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 Eclipsed Moons
(Stories of people from the othered side)

Listened and Unsuccessfully Worded

By
R.Kumaran

1
Contents
1. “I am thousand struggles old”
2. Latecomer
3. Dreams on a Bicycle Ride
4. Two Worlds
5. To err is a crime
6. Muthamma’s Agony
7. Basket Making Post Master
8. Between Devil and Deep Sea
9. When Diamonds Shined Brightly!
10. If Seasons Come Flowers Bloom Too!
11. Sufferings’ Successful Friends
12. Vinodh’s Schoolless World
13. Judgements are Somebody’s Problem
14. Who Heals the Wounded Soul?
15. Past (im)perfect? Future perfect!
16. Fenita’s Ever Lasting Childhood
17. A Weak Heart’s Strong Mind
18. Pilgrim’s Progress
19. Vengefully Yours
20. Meet tragedies – Age No Bar
21. The Day Will Come
22. Mumtaj to Lakshmi: The Journey
23. If Only Mother Understood Me!
24. The Elusive Intelligence
25. Love Thy Neighbour Like You Eat
26. A Blunder to One but Crime to Many!
27. On the Tender Shoulders
28. Sagita
29. A Doctor Turned Schoolteacher

2
“I am thousand struggles old”—Arockiadass

I
Arockiadass had his disabled companion even as a foetus. In fact it was in that companion’s womb
he grew. Yes! his mother herself was disabled. She died at such an early stage that Arockiadass
does not remember her that well. Arockiadass says that her conditions were worse than him.

Adopted by his aged grand mother who herself was only a coolie, he went to school, although
with lots of difficulty. But with sponsorship from various sources he studied up to 9th standard
after shuttling from one school to another. In fact that was his last stint with education.

They were living in a house (to call it a house is a gross overstatement) with a caved in floor and
half-open roof. Unable to move because of his severe crippledness and nobody offering him any
assistance he lay desolate in that ruined house. He could not sight dawn in his life even as the sky
was visible through the gaping holes in the roof as he slept in that near-rubble that was his house.

He never had big dream, perhaps because he could hardly sleep well in that house. He just wanted
to live. He wanted to live because the poignancy of life cruelly teased him to wait to see the result
of the struggles into which it drew him every now and then. Yes! Arokiadass does not measure the
length of life by the birthdays that have passed by. He remembers it by the number of struggles he
has lived through.

After many years of marginalized existence Arockiadass joined an electrical shop as an errand boy
for a sum that was criminally low, mere 8 rupees per day. Assessed to be all right by the owner of
the shop for a disabled person. This rose to 25 rupees per day in three years time, all thanks to the
dynamism evinced by Arokiadass, something that may be absent even in the able-bodied. He
would say that it was a moral victory for all the disabled. “Never rate them low they can match if
not excel the abled ones,” he would angrily demand.

It was during this time that his house was to be taken away from him for non-payment of tax by
the slum clearance board. Another struggle was just brewing for Arokiadass: Struggle the queen of
life-sustaining tonic for him. Compounded by his leaving the job on a fall-out with the owner for
he doubted his honesty, the threat that the place below holes-only roof will be lost, would have
corroded the courage in anybody. But Arockiadass would have none of it. He, through his
relentless pursuit, won the faith of people who would loan him the money to pay the tax now
quadrupled due to excessive delay as many years had passed by then.

Leading a lonely life, excepting the support of an old grandmother who cooks food for him,
Arockiadass remembers many more struggles that he waged with his life’s cruelties. What kept
him going was the desire to see the result of his struggles at every stage in his life.

At every stage in his life he seems to have taken up the task of salvaging the pride of the disabled,
unselfconsciously though. Take his present job as an attender in a welfare organisation. They took
him, when he went for financial assistance, as a doorkeeper-- literally as one who opens the door in
the morning and closes it at the end of the day, for an allowance of 100 rupees per month. But the
doggedness with which he volunteered to do many other odd chores like going to post office,
Xeroxing, running around to do the legwork though without functioning legs caught the officers
by so much of surprise that they finally made him the office assistant for a monthly salary of nearly
Rs.2000 that he receives even now. It was then, as his experienced colleague would put it, that they
begun to understand him in terms of his abilities rather than disabilities.

II

3
The interesting thing about Arockiadass’s life story is that he does not narrate his life story even as
he talks about himself. For example the truth that he recovered the house is only forgettable piece
information for Arockiadass, as he only recalls how he went about filling many other disabled
persons with pride, self-esteem and a confident look into the future.

He only has lives-story, as it were. One could find the beginning and progressing of lives story of
many people he helped. The details he knows of them are striking. He reconstructs his life-story
only with the knowledge of many disabled people’s lives that he constructed successfully. His
frequent habit of applying for tricycles and telephone booths, bunk shops from various sources for
his own self but giving them away as he meets the ones in need of them has enabled to light many
disabled people’s otherwise darkened lives.

He does all these purely all by himself. He is a one-man service agency. He says that the number of
people he has helped is so many that those stories would fill three volumes if brought out in the
form of books.
Not even a single day passes by without his involvement in championing the cause of the disabled.
For a person who would count his age not in calendar years but in struggles to regain the pride for
disabled people, the movement away from personal struggles to struggles in others lives gives a
deep sense of purpose to his life and enormous amount of pride in him. Every day is the journey
towards witnessing the spectacular success (of course failures are not uncommon) of the struggles
commenced yesterday. Arockiadass, in his drive to redress the grievance of the fellow -disabled
people is on a constant move. “Another struggle commenced,” he would say. “I am ageing every
day,” he might utter with a wink in his eyes.

