Reporters when posted to a place where they know no one move into a lodge, then hunt for a permanent place. I did so with Velumanikam lodge in Ramanathapuram.
As I was checking in, saying I would stay only a few days, an older man in a white khadi shirt and dhoti ambled in. Everyone was watchful of him — a man of standing. He was the owner, Veluchamy.
Veluchamy stared at me for a few seconds, smiled and said, “You should feel free here.” He had sized me up already. He gave me a top-floor room, quiet but breezy; told me I could come and go as I pleased; and made Sivagiri, an employee, my Man Friday — a big help for a reporter.
Veluchamy was a civil contractor who specialised in ONGC works, and the lodge was his office. He spoke little, but when he did, people listened. He carried respect.
This was during the 1998 Lok Sabha elections — a busy time for a reporter. One had to do punditry without appearing to. Without scientific surveys, how could merely speaking to a few random people help? Sivagiri nudged me towards Veluchamy, known for astute observations, and I asked him who would win.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was then a faraway force in Tamil Nadu; it still is. But Veluchamy, known as a Congressman, muttered, “BJP, BJP…”. And the BJP did indeed come to power. It was as if Veluchamy had an uncanny insight into national politics, sitting in Ramanathapuram. Or was it just that he kept his ears to the ground?
Veluchamy made me a part of things, inviting me to festivals at his village temple — an honour, I was told.
A few months later, it seemed that the BJP government might not last, given the pressure from Jayalalithaa’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
One evening, the television was showing a Hare Krishna group singing and dancing on the streets of London. Veluchamy pointed at it and said, “Minorities must be given space.” By then the lodge felt like home. I gave up looking for a permanent place, and stayed until I was posted out of Ramanathapuram.
Thirty years later, while covering the Assembly election, I started at my old stomping grounds — Ramanathapuram. Veluchamy was long dead, but his grandson, V.K. Rajeev, was contesting as a Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) candidate.
Pre-poll surveys and most punditry gave a clear victory to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). But outside Ramanathapuram where the sizeable Muslim vote seemed solidly behind the DMK, nearly every person I met, barring older folk, said that the TVK would win. Unwilling to depend on just anecdotal reportage, I, however, merely said that TVK president Vijay was on a roll, in my report.
I recently dropped by Mr. Rajeev’s office at Fort St. George. Veluchamy’s grandson had won and was now Minister for Environment and Climate Change. He said that after Veluchamy’s death in 2011, his family kept the body for two and a half days, as people thronged to pay their respects. He had been kind to all, and helped them often without his family knowing.
Mr. Rajeev said his grandfather had 18 grandchildren, 10 of whom became doctors — he himself among them. Veluchamy respected doctors, and wanted his grandchildren to reach that stature. “He was so good at judging people that he kept only the good-hearted near him,” he recalls.
The Minister talks of his plans — enforcing the plastic ban; source segregation of municipal waste; climate awareness and the like. Did he predict his own win? He says he did because he was contesting on his family’s good name.
Veluchamy is a study in how a family legacy forms, and how political leadership springs from it. Would Veluchamy have predicted TVK’s win? I could picture him muttering: “Vijay, Vijay…”
Mr. Rajeev maintains an office at the Velumanikam lodge that still stands.
Published – August 14, 2026 01:43 am IST
