The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Homeless auditor rescued from the streets

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Homeless auditor rescued from the streets

Ramya Kannan

S. Neelakantan can only speculate how long he has been wandering

S. Neelakantan — Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: He grew up in Palakkad and worked in Bangalore, yet this 62- year-old internal auditor is an expert on Chennai's roads. Mention any road in any corner of the city and S. Neelakantan can tell you where it is and what the closest landmark is. The way he came to acquire this information: wandering the streets of the city.

For several years now, Mr. Neelakantan has been living off the city's streets, in a daze that was later recognised as mild mental illness.

Though he can only speculate about the number of years he has been on the road, this senior citizen has an intimate knowledge of the roads, streets, lanes and bylanes of the metropolis.

How does he do it? "I have been roaming the streets and sleeping on the pavements for a long while. I would spend months in one area before moving on to another.

The tea-shop owners in each area would help me out by giving me money for food," Mr. Neelakantan says.

He has lived in Purasawakkam, Teynampet, Nungambakkam, Chetpet, even on Mount Road, he claims. It must be something to do with addresses because he can still reel off the address of the home he lived in Palakkad, over 50 years ago: 459, Single Street, Old Kalpathy, Palakkad.

It was only a few weeks ago that he was rescued from the streets, where he fainted due to a heatstroke, by social workers of Anbaham (09444009988/0989569450). Anbaham founder Mohammed Rafi says he is making efforts to find Mr. Neelakantan's family.

He has two sisters Swarnambal and Visalatchiamma and a brother S. Venkatasubramanian. "We hope we can facilitate a re-union with his surviving family," Mr. Rafi adds.

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