From settled life to uncertainty: Wayanad landslides displace Mundakkai’s community

KOCHI: Muhammad Ashmid's grandfather had reached Mundakkai from Mannarkkad in Palakkad as a plantation worker in the late 1970s and built a life slowly but steadily. Ashmid was born and brought up in the area where his father started a small grocery shop. Now, as he stands gazing at the area where his house stood, Ashmid realizes all their hard work too has been washed away.

Ashmid's is one among the hundreds of stories related to plantation workers and their successors. They had come from various places such as Mannarkkad, Perinthalmanna, and Nilambur, in search of work and for a better life. They braved hostile weather and challenging working conditions in tea plantations but managed to settle down.

The workers in the plantation were provided with quarters to stay in, but many bought small plots of land to build their own houses outside the estate. The houses that cropped up in Mundakkai were mostly built by the successors of plantation workers.

Abdul Razak, a retired madrasa teacher, is now staying in a rehabilitation camp at Meppadi High School. His father came from Perinthalmanna in Malappuram to work as a supervisor in a plantation, and his mother also worked in the estate. Razak's father encouraged his children to study. Razak and his family settled in Mundakkai and built a house, but now that has become a memory.