Mr Ramachandran has held and continues to hold some high positions in the Insurance Industry. A meticulous detail oriented person he missed out on an alternate career as a photographer. We owe some of our memorable pictures thanks to the timely click on his mobile. No small thing goes un-noticed by him.. Its heartening to hear why he chose Melur Meadows when he could have had any other place.
Why I moved to Melur Meadows ?
I was a resident of Mumbai for 21 years in one of its suburbs known as the Prince of Suburbs. I was a resident of Mulund West. My neighbourhood was friendly and the pace of life though seemingly hurried easily fitted into my stride!
It was in year 2009 my neighbour N.K.Ravi forwarded a link that he received from Sulekha.com. This link informed me of Melur Meadows. I am a bachelor so was Ravi’s brother in law. He forwarded that link to his brother in law as well. Ravi must have thought it would assist us to be married to a retirement home during the ageing process that started to set upon us. I was 53 then.
I browsed the website of Melur Meadows. The semi-circular layout with an energetic red roof top struck me strongly. Its environment of foothills and remoteness appealed to me. The ethnicity borne by legends of past inhabitation of this area by Siddhars with their spiritual powers, medicinal herb prescriptions and psalms, the access to hill stations, river and waterfall viewpoints, temples that are over a thousand years old and the traditional restaurants in nearby towns, all being within driving proximity appealed greatly to me.My brother Sethuraman who used to visit Coimbatore frequently as his daughter was studying there took upon himself to visit the site then under construction and coming up as Melur Meadows. He was impressed by the locale. I relied on his assessment and took the decision to go ahead.
The phrase used at that time was “Active Retirement”. This appealed a lot to me for not exactly the same reasons as used by the promoters. I saw in its meaning an opportunity to live in an enabling environment that will support my visits, take care of my food needs and for a medical need provide the support of hospitals and clinics in the vicinity and provide specially prepared food as required for an illness. My extended need would be to enable me host my guests – my friends and relations. This is just the way it would have been anywhere else. The exception to anywhere else would be that life here would be a community of people beyond their prime and at an age exceeding 55 years.
I retired at the end of January 2016. I did not move in at that time. There were follow up issues in Mumbai to attend having lived in that city for 21 years. Adapting to the environment here was not at all a concern. My father passed away in July 2016. My mother suggested that we stay on in Chennai. After one year of my father’s passing away, my mother relented to move in here. I requested her to assess for herself the new environment and if she confirmed continuity of stay I will move in later. Further, if I moved in I will continue to stay here and will not be inclined to go out even if she changes her mind. She was advised by doctors not to climb stairs. She rented ( we did it for her ) L.V.Venkatraman’s Studio Plus unit on the ground floor. She liked its immediate environment. She got to meet people and make friends. Her initial impression was funny. She observed that “people living here are old”. It took her quite a while to reconcile to the community here as a retirement home for senior citizens and that people living here are necessarily old!
I moved in here on 1st September 2016, seven years after my sale deed was signed. I started to closely look at the nature within Melur Meadows. I discovered amazing creations in nature. I have seen caterpillars turning into butterflies, pea-chicks turn into adult pea-cocks and pea-hens, a few days of hot Sun followed by a couple of days of thrashing rain, the bright and cheerful flowers all around, the existence of medicinal trees and bushes forested assiduously by the pain staking interest of the promoters, the hillocks that harbour platinum as a mineral within their fold. I have heard the distant gong of the temple bell making an offering to the presiding deity of Kumaran Kundru, the cracking thunder following lightning bolts of an intensity not seen or heard anywhere, the screech of the beetles, grasshoppers and insects at night, the call of the peacocks, koels, sparrows and the long list of birds by day and the occasional sounds of vehicles and pump-motors at Melur Meadows.
I look forward to our community moving along lines of “active retirement” meeting its incremental needs in step with aging and with certainty such that when I reach a point of no-return I must have left satisfied that the choice I made to be here was the best that life offered to me.
Best Regards Ram
