Thurumella
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Introduction
Samdani MN, June 3, 2023: The Times of India
It’s a well-known story. The progeny of agrarian families enter the modern education system and within a few generations are ready to reap the dividends of academic and technical knowledge that they gather. The rewards come in the form of cushy jobs in the city, or even outside the country, far away from the place they call home.
Thurumella’s story, though, is not only about the sterling fortunes of its children who are now scattered around the globe. It is also a tale of the isolation and neglect a once-bustling habitation falls into when the youngsters leave.
Thurumella should not be a place easy to forget. At least not the area where it is located. The village lies near Tenali, the place in present-day Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district that is identified with the eponymous 16th century wit, Tenali Rama, who adorned the court of the great Krishnadevaraya. Like Tenali Rama, who history books say moved to the court of the Vijayanagaran king following a personal tragedy, the younger folk of Thurumella, too, have prospered and earned a name for themselves after leaving home, albeit in happier circumstances.
The village, however, is grappling now with the not-so happy circumstance of its emptying out. It has become a “locked” village. Many houses are either locked up or abandoned. Almost all the lanes sport a deserted look and are lined with buildings wearing signs of neglect and disrepair. Huge houses are left without any inmates or attendants. The situation is not new. Locals say that the out-migration is now decades in the running.
“It is not a sudden development. They’ve been flying out of the village for the past two-three decades. Now, almost the entire younger batch is out. Initially, we used to celebrate when a boy or a girl from the village got a big opportunity in the US or UK. Now, there is no such joy as the village is becoming empty,” says the octogenarian Mahalakshmi.
Considered till a few decades back to be the biggest village in the area with a population of 3,500-4,000 people, Thurumella now has just around 1,600 inhabitants. A few of them are agricultural labourers, the rest are mostly elderly couples who have chosen to stay back, mainly citing tieswith the soil for their decision.
What surprises them is that the village was never really “poor”. It was known to be among the “wealthiest” in the district. Thurumella was the first village in the district to get a high school, much before Independence, and a junior college had opened there by 1970. The government high school sowed the seeds of ambition among the youth while students of the local high school made news for topping state exams. “They have realised their goals and landed in a nation of their dreams – be it the US or UK or Singapore. We are proud of our children who have brought laurels to the nation and our state,” said former vice chairman of the village panchayat, Veeramachineni Bhaskara Rao, counting globally renowned leather technology scientist and Padma awardee,the late Dr Yalavarathi Nayudamma, as an alumnus of the Thurumella high school.
“It is a big sociological issue that needs to be studied, particularly the fate of villages that were at the forefront of providing education to their children back in the 1960s or 1970s. Many people from the first and second generations of high-school pass-outs from the agriculturally rich districts have moved to the US and UK and are settled there with kids. They have never looked back. The rare visit is for attending some family function,” said realtor Y Adinarayana.
So, Thurumella is now resigned to its “closed doors”. At present, a rough count saysthat more than 1,000 families from Thurumella are settled across the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and Singapore. “I do not know how to express my feelings about the situation in the village. Although we are happy that our children are settled in the US and working in top positions, my village has become a home for elderly people after the migration of the younger generations,” said Polavarapu Ramesh.
Ramesh is a civil engineering graduate who moved to Kuwait in 1990 and stayed there for about a decade. However, he quit the job and returned to the village to take up agriculture. Almost all his high-school batchmates have moved out in pursuit of greener pastures and have never returned. His daughter Vani Saraswathi is a senior software engineer who’s based in the US with her family. Thurumella’s fate is shared by scores of villages across Andhra, particularly in Guntur, Krishna (NTR), Palnadu, Bapatla, East Godavari, West Godavari, Amalapuram, Eluru and Kakinada districts. And, now, even the elderly are leaving. They are shifting to nearby towns and cities in view of the better healthcare facilities there. “The NRIs insist that their parents and grandparents move to the city as they feel that is easier for the sake of connectivity. It also allows them to organise the required healthcare attention for them, which is not possible in the village,” said retired professor Dr DAR Subramanyam. He says the elderly thus are now moving to the city even though it is not always easy for them to get accustomed to living in apartment blocks.
Meanwhile, Mahalakshmi rues that the children are not even keen to visit the village due to the lack of proper infrastructure, including a dedicated drinking water facility.
