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Uvari is a coastal village with about 3,000 households and a population of 10,000 in the Tirunelveli district

Tirunelveli District

Tirunelveli District is a district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The city of Tirunelveli is the district headquarters. A unique feature of this district is that it encompasses all five geographical traditions of Tamil Literature; kurinji , mullai , marudham , neithal and palai...

 in the state of Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

 in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. It is 75 km from Tirunelveli

Tirunelveli

Tirunelveli , also known as Nellai , and historically as Tinnevelly, is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the headquarters of the Tirunelveli District and the sixth biggest city in Tamil Nadu...

 and 45 km from Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari is a town in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. It is also sometimes referred to as Cape Comorin. Located at the southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula, it is the geographical end of the Indian mainland. The district in Tamil Nadu where the town is located is called Kanyakumari...

.

Economy

The main occupation is fishing.
Many of the men work as sailors, contributing to the local economy.
This is a separate Panchayat village, which is beautiful and modern in nature.
Uvari has four schools, a hospital run by nuns, a bank , post office and BSNAL telecom exchange office

History and Religion

In ancient Tamil

Tamil people

Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...

 history, the people were called Bharathar's of the Neithal (ocean) land. Uvari historical name was Obeer Pattanam which was ruled by Pandiyan dynasty before they been converted by Portuguese. (example: for the same reason fish sympol kept on Pandyan Kingdom flag. More recently, in the 1530s, Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 and Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 missionaries from Goa

Goa

Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...

 had a strong influence
when the Bharathars converted to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 as a Roman Catholic's.The priests, acting as godfathers, gave surnames such as Fernando to all Roman Catholic bharathars as they been converted by Portuguese.
According to local myths, the crew of a Portuguese ship sailing near Uvari about 450 years ago contracted cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

.
In an attempt to avert death, the ship's carpenter carved an image of Saint Antony of Padua from a block of wood.
Soon after, the entire crew regained its health.When the ship docked at Uvari, the sailors set up the statue inside a hut in the village.In the 1940s, the villagers built a church with the original statue of St. Anthony holding the infant Jesus in his hand on the altar.St Anthony is said to perform many miracles daily,therefore it was church to shrine and Uvari is visited by pilgrims of different religionsfrom all over South India.

The Kappal Matha Church (our lady of health), with the form of a ship carrying an aeroplane, is also well known and worth a visit.
The original church of St. Mary was damaged by sea erosion, and replaced by this one built in 1974.
There are four shrines and many grottos.

Present situation of Uvari

Presently Uvari is one of the modest coastal towns among other coastal villages. it has one higher secondary school, one high school, one middle school and one elementary school. it has one hospital which is run by nuns. Churches, St. Antony's Shrine, St. Andrew's Church, Selvamatha Church [(our lady of health)] and Velankannai matha church [(our lady of health)]. mostly one single person from each family working on ship lines or abroad.