like phoenix...

There was a period when the agraharam life delved deep into troubled waters and hit rock bottom of its existence.

But the typical Agraharamite has really bounced back..

Basically, whether a pattar stays in his own Agraharam, or in some other far off place.. or settles in places like Mumbai, or gulf or US, invariably the temples, rituals and utsavams, and family functions in the old traditions are all his dreams..

He is prepared to sacrifice, innovate and go to any honest extent to keep his traditions afloat..

So every pattar is ultimately an agraharamite.. No doubt about it.

Most of the agraharms and agraharam temples are better off these days..

the real crunch was about three or four decades ago when the pattars faced the effects of land reforms, and the younger generation was not exactly prepared to maintain and sustain themselves and the middle aged and the elderly were simply dumb-folded and could do very little.

when the community as a whole lost everything and watched silently as their possessions were simply taken away for no fault of theirs... we had to start from scratches..

But our people, some middle-aged, most youngsters, opened up their books, got jobs on the face of the stiffest competition, migrated to Mumbai, Gulf and wherever they could find a decent job and pleasantly no one obliterated his roots completely..

( even in the worst periods, the pattars produced eminent teachers, civil servants, doctors, engineers and scientists.. and the products were really eminent.. head and shoulder above all others and they always excelled as Vedic scholars.. which is their supposed profession).

Every Palakkad pattar world over would have someone representing them in their own native agraharam..

And of late, we find the erstwhile migrant pattars purchasing flats in and around Palakkad to settle after retirement..

This is the sweet story of resurgence of a clan.. a very silent rise from ashes for a huge lot of Phoenix birds..

Pattars were adepts in adapting to adversities at any time..

they were able to stick together and present a rock-like front on the face of adversities though they might be quarreling with one another on minor counts day in and day out..

Happy to see that our children are all in the path of progress and affluence, albeit facing stiff competition and even discrimination in the home turf..