PALAKKAD: The small tiled house of the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran—devotedly known as MGR—from where the matinee idol began his stride to stardom will always be etched in the memory of locals.
Ramachandran’s, sporting his vintage white fur cap and dark glasses, left his Midas Touch on celluloid
as an actor, director and producer and became an enigma by winning the chief minister race from
his hospital bed with much elan.
But now, the only remnants of the prolific history is the ramshackle Maruthur ‘tharavad’ (MGR’s ancestral house) in Vadavannur, which functions as an anganwadi. On the peeled-off compound wall of the well, the wordings ‘Sathya Vilasam’ is etched in Malayalam.
Though pale, the name, which was given after M G Ramachandran’s mother Sathyabhama, is visible even today. The relatives of Ramachandran, who used to live there, later shifted to Palakkad, 12 kms away and rented it out to the local panchayat.
N Mayil Swamy, a local AIADMK leader, recalled, “MGR was born on January 17,1917 to Melekath Gopala Menon and Vadavannur Marathur Sathyabhama in Kandy in Sri Lanka.
Gopala Menon, who hailed from the nearby Nalleppilly village, moved to Vadavannur after he retired from government service in Kandy and stayed in this house for some time.
After his father’s death, Sathyabhama took Ramachandran and his brother M G Chakrapani to his paternal uncle’s house at Kumbakonam. Both the brothers began their tryst with films while living in Kumbakonam.”