He firmly believes that mobility loads the disabled with freedom and intense self esteem. So why
he wants to get them on their feet or wheels. Once mobile, prepare them for economic activity is
his idea of empowering the disabled.

III

Arockiadass remembers his life without bitterness. Rather striking for we, the normal ones would
have counted so many instances of bitter incidents in their lives, given their disability. It is not that
they were not there. It is just that he does not remember. He recalls all those who inspired him,
encouraged him to go on in life. There is not even a single character that comes across as a bully;
no mention about one soul that embittered him; no story of betrayal; no hint about trouble-givers.
He is not angry with any one—not even sore with god. He is not complaining about anyone. He
says “add this inability to keep memories in me of bitterness, betrayal, ill will and deceit along
with my already-prevailing disabilities. Added to my 80% disability I may score 100%.” Very
forceful request indeed! Hidden beneath that is the plea that disabilities are virtues if you know
how to look at them. In fact when I asked him to sum up his life story in one line he said “There
were days when I used to lament that I could not do any thing because of my disabilities, now I
think the opposite; it is because of my disabilities that I am able to do so much to others”.

Is ability a virtue or disability a virtue?

------------------------------------------
Special mention must be made about Emmaus Community Welfare Fund (ECOMWEL) and it’s
staff who constantly appear as important characters in his life. Their contribution to gain the pride
and self-belief in Arockiadass can never be exaggerated indeed. If Arockiadass is what he is today,
the credit should go to ECOMWEL and it’s staff.

4
Latecomer

Ummal Khair is a student of 10th standard at the age of 24! She is studying in Vidayasagar, special
school for persons with cerebral palsy at Chennai.

Listening to the story of Ummul Khair requires a different kind of imagination. Her is not a story
of how she helped many even with her crippledness (she is 80% disabled). That she survived many
emotionally weakest moments of existence during which she thought of ending her life should
itself be a source of inspiration to many. She is a silent counselor to the distraught ones.

Ummul Khair has excellent memory of her past, its finer details and she is proud of it. In a body
that would be evaluated in terms of disabilities, there is a flamboyant celebration of even the
negligible of abilities. Just talk to Ummul. She is a standing testimony to the art of ability-
celebration. Even the abled ones hardly do that. She would talk endlessly of her singing ability
with sparkling eyes; she would mention with great significance about her all-alone trip to
Bangalore where her parents live; she would speak of her pencil and water colour drawing with
gusto; she would gleefully narrate her ability to put innumerable designs of mehndi; she would
give an account of her trip to beach, cinema halls with friends, wearing a deeply experienced smile
on her face. There is such an unalloyed innocence that she only can possess. There is too a striking
demonstration of wisdom matched only by the deeply contemplative thinkers. What philosophers
imagine to be the logical conclusion of all their contemplation, Ummul has experienced right from
her birth: “The incompleteness of living.”

We need different categories to understand Ummul’s language. In her recounting of her life, no
shame is attached to narration of disabilities- it is just piece of information; similarly no hesitation
in being proud of her abilities.

I
The unsuspecting parents of Ummul took her to be normal child when she was born. She did not
cry for long, she could not fix eyes on persons for long, and she did not crawl for long.

Her parents thought it was just taking time. It dawned on them much later that some of them
would never happen. But they were not ready to believe it. They were great optimists.

Ummul with her forcefully moving innocence says, “What should have happened at particular
stages did happen at a later stage. For example only at the stage when every other normal child
would be running around, I was about to crawl”.

Her parents (Ummul’s mother who was a Urdu teacher left her job to take care of Ummul and her
ailing husband, a not-so-successful business man) were getting so habituated to seeing delayed
flowering of abilities in Ummul that they never treated her as a person with disabilities. Ummul
was given same amount of love, care, protection, scolding and beating, as her normal brother who
is a year younger to her. For her parents Ummul was not a disabled person. It is just her abilities
are taking their time to erupt in her. Perhaps, they had learnt to evaluate Ummul using a different
time sense, and life-cycle chart. They believe that she will surely grow into a fully evolved
personality. It is delaying that is it. It is with this wonderful climax in mind that her parents treat
her like any normal person.

Perhaps Ummul has inherited this hope from her parents. She says, “Every thing was happening
to me though later than usual. I ultimately spoke; I eventually crawled. Take even my schooling. I
also have entered 10th standard at the age of 24, when every one else would have finished their
post-graduation. It just got delayed. Period.”

5
It is with that same unflinching courage she says beamingly “One day I will walk, will go for
higher studies, and will become a famous singer or a renowned painter. Everything will be normal.
It is getting delayed that is it.”
__________________

6
Dreams on a Bicycle Ride

Jesuraj would pass off as a 20 years old young person until you find out that he is waiting to
receive his two sons return from school. His elder son is in his 9th standard and the younger one in
5th. Jesuraj is very proud of his children and more importantly their going to English medium
school. When talking about his sons his eyes brighten with joy and unalloyed pride.

Jesuraj is a 38 years old Dalit living in the colony house with his wife and two children. He has got
that infections smile in him that exudes warmth and invitation for friendship instantly. His
movement and reaction have a studied balance in them giving a strong impression about his sage-
like level-headedness and unstirrable calmness.

Lying on his back in the bed in that dimly lit house, Jesuraj informed us rather undramatically
about an accident he met with when the truck he was driving collided with an oncoming car.
Though recovered from the injuries sustained in that accident long time back, the pain around the
neck area persists even today. He avers with an ever-present smile about doctors advising him
against sticking to his driver job as it would aggravate the pain as the neck bone has got seriously
damaged. He could never hope to drive in future. And he is out of job now. His mobility too is
restricted severely. His wife work as an agricultural labourer during harvest and planting seasons,
that ensures livelihood for them at the moment.

