THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The pandemic has affected the livelihood of several people. S S Radhakrishnan, 24, an English and Malayalam rap artist is one of them. He is now forced to sell his 1,150 sqft home situated on 4.25 cents of land at Chackai here. The double-storey house at Chackai, was built by Radhakrishnan’s mother O Sheela. However, the repayment of the housing loan has been hit in the last 18 months. The singer has accused real estate brokers of thwarting his attempts to sell the house for the stated price of Rs 51 lakh.
The world got to know of Radhakrishnan’s plight on Wednesday when he made a post about his situation on ‘Where in Trivandrum’, a Facebook group, which has over 31,000 members. Trouble started for Radhakrishnan after his mother, who works as a nursing assistant in Women and Children Hospital, Thycaud, took a housing loan of Rs 12.50 lakh from a nationalised bank to construct the upper storey of their house.
Due to non-payment of monthly loans, the debt has now shot up to Rs 52.50 lakh as they had taken loans at exorbitant interest from private bankers also. Radhakrishnan along with three of his three friends had launched a music band ‘Kala Man Initiative’ in 2018, which comprised 20 artists. Until the pandemic ser in, with lot of rap gigs happening across the state, Radhakrishnan could chip in towards the housing loan. A graduate in English language and literature, Radhakrishnan is currently working as a freelance content writer.
“The monthly housing loan was Rs 30,000 where my mother’s take-home monthly salary was Rs 26, 000. So my remuneration from the concerts was a big help. To tide away the humongous crisis, I even resorted to doing live gigs on my Instagram handle, but did not yield the desired results,” Radhakrishnan told TNIE.
The house also belongs to his maternal uncle Manoj Kumar, a painter by profession. So Radhakrishnan says whatever money could be garnered from the sale, it has to be divided equally. His father Satheesh Kumar was a mechanic who died of a heart attack 21 years ago. At the time, Radhakrishnan was only three and his sister Remya Krishnan three-months-old.
“Now, brokers are proving to be the biggest stumbling block to sell the house as they try to downplay its market value. Though several parties evinced interest in the house, afterwards they came up with some excuse or the other. That’s when we realised that it is the handiwork of the brokers. I sincerely hope that the sale can be completed at the earliest without further hiccups,” added Radhakrishnan.