Panaikulam or Panaikkulam is a village located in the eastern part of

Ramanathapuram district Ramanathapuram District, also known as Ramnad District, is one of the 38 districts an administrative districts of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The old Ramanathapuram District consists of Present day Virudhunagar and Sivagangai district ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

.Panaikulam location on Wikimapia
/ref> The inhabitants of this village are primarily

Tamil Muslims Tamil Muslims are Tamils who practise Islam. The community is 5.7 million in India, primarily in the state of Tamil Nadu where 70% of the Muslim community identified themselves as Tamils. The Tamil-speaking Muslims are descendants of marriage ...

History

The history of Panaikulam is known for the past 200 years only. Before that, there seems to be no recorded history. From the oral information collected from the old people and with the help of a will document written by one of the descendants in the family of first migrants, it is known that Tamil-speaking Muslims migrated from adjacent parts of Ramanathapuram (e.g. Kothakottai, Udaichiyarvalasai, aalappuli ) to a place with pond and lot of palm trees. They named it as Panai (meaning ''palm tree'') kulam (meaning ''pond''). This pond (now called as Pugaloorani) served as the water source for the people and their cattle. Slowly the migrated population moved towards the inner parts of the village and established a mosque (now Jumma Mosque) for praying.Panaikulam
, Panaikulam website The migrations continued from the adjacent villages of

Ramanathapuram Ramanathapuram (), also known as Ramnad, is a town and a municipality in Ramanathapuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the administrative headquarters of Ramanathapuram district and the second largest town (by population) in ...

and Panaikulam became a Muslim village. Some of the migrants used handlooms to weave the cloths and made business out of it. After some time, the mosque was built up using natural stones. It is indeed a very rare architectural beauty. During the nineteenth century, opportunities present in Malaya (now called

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

) attracted Panaikulam people and many of them went to Malaya to earn money. They mostly settled in Penang in businesses such as money exchange and restaurants.

Language

The primary language spoken by the people of Panaikulam is

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

. Even though the accent is similar to that of the

spoken in rest of

, it has unique words probably borrowed from

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, Malay and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Tamil Muslim Tamil Muslims are Tamils who practise Islam. The community is 5.7 million in India, primarily in the state of Tamil Nadu where 70% of the Muslim community identified themselves as Tamils. The Tamil-speaking Muslims are descendants of marria ...

cuisine, Sri Lankan Muslim Sri Lankan Tamil Muslims cuisine and

Malay cuisine Malay cuisine is the traditional food of the ethnic Malays of Southeast Asia, residing in modern-day Malaysia, Indonesia (parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan), Singapore, Brunei, Southern Thailand and the Philippines (mostly southern) as well as ...

. For example, the foods such as

Watalappam Watalappam (also called watalappan or vattalappam) (, , Sri Lankan Malay: ''serikaya'') is a coconut custard pudding made of coconut milk or condensed milk, jaggery, cashew nuts, eggs, various spices, including cardamom, cloves, and nutm ...

and

Idiyappam Idiyappam ( ta, இடியப்பம்/இடியாப்பம், Malayalam: ഇടിയപ്പം), also known as string hopper, ''indiappa'' ( Sinhala: ඉඳිආප්ප), ''noolputtu'' ( ta, நூல்புட்டு, M ...

are regularly prepared and eaten by Sri Lankan Tamil Muslims and

settled in

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Notable person

Haji Mastan Mastan Mirza (1 March 1926 25 June 1994), popularly known as Haji Mastan or Sultan Mirza, was an Indian mafia gang leader, originally from Tamil Nadu and based in Bombay. He was one of an infamous trio of mafia gang leaders in Bombay for over ...

- The birthplace of Haji Mastan is Panaikulam. * K.A.N Bahurdeen, patriarch for the K.A.N (Kati-Adham-Naina) clan, philanthropist and founder of Bahurdeen School, first school to be established in Panaikulam for the village and its surrounding areas. Now it is run by government under the name Bahurdeen Government Higher Secondary School.

References

{{Reflist Cities and towns in Ramanathapuram district