From Dindigul...
...to Serangoon
“Why you ask me about cow? You (are) very funny ah.”
We met Mr Subramaniam, a retired construction engineer, in a coffee shop in Little India. After some lively banter, he shared a little bit about his life and family.
Mr Subramaniam hails from a village near Dindigul, a city in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, where he grew up working and later on managing his family’s rice farm business. Alongside members of his family, he spent his youth ploughing fields with the help of a few steers. As the cattle toiled through the damp soil, they not only loosened the fertile ground, they also fertilised the fields with fresh manure.
While life on the farm was strenuous on the body, it had taught him the virtues of hard work, patience, an appreciation for where food comes from. He remarked, "food is more important than money, correct or not?".
A young steer from Mr Subramaniam's farm having dinner.
As the oldest child in his family, he was afforded the opportunity to study and would later on move to Singapore for work in the mid-1970s.
He would frequently visit his hometown and family over the years until all of his siblings found their own paths and they collectively sold the farm, along with the machinery, infrastructure, and the hardworking cattle in the 1990s.
When asked if he misses any part of his early life, he replies, "Life back then (was) quite simple. It's not good or bad, but different".
We would like to thank Mr Subramaniam for sharing his stories with us, as well as his daughter who graciously shared photographs from his last trip to the farm.
A younger Mr. Subramaniam (in the navy shirt) with members of his extended family and some of his farm's cattle.