs, today more a hobby, will soon become more serious business.

What plans do the catering women have for income multiplication? Ellammal is ready with the answer. There are many factories around — the group is now working on supplying lunch and snacks to the employees who work there.

Several other villagers have been given livestock and those that this writer met said their incomes rose as a result. The temple pond has been cleaned up and the roads paved — hopefully there will be more visitors to keep the development running on planned lines.

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