"That was my first visit to an Indian village," he recalls. "Those people had lost everything. There were 208 houses in the village, and 203 had collapsed. When we went there, we didn't know anything about what awaited us. I went there as a volunteer of Care International."
"As I was leaving the village, two old women told me, 'Till the earthquake happened, nobody came to help us. Nobody bothered about us'. That changed my attitude towards villages. I saw the terrible situation that villagers face in our country, and how we do nothing to improve their situation. I felt ashamed of myself," he added.
He then chose Vilathikulam in Tamil Nadu as his karmabhoomi.
Elaborating on his decision to work in a village instead of the state capital, Ram Krishnan says, "There is no Tamil Nadu in Chennai. It's another big city. It has nothing to do with Tamil Nadu."
Image: One of the ponds that store water.
Also see: No electricity, phone or TV and lions as neighbours
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