Kallikkattu Ithikasam depicts the story of the people of a village who have turned refugees in independent India. In the 1950s, when Vaigai dam was constructed in Madurai District, 14 villages were vacated for creating the water catchment area. This novel narrates the tearful story of those refugees who lost their land under the water. The author is a child born to one such family and had lived through the misery of this migration in his childhood. The story portrays the tears, blood and pain of the villagers whose families were crushed as a result of modernization. The soul of the novel echoes the truth behind the values of agrarian India and the virtues of farmers which are eternal. This saga won Vairamuthu the Sahitya Akademi Award for the Best Literary Work in the year 2003, and has been translated into 22 languages. The novel sold over a lakh copies.