80-year-old expatriate donates an acre to shelter 20 families

FOR V V Balakrishnan, an 80-year-old from Chalissery in Palakkad, the decision to donate an acre of land to shelter 20 families was not made on a whim — it was shaped by a lifetime of personal trials and deeply moving experiences.

- SHYAM P V @Palakkad

"I was born and raised on a land that did not belong to us," he recalls. "The insecurity of not having a place to call home was something I lived with throughout my early life." After serving 15 years in the Indian Air Force and spending 19 years in Bahrain, Balakrishnan returned to a heartbreaking sight in his village — a family demolishing a portion of their own modest house to make space for a burial, as they did not have any other land to call their own.