Jesuraj would narrate all these with such a calmness that you would strongly feel that
sympathising with him would offend him. There is a prophet-like detachment in him when
conveying all these, compelling you take the lesson that life has to go on, instead of a demand for
commiseration. Jesuraj would not even pause to scan for pity in our eyes, before he jumps on to
discuss about the problems that a Dalit faced in this village; about how he went about constructing
a road for this colony with the help of PWD; about his past work as a social worker in an NGO
leading a campaign for adult literacy; and about the disagreement he had with that NGOs leader
that led him to quit the social worker job and take up the job as a truck driver.

Jesuraj has studied up to eighth standard. He says that his father could not educate him beyond
that. After few years of odd jobs he joined the NGO as a member of literacy mission. It was during
the 12 long years of work as a literacy campaigner that he could realize what education could do in
peoples live. He was witness to life coming in full circle for many young boys whose parents
Jesuraj persuaded so that they would send their sons to school, after they dropped out in 8th
standard and took job in match industries. He successfully wooed these boys back to school.
Fifteen years past since then, now he reminisces about some of them having become officers,
engineers and one becoming an IRS officer. Though he cautions us that formal, modern education
is not the panacea, nor a wonder drug. Nonetheless he says that education is a powerful tool for
the lucky ones.

He counts his children among the lucky ones. As a Dalit he could well remember how those
transformed Dalit boys in the match-belt areas he had worked as literacy campaigner, have
successfully transcended many social barriers and recovered some of the privileges divested of
them by society.

Jesuraj pins his hope for Dalit emancipation in education. He has been a direct witness to its
emancipatory potency. “All the things that my grandparents and myself had lost as uneducated
Dalits my sons will recover for they will be educated to the highest level” he asserts.

7
In keeping with his conviction he has purchased education related insurance policies for his sons.
“Come what may, I pay the premiums regularly” Jesuraj assures.

Pointing towards the gaping holes in the roof of his house, he says, “Between re-thatching the roof
and paying the premiums I prefer the later.”

“We Dalits have thousands of years of experiences in living in penury in roofless house. So our
body has built immunity to it. But for my sons educational experience has been available only for
the past few years. They have already dreamt many dreams; they have already set their sights very
high. For me too dreaming as a father of officer sons is very new. I have dared to imagine big,
something my parents never did. I would do every thing to ensure that ours drea ms continue and
one day come true.”

Even as he utters that with self-assured conviction, he leads us out his of his house and stands in
front of his house at the street.

“My sons might return from school any moment” he informs us without sh ifting his gaze at the
end of the street.

“They have to quickly gobble up their food and dash to the tuition centre,” he continues. His sleep-
fatigued eyes light up as two lean and frail looking boys in school uniform come up in a bicycle
with a taller one pedalling and shorter one perched in the carrier.

“There come my sons” Jesuraj announces with his characteristically subdued glee.

“ I have bought them a bicycle, so they could go to school and tuition centre quickly” he says as his
sons dismount from the cycle.

“ I preferred to buy a cycle to thatching the roof. I could have gone for one layer of thatching at
least” he winks as he conveys this possibility.

“Let the holes in the roof become bigger and bigger, so big one day that I could see the sky as I lie
on this cot. But soon my sons would become doctors and officers and all this will end.” Jeauraj tells
this.with gleaming eyes as they sight with pride at those boys while they meander around the
house waiting for his father to return from our conversation and serve them the food. For their
mother is away in paddy field earning her daily wage as a labourer.

__________________

8
Two Worlds

A group of young Dalits gathering under a vast shadowy banyan tree as they are engaged in
animated conversations is the first thing one would catch glimpse of, as one would enter the
village. They would all be seen seated relaxed on a hip-high platform. Neither their guffaws nor do
their full-throated arguments seem to disrupt the deep siesta that some old men take with their
hands folded to form a headrest.

It is among these young Dalits you would spot Ravi. He comes off as such an amiable person that
you would naturally pick him out for friendly conversation or for answering your queries.

When first met, bare-upper-bodied Ravi hurried his young neighbour to bring his shirt on seeing
few strangers approaching him as is quite normal in a village. He soon began to feel very well at
ease with us as we carried our conversation along. A few meetings later he turned so friendly that
he willingly shared many things about him and village.

Ravi is around 30 years old and is working as an electrician in nearby city, Nagercoil. He is
regarded as a worldly-wise person among his friends perhaps for his exposure to city life.

But it is for his knowledge of law and legislations that he is respected and revered by them. There
are many young Dalits who would have been benefited out of his legal wisdom at one point or
other in their lives. He would dash to police station to rescue a Dalit boy caught on a false
complaint from non-Dalit; he would run off to arbitrate between a Dalit and non-Dalit if they are
locked in some tussle: he would handle the police officials when they come to the village in search
of Dalit boys on whom complaints have been falsely lodged by non-Dalits. He would write letters
to SC/ST commission in seeking to redress the grievances of Dalits and he would deal with
government departments in matters of delivering the services.

Villagers remember his name fondly. However despite all the accolades heaped upon him by his
friends and benefited-families he remains composed and self-possessed. With an unmissable
humility that would embarrass your personal moral self with it is genuiness, Ravi traces all his
confidence and wisdom to a weeklong legal awareness camp for Dalit leaders that he attended few
years back.

