Soon enough, Ramaiah was forced to take stock of his situation. Agricultural income became meager ever since they left Ramavaram. After all, the lessee of their depleted landholding made it a habit to blame it upon the drought to deny Ramaiah his due. Besides, as all the eligible accounts were discounted, there was no way to have a loan from his office. As for their ancestral dwellings, the modern houses that came up made them antiques already. Thus, Ramaiah began to feel as if he reached the dead end of Ramavaram.
“Why not dispose of all that? What with the diminishing returns, they’re assets only for the record,” he broached the topic with Janaki. “Well if only the old man were alive it would have been a different story.”
“With the ‘land for the tiller’ thick in the air, better we come out clear,” she gave the green signal. “You better sell away whatever little my father left me as well.”
When he returned from Ramavaram, after having sold what all they had, he felt as though his umbilical cord with the place was severed. With those proceeds, he proceeded to acquire an old building in Gandhinagar as their ‘old age shelter’ as he put it. The rest of the fund he deposited in a scheduled bank to take care of future needs.