CHENNAI: Kamaraj Memorial House at Thirumalai Pillai Road, T Nagar saw a sea of visitors who arrived to celebrate the 112th birth anniversary of former chief minister K Kamaraj.
The register book at the venue showed that the number of guests on Tuesday alone was over five times the usual number on any given day.
Members of various political parties and Nadar welfare associations gathered for the celebrations that began with the garlanding of Kamaraj’s statue with the bursting of crackers disrupting traffic movement on the busy stretch. They cut a big cake and distributed sweets and lunch. “Usually we see about 50 visitors a day. But the house was closed for public for the past one week due to PWD work here,” said a worker, who sits in the office, handling the visitors’ book.
Congress leaders including EVKS Elangovan, Thangabalu, G K Vasan, Kumari Ananthan and former MLA Yesodha visited the memorial the worker read out from the visitors’ book. A separate register opened on Tuesday showed there were close to 250 visitors by Tuesday afternoon.
“This is the 18th year I am visiting the memorial house on our leader Kamaraj’s birthday. I am a man who grew up eating the mid-day meal he introduced. He was not only a great leader but a friend of the poor. Today I sang a song dedicated to him,” said septuagenarian Valluva Vattapu from Kodungaiyur.
Many caste groups from various corners of the city joined the celebration, visiting the house and clicking photographs inside it, where the late leader was once a tenant even during his regime as a chief minister. It was purchased by the government after his death and was converted into a memorial.
“My father is a Kamaraj follower. I have been visiting this house since I was in Class 9. But what is worrying now is that people no longer see him as a national leader but associate him with his caste. Even my husband has become such a fanatic that he has registered our son’s name along with the name of our caste. We always have an argument over caste and following Kamaraj’s principles,” said a worried Parameshwari, who was part of a Nadar association from Mangadu.
The birth anniversary saw 63 primary class students from Karnataka Sangha Nursery and Primary School visiting on a field trip. “We saw photographs and lots of books in the library. We were told he was a national leader,” said Gowri, a Class 3 student. A teacher worried that their students could not spend enough time in the house due to the visit of political leaders and the crowding of party workers around them.