150 years ago a small boy left his village for the nearest town along with his father. he grew up to be a successful lawyer. his son, who grew up in the city lost contact of that very village in which his ancestors dwelled for generations on together. he grew up, did his engineering and later became my grandfather. All that he remembers now is the name of the village and vague recollections of the very few visits he gave to his ancestral land eons ago. His son my father wanted to see his ancestral place. The name of which is part of his names initial. he did some research, a lot of research at that and cornered it to a small place called CHENGADU near the wallaja town. My initials do not refer to the village, but all the same i wanted to visit this place, from which four generations ago my grandfather moved out. I wanted to visit the place, and the temple, which according to hearsay was a marvel. I visited the place two years ago for the first time along with my uncle. I was beyond words. Where I expected a marvelous edifice, a divine alter, I only found a dilapidated structure, neglected by the villagers. The second time I went along with my dad, and dad was designing a plan to restore the village. But things took a great hit. Last time we visited the shrine and the village as such on 26th December 2004. If people remember, that was the day of the tsunami. We had to return home on a hurry and all the plans were shelved. Last weekend was the third visit. This time we have decided to do something solid for the village. But before that we want to get to meet more such people, who moved of from the village. I have written many blogs about the most trivial things, I decided that I would use my blog this time for a noble cause. dear readers if something strikes your mind when you hear the word 'chengadu', then please leave a comment so that i ( or my father) can reach you. i am uploading a few of the photos in this blog. Useless trivia: Madhavan the cine star's ancestral land is also the same village. I wish that he read this ;). this was taken at the entrance of the village The Front View Another View