Chempadu

Chempadu is a hamlet in Radhapuram Taluk, Thirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, southern India. Soaked in red soil and scattered with palm trees, Chempadu has a history of couple of hundreds of years. Most villagers follow Hindu religious practices and few families follow Roman Catholic order. Though the Christians are the minority, they are the original inhabitants of this village and hold a majority of the land in and around the village. Even before the surrounding villages like T. Kallikulam, Valliyur, Panagudi could afford school education, Chempadu had primary school. It has been a longstanding source of palm products like palm leaf and palm wood, and was well known for the export quality palm candy it produced and exported as wide as Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia as well as domestic locations such as Virudhunagar, Thirunelveli and Chennai.

The earlier inhabitants moved away from Kelayaram village couple of centuries ago which is in the western side due to religious reasons not clearly known. Even today one could find the remnants of this once deserted hamlet with mud walls and broken tiles covered in the thorny Xerophyte trees. The little pond (Paadu) at the eastern side of the village is popular among the neighbouring villagers as it sustains summer and supplies water for the cattle population. It is from this pond the village got its name Chempadu, "Chem" meaning red as in the soil, "Paadu" meaning pond.

Although this village is 100% literate, due to abject poverty not all the young people can afford college education. Due to continual failure of rainfall and high level of education among the Eastern street (Catholic) folks, farming is not lucrative any more.^{[clarification needed]} Mr. Devarajan, who is fondly called Seeni, is the father of the village. He was the only Member elected for the Panchayat from Chempadu. Being a philanthropist, he introduced electricity, all season road, piped water and public radio. Recently he donated land for the Nursery school on which the government has built the Balvadi School.

Most of the people are farmers though few have entered the service sector in jobs such as law, engineering, teaching and Police. Women support the family as beedi rollers.

Mr. Devarajan (Citibank), Mr. Belson (Advocate, High court of Madras), Mr. Jebamony (Professor in Mathematics), Mrs. Singarayar (Wife of the Business tycoon Late Mr. Singarayar Nadar), Mr. R. Joyson. MSc,B.Ed (Editor, Dinamani), Mr. R. David Samuel, BSc, MBA (Asst.Manager, Delhi) are some of the notable personalities of this village.

Our Lady of Lourdes^[1] and Aiyya Vaikunda Sami are the patron saints of this small but beautiful village.

References

1. ^ Diocese of Tuticorin. Accessed 15 September 2011.