“It really catalysed a transformation in me,” he declares.

“Otherwise how would I know all these when my education was only up to 6th standard? Ravi
rhetorically questions.

“More than the all the nitty-gritty regarding the acts and legal provisions it was those inspiring
exhortations from the workshop trainers that made a mark in my mind,” he adds.

Nevertheless as he would admit in another conversation, it was those demeaning experiences of

being witness to discrimination as a child and undergoing them all by himself in his later life as an
adolescent and adult person that made him determined to fight for his community’s cause. He
could recount in vivid details about those utterly irresolvable predicaments of having to see in his
own eyes, on the one hand, his father wielding his power over his mother and his relatives, apart
from the community members who would treat him with respect, but on the other hand when
Ravi walked out with his father through non-Dalit streets even a young school-going non-Dalit
boy would call him by his name, in front of whom his father would cringe in respect and absolute
humility.

9
“It look long years for me to resolve the contractions in my father’s behaviour in two different
scenarios. I only concluded that the world that my father as a powerful person occupies was very
microcosmic in the macrocosm of the powerless universe.

There were other instances of having to flee the village even as a small boy, on hearing that the
police are coming to the village to pick up the Dalit boys on false complaints filed by the non-
Dalits.

“They send chills down my spine even as I recall them today” Ravi muses.

He says, “It was because none of us knew that there were laws to protect us that we lived in
constant fear.”

All these made a deep cut in Ravi’s mind and he would often dream that one day he would stop all
this.

“ Now gradually the police have begun to take us seriously and treat us with respect. The
complaints filed by non-Dalits are taken by them with a pinch of salt for we have repeatedly
proved that the complaints were forged” he triumphantly announces.

It is quite evident: Dalit boys could hope to sleep without fearing disruption by police in the
midnight.

“Like these old men who sleep fearlessly I want to ensure that we the young ones would go to bed
in the nights as free citizens. I cannot imagine another night of hiding in the woods for anybody
from now on because some upper caste fellow nurses hatred against us” Ravi asserts as he gazes at
the old men lying around cemented platform.

“However things have not become rosy yet. A lot has to happen. So many contradictions are yet to
be resolved.” Ravi sounds concerned.

As we were moving towards the railway station to return to Nagercoil, Ravi accompanies us along
uptill the railway station. When we were purchasing the tickets across the counter with Ravi
observing us, an old man arrives the railway station on a motorcycle. Without even getting down
from the bike he beckons fiercely to Ravi to come near him holding a 100 Rupee note in his hand in
a commanding gesture. “Buy me a ticket to Nagercoil.” Orders the old man to Ravi.

After doing what was asked of him with a humility that puzzled us, he returned to join us as we
were waiting to board the train. After an uneasy pause he explained, “That man is an upper caste
Naidu, very powerful person in our village. So many of our people are employed in his lands. If I
refuse to obey his commands, that would end up in a flare-up of sorts resulting in a loss of
livelihood for all our people”.

There was a morbid silence between us till the train entered the station. As we were 1about to
board the train, Ravi, with distinct a touch of helplessness in his voice confesses, “We Dalits seem
to have been condemned to live in two universes simultaneously like the ones my father
generation inhabited: the powerful ones and powerless ones”.

10
Muthamma’s Agony

Muthamma decided to collect her three-day wage of Rupees 150 due to her, from the landowner’s
wife , in whose land she worked as a labourer. She needed the money. Her only daughter has come
to see her from the neighbouring village to which she has been given in marriage.

Muthamma wanted to treat her daughter to good food. She also needed the money to buy some
medicine for her one-year-old grandson. It seems that her son- in-law advised her daughter to go
to her mother’s house and take some money for their son’s medical care, as he did not have money
with him.

Muthamma wanted to help her daughter as she loved her so much and so deeply. She could not
afford to say ‘no’ to her. Before her daughter departs for her in-laws house, she wanted to treat her
to sumptuous food served with meat, apart from giving her the 100 rupees that her daughter
required. She wanted to be very good to her daughter and she meant a lot to her as she is the only
blood relationship she has after her husband’s death many years back, leaving the only daughter
to be brought up by Muthamma.

The three-day wage that she would collect from the landlord’s wife would be sufficient to buy
grocery items and meat as well as to give away the required money to her daughter.

Muthamma was very sure that she would be able to collect the money from the landlord’s wife,
despite the fact that she is a tough lady who does not show sympathy that easily. “But I am not
asking for loan. I am only asking for my wage due to me” Muthamma convinced herself.

When she reached the landowner’s house it was noon already and she saw the landowners wife
sitting on the front portion of the house cutting vegetables as she was chatting with another
woman. Muthamma, with all her respect and deference stood at the portico of the house, hoping to
draw the attention of the landowner’s wife.

When she looked up, stopping the conversation with the neighbour, Muthamma made her request,
asking her politely if she could collect the three-day wage, as she has to help her daughter out.

The landlady retorted saying that she could not give the money as and when Muthamma wanted.
She also told that she did not have money with her and had to wait till her husband returns to take
money from him. She told Muthamma very curtly to go and come back in the evening, by which
time she would collect the money from the landlord.

Disappointed and clearly aware that the landowner’s wife is lying, as she is the one who keeps all
the money and not the landlord, Muthamma returned home. She promised her daughter that by
the time she leaves for her in-laws’ home by the last bus, she would cook good food and give the
money.

In the evening around four o’clock, she went to the landowner’s house. This time the landowner’s
wife was sitting with her neighbouring women gossiping and laughing. On seeing Muthamma, her
face stiffened. And even before Muthamma made a renewed request, she replied sternly that she
had not yet spoken with the husband and she had a handful of work to do at the moment, so she
would not go into the house to discuss with the landlord who was resting inside. Because of all
these she commanded Muthamma dismissively to come later when both landlord and herself are
free.

11
Muthamma returned home even more frustrated and helpless, as she could not hope to argue with
the landlord’s wife. She told her daughter about this and took the pot away to collect water in the
well, as a strategy to keep her engaged and to while away the time, before she goes back to
landlords house for collecting the money.

As the water source was a bit crowded, by the time Muthamma returned home after collecting
water it was dusk. She hurriedly kept the pot at the entrance of her house itself, asking her
daughter to keep it inside and rushed to landlords house. This time when she approached the
landlord’s house the electric lights were on and no one could be seen in the front portion.

Muthamma stood at the portico and called for landlord’s wife, who finally appeared at the door
only a couple of minutes later. She looked visibly angry, as she had recognized that it was
Muthamma with the request for her wage.

With the voice that reeked of irritation, authority and arrogance the landlord’s wife told
Muthamma that she was late as she had told her to come before sunset. Now she won’t give her
the money, since it is inauspicious to exchange money after the sunset and doing so would bring
doom to her family. She told with a touch of finality that only tomorrow would she give the
money. Even as she uttered these words firmly, she went inside the house waving her hands to
suggest that Muthamma had to clear the place.
Overcome by immeasurable frustration, helplessness and the thought that her daughter needed to
go back to her in-laws house that evening itself, Muthamma walked back with her body limp. On
reaching the house Muthamma broke down and cried loud. Her smart daughter could guess as to
why her mother was crying.

__________________

12
To Err is a Crime

Ramu was preparing to go to the village shop run by a Nadar man. Initially he thought he would
send his son to go and purchase the provisions. Only then he realised that his little son would not
be able to convince the tough-talking Nadar to give the grocery items on credit. Nadar would not
easily give more items, unless he clears his earlier debt. Ramu thought that it needs lot of cajoling,
entreating, and deferential requesting to get few more grocery items for the day from Nadar. Those
skills his small son does not posses. He will be easily chased away by him.

Not only that, Ramu also thought he would go to the village teashop and after drinking tea he
could come via the grocery shop to collect the items. After a day of hard work in the field, a cup of
tea in the village teashop was an attractive proposition.

Ramu does not go to the main road teashop where he has to drink tea along with non-Dalits. There
he has to collect the tea and come a bit away from the shop and crouch on the floor to sip tea. He
cannot engage in a conversation with other, as they do not entertain a Dalit discuss politics and
‘world affairs’ on equal terms with them. If ever he goes to the main road teashop, it was to
perfunctorily drink tea, whereas the colony teashop is ‘his’ place. He would drink tea seated on a
stone bench along with fellow Dalits and can talk politics with his friends gleefully and equally.
Considering these options he went out.

When he returned to village shop located in the non-Dalit area, there was none waiting to buy. He
approached the shopkeeper Nadar, who on seeing him and his demeanour sensed his approaching
for credit purchase.

He never took note of Ramu.

To break the silence and draw his attention Ramu cleared his throat and it was just about that time
a Nayudu woman approached the shop.

On seeing the Nayudu woman Ramu quickly moved away from the front portion of the shop, as
standing on par with him would be resented heavily by non-Dalits.

The Nayudu woman was choosing vegetables making complaints about the lack of freshness of the
vegetables. To support the shopkeeper and to please him, Ramu gave his piece of opinion on the
vegetables saying, “ Amma these vegetables are not as bad as you complain.”

It was not only with politeness he made known his opinion but also with all his innocence. And he
never thought that it would infuriate the lady. She gave a tight stare and went away.

After a long cajoling Ramu succeeded in collecting the grocery items from the shopkeeper and
went home.

It was later that night as he was about to retire in his usual place in front of his house, that he saw
two men fast approaching the house. As they came in front of Ramu’s house, they stopped and the
elder of the two held Ramu by his neck. Ramu could recognize that it was the husband of that
Nayudu lady whom he had met in the grocery shop. The elder Nayudu man shouted,” How dare
you fought with my wife?"

Even before Ramu could muster up the courage to reply, both men beat him black and blue. His
wife, on hearing the noise outside came out of the house. Her plea to stop beating her husband fell

13
in deaf ears, as the Nayudu men ceaselessly beat Ramu. He did not fight back, fearing bigger
retribution later.

When they left, they warned him not to dare doing anything like that to any other caste Hindu
woman in future.

Ramu, who felt thoroughly exhausted on getting beaten by them, lay down on his reed mat. His
neighbours, who were Dalits, came towards him, advising his wife to boil some water. They
pacified him in a characteristic Dalit way “we the wretched people in this world should be careful
with what we do and what we say so that we do not incur the wrath of Nayudus.”

His wife’s hurling of abuses at the Nayudu men and their community as she was boiling the water
were fading away in the mind of Ramu, as he fell into sleep in sheer exhaustion.

14
Basket Making Post Master

It was in one of those summer days when the sun scorching the already dry landscape of the
Paravamalai village that Natarajan heard the call from the postman, who rarely comes that far to
the Arundhathiyars colony. “Is there any one at home? Here is letter for one Natarajan.” The
postman called loudly even as he threw the letter in to the house.

Natarajan picked it up.

At first glance he could understand that it was a letter from the government as it carried the OGS
seal on it. He felt extremely delighted to gather from the letter that it was a call letter for the
interview to be held for the post of postmaster for which Natarajan had applied long time back.

He shared his joy with his wife and his ageing parents who were doubly happy, as they had really
struggled to educate their only son up to graduation level. They were very sad, for Natarajan has
not got a befitting job even after his marriage. They could not stand his son doing odd jobs as they
had dreamt big dreams about his future. Now the time has come for those dreams to come true.
The whole family was immensely happy and it started praying for his success in the interview.

Natarajan had done the interview quite well and he promised his parents that he would get the
job. His parents knew that their son would do well as he was a bright student going by the awards
and prizes that he would often bring from his school and college for academic excellence.

Natarajan was right. The letter carrying the news that the job of the postmaster has been offered to
Natarajan finally arrived after few months. No sooner the family was beginning to celebrate the
news, than it received the shocking information, announced with touch of frustration by Natarajan,
that he had been posted as the postmaster in his own native village.

There was a very uneasy silence as the family was not prepared for this surprising news on the one
hand and the fact of Natarajan having to go to non Dalits’ street to work in the post office on the
other.

His parents very well knew the impossibility of Natarajan going to work in the village post office,
as it is located in the non- Dalits’ street. Being born in the Dalit community and being a resident of
the Dalit colony, it was always the case that Dalits are prohibited to go via non-Dalits’ street in that
village. Even in those rare occasions when Dalits have to go for attending to the households chores
of the non-Dalits they have to walk through without wearing their chappals. Any Dalit who passes
through the non-Dalit street without a valid reason will be seriously reprimanded and humiliated
by non-Dalits of his village, for casteism is very intense in his villages and it becomes even more
intense on Arundhathiyars, regarded by non-Dalits as the lowest among Dalits.

“Under circumstances of this kind, would these non-Dalits permit Natarajan to work?” His parents
were deeply worried.

Natarajan however consoled his parents and wife saying, “Don’t worry Amma since this is a
government job, the Gounders would have no problems permitting me to work.”

This least pacified the elders, as they feared the worst, despite the assuring words of their son.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of his heart Natarajan had his apprehensions too.

15
In the next few days, after finishing the formalities in the District head quarters, Natarajan
collected the key of the village post office building, which is owned by a Gounder known for his
conservatism and discriminatory behaviour towards Dalits.

Next day when Natarajan reached the post office and just as he was about to open the lock, he saw
a Gounder, mounted on a bicycle approaching him menacingly, shouting at the highest pitch of his
voice, “ You lowly born Chakkiliya fellow how could you have the courage to come into our street
and try to enter into a Gounder’s house”. This attracted a few residents among whom was the
Gounder who has rented the house to Postal Department to run the village post office.

Natarajan flinched at the shouting and very politely and fearfully informed the gathering crowd,
of his being appointed as the post-master of this post-office by Government.

“What a Chakkiliyar fellow as the post master?” few among the crowd raised their voice with a
distinct touch of non-acceptance.

“A Chakkiliyar fellow will be seated on a chair and we all have to stand before you to buy stamps
and receive letters. What do you say”? Do you think we will allow this to happen?” yelled the
building owner, as he approached Natarajan and plucked the key out of Natarajan's hand.

The other members of the crowd too joined in telling Natarajan firmly, “You Harijan fellow go
back to your colony and never dream of returning to this street with any fancy idea of working in
the post office”

Natarajan returned to the colony wondering why he never felt infuriated at being denied entry
into the post office. His parents guessed what would have happened, and pleaded with Natarajan,
‘Why don’t you ask your higher officials to post you in some other village not ours”.

Natarajan almost got the answer why he never got angered by what the non-Dalits have done to
him. His parents have never taught him to fight back as this request of his parents would confirm
it.

“Appa, I too thought about it and inquired with the higher officials, they told that if I were to seek
transfer to some other place I will become eligible to ask for it only after I serve in this office at
least for a month”

On hearing this Natarajan’s mother asked her husband, “Shall we go plead with the Gounders?”

They took Natarajan along and set out to the non-Dalit street once again. There they pleaded with
Gounders, “Ayya! Please permit my son to work for few days here. If you are graceful enough he
would soon get a transfer and go to some other place. We promise that during that few days he
would do his work here he would not sit down on the chair and I have told him to stand and do
the duty”. To this Natarajan nodded in approval.

But the Gounders would take none of these as they threatened them, “You Chakkiliyas don’t come
back with this dream of working as a postmaster again.”

Unable to fight, never habituated to talk back, Natarajan's family returned to the colony.
Particularly Natarajan was heavily overcome with self-hate for being a dalit.

Since Natarajan never assumed the office even for a day, he lost his job and overwhelmed with
dejection he would scream at his parents for being Chakkiliyars every now and then. He would

16
yell at them for the accursed nature of his birth. In the following few days he lay heart broken, not
eating properly and sleeping properly.

One day he left his village to a nearby town. There he survived by learning to weave baskets and
selling them in the platform. After a year or so he had returned to his village where he is now
engaged in basket weaving as full time occupation.

_____________________________

17
Between Devil and Deep Sea

Murugesan was preparing to stretch the blanket on the floor, as the time was soon approaching
midnight. At eleven’ o clock after finishing all the menials works in the Nayudu’s house,
Murugesan would retire to sleep in the front veranda of the landowner’s house, in whose land
Murugesan worked. In the evening he would come from the field and start cleaning the cowshed
and do other chores. He will get his food served by the landlord’s wife in the backyard in a vessel
kept for him.

Just as he lay on the blanket, Murugesan was reminiscing the drama that happened during the
course of the day.

He was with his Nayudu landlord this morning when the latter went to file his nomination for the
Panchayat president election due in another two months or so.

Nominations were also filed by another influential leader from the fisher folk community. It was
outside the Union office that Nayudu and the Fisher folk man entered into a verbal duel that soon
threatened to escalate into an ugly scene. The supporters on both side pulled Nayudu and fisher
community man away even as they vowed revenge at each other fiercely.

Murugesan was well aware that both had good support, as both were influential leaders in the
village. With both of them in the field the competition would be fierce, he concluded. He secretly
wished that his landlord Nayudu would win.

He fell into deep sleep thereafter, only to be awakened by loud noise and thudding of running feet
all around him. What he saw was shook him completely. There were few men carrying all sorts of
weapons rushing menacingly towards the door of the Nayudu’s house.

He soon realised that they were fisher community men.

They attacked Murugesan, as he was the first to be seen while another group was trying to break
open the door behind which Nayudu family was sleeping.

Meanwhile the Nayudu landlord, sensing the imminent threat, sent for his own men through a
messenger who used the backyard door to call for help.
Within minutes Nayudu men outnumbered the fisher community members and the latter fled the
scene forthwith.

In the whole melee no Nayudu men was injured, but Murugesan sustained some injuries.

The next morning, Nayudu took Murugesan to the Police Station and demanded a case be
registered under PCR and PA Act 1959 and 1985 respectively. The case was registered.

On knowing the serious consequences that these cases under three provisions would entail, the
fisher community members decided to meet Murugesan in his colony and plead with him to
withdraw the cases.

When they met them and convinced Murugesan that their confrontation is not with Murugesan
but with Nayudu landlord, Murugesan too felt convinced and agreed to withdraw the case.

18
He met his the Nayudu landlord and told about whole thing that happened in the morning when
the fisher community men visited him and the subsequent plea they made about withdrawing
case.

Nayudu looked stiff and inquired in his deep voice whether Murugesan had agreed to withdraw
the case. When Murugesan nodded positively, Nayudu retorted and vowed that he would never
permit that to happen.

Murugesan with all reverence for him tried to narrate to his Nayudu landowner about the need to
go on a conciliatory mode as the election was fast approaching. This would not ease the
intransigent Nayudu, who told firmly “Murugesan if you listen to them and withdraw the case I
would treat you as my enemy and reserve for you what I have reserved for them, revenge!”

Not getting a positive response from Murugesan and the Police too was on the look out for the
fisher community leader, fisher community men returned to Murugesan house- this time to
threaten him. “Murugesan we expect you to withdraw the case immediately. If you delay it any
further you would see the brutal animal in us.”

Caught between the devil and the deep sea Murugesan has been forced to seek asylum in the
house of Nayudu landlord for whose plan to settle score with fisher folk leader, this poor Dalit is
an unwilling yet helpless pawn.
_____________________________

19
When Diamonds Shined Brightly!

The entire inhabitants of Iluppur town were drawn into the activity of artificial or synthetic
gemstone cutting and polishing (otherwise locally known as artificial diamond polishing) in one
way or another. Some of them were engaged in it directly on the production side, as gemstone
cutters, grinders, and polishers, while the others were involved in the trade and marketing side of
it. The rest of the population acted as support service providers. Gemstone cutting and polishing
was the hub of Iluppur economic life, benefiting the whole of 9000 families residing in and around
it. This gemstone cutting and polishing work is recognized only as a cottage industry. These
activities were carried out in small sheds, houses and also in the open spaces under trees’ shadow.
Whichever level might be one’s participation in the gemcutting industry but the monetary rewards
were quite gratifying, so much so that there were schoolteachers and even a practicing doctor who
had left their occupations to start their own small gemcutting and polishing units.

Many of the families engaged in this industry were at it from generations ago. They were past
many changes introduced into this activity- from manually run polishing machines to motor run
machines. As only few districts in Tamil Nadu, including Pudukottai district of which Iluppur is a
part, had monopolized gemstone cutting and polishing activity for the whole of South India, if not
India, it was a thriving business, profiting all those who were engaged in it. Not only those who
owned large units but even those who were involved in grinding of the gemstones using
traditional techniques were making decent money. Despite the participation of entire mass of the
population, both men and women, in this activity, there was still space for individual brilliance
and signature. Even against the standardized mass production made possible by mechanization of
the production process there were few individuals whose workmanship stood out prominently.
Just by the look of the finished stones the traders could guess whose handiwork had gone into
those gemstones.

Arumugam is one of those rare artisans whose expertise in churning out excellent and high-quality
polished stones had been widely acknowledged. He has inherited these skills and occupation from
his father. His grand father also was known for his ability to make stones that shined like real
diamonds. Arumugam was so highly regarded for his expertise by the polishing unit owners, that
there used to be competition among them to woo him to their units. It was always in his own terms
that Arumugam would choose which lathe to work in. For all his skills and workmanship, the
lathe owners would also yield to his petty demands such as advance money, flexible work
schedule, and sporadic absenteeism. They know that the stones he finished would delight the
traders so much that they would not only place more orders but also accept all the stones at a high-
end prize without rejecting them as below standard.

Arumugam normally stuck to one owner for a long time. Given his freedom and fame, it was quite
surprising, because even the not-so-famous ones, switched loyalties to owners very often.
Arumugam told that it was because he was not very greedy that he did not have to move from one
owner to another higher-wage-paying owner. “The owners I worked longer with took care of me
nicely,” he certifies.

On a given day Arumugam would make two hundred rupees by evening, if he started the work in
the morning. But mostly he would leave the workshop by 3 o’clock in the afternoon after making
about 150 rupees. Afterwards it was time for him to go out to enjoy himself with his friends.
Interestingly, most of the polishing workers would leave the lathe around that time after ensuring
that they worked for 150 rupees. From 3o’clock onwards the crowd of these labourers would swell,
as they gathered in the corners of the bazaars to chat and have fun interspersed by consumption of
snacks and teas. The bazaars would be chockablock with people returning from workshops as they
made their daily purchases for their families. Arumugam too would return home with snacks for

20
his sons and a daughter apart from the daily provisions such as rice, gram, vegetables, and very
often meat.

Life was smooth and cozy as Arumugam and his family did not have many wants and whatever
little they had were fulfilled with the handful of money earned from gemstone polishing work. The
family’s and his own needs were met sufficiently with his 150 rupees he earned everyday. If there
were any unforeseen expenses like paying the fees for his sons’ schooling or thatching the roof of
the house or visiting a relative on auspicious occasions Arumugam would work extra to make two
hundred or even three hundred rupees in a day.

It was exactly for the income flowing at one’s own will, that many of these gem-cutting and
polishing workers were considered as highly eligible bachelors. Arumugam too got married to
Kalarani, as the latter’s parents thought that Arumugam, with all his skills and never-drying
opportunity in Ilupoor to continue this gem-cutting activity, would be able to provide for their
daughter well.

“I got married when I was 20. They readily agreed to give her in marriage” Arumugam says
pointing to Kalarani, his wife. “Not only me, any one who was engaged in gemstone industry
automatically became an eligible bachelor with assured and steady income. That was why parents
queued up to give their daughters in marriage to us,” Arumugam proudly declares, as other men
around him nod in approval.

While most men married women from the Iluppur town who were involved in this very
occupation, there were exceptional ones who got married to girls from outside the gemstone belt
area. “The privileged ones among us would confirm our elevated status by marrying from outside
the gemstone-belt area. That itself is a sign of our economic well-being,” Arumugam clarifies.

Thus, Arumugam reckoned himself as privileged since Kalarani kept herself out of gemstone
cutting and polishing industry. She spent her time tending and caring her three children who all
went to school. “I come from a family of landed farmers. I was brought up as a happy-go-lucky
child, that is why I did not have to do hard work at home” avers Kalarani. Though never attended
school Kalarani takes pride in sending her children to school.

Contrarily Arumugam does not attach much significance to his children studying in school. “I
studied up to 3rd standard only. Though my father was making good money out of gemstone
cutting and polishing I could not take a liking to studies, so I stopped at 3rd standard and started
helping my father”, tells Arumugam. “I did not think that education was important, for even
educated teachers ultimately returned to gem-cutting,” he adds. “My sons and daughter took
interest in studies, that is why I was willing to send them to school. In my entire life gemstone
industry never betrayed me and I thought my sons would be its beneficiaries in the future, as they
would return to this industry after their stint with education,” Arumugam tells wisely.
This was what every one engaged in gemstone industry thought would happen. Their optimism
was the product of the never-failing gemstone industry that never hit a low in its three-
generations’ existence. There were dull moments for sure, but they were short-lived. But no longer
are things the same in the past one and half year. With the government liberalizing import
restrictions on numerous articles, the axe fell on the necks of the gemstone-cutters, for artificial or
synthetic rough stones was one of the items included in import liberalization process initiated by
the present government.

As a result of this, all the traders, who procured the polished gemstones from the Iluppur town
labourers, have turned to what has come to be known as ‘Jerkani’ stones produced in China for a
price far cheaper than what these labourers would churn out. The machine-produced China stones

21
enter India as well-ground, though rough, crystals that have to be just polished mechanically,
rendering the first two stages of gemstone production process, namely cutting and grinding
needless. This threw a vast number of labourers out of their jobs. The massive influx of these rough
gemstones on which only a marginal 1 % tax is levied by the government, has brought prices of the
locally polished gemstones to a bottom, thus jeopardizing the indigenous industry. The price of the
indigenous gemstones costs two times the price of Chinese stones, luring the traders to patronize
the latter. Worse still, if these stones get imported bypassing the official routes, which is more often
than not the case, the Chinese stones would cost even cheaper.

Unable to compete with the imported stones, many production units in Iluppur region have shut
their doors down, setting off a cascading effect crippling the myriad of other trades and business
activities operating at the peripheries, such as hotels, garment shops, provision stores, jeweler
shops and even haircut saloons and cinema theatres. The sudden turn of events has driven many
families to look to some other occupations. The native polishing units too are closing shops, as it is
no longer viable to keep the machineries running. ‘In the past one and half year since ‘Jerkani’
stones started arriving, everything in Iluppur has changed for the worse, the characteristic
scenarios have been reversed” mourns Arumugam. Labourers like Arumugam are the worst
affected with even the workshop owners, who were better off than the labourers, having not been
spared of the doom.

The well-oiled economic machine has come to a grinding halt, with many of them attached to it in
one way or the other being thrown into unprecedented poverty and economic insecurity. The
imported artificial stones virtually pushed out the gemstone cutters and grinders from the
economic orbit, snuffing out any hopes of squeezing out any employment opportunity and
economic gain. Although the polishers are still getting the opportunities to work that are far fewer
and more irregular, the wage they get is three times lower than what they could get before for the
same volume of work.

All these have meant that Arumugam’s life is never the same again. Having specialized in this
trade for all his lifetime, he felt terribly handicapped to do any other job. He is no longer the
sought-after craftsman he was. The owners never come to woo him any more. Even the owner he
owed allegiance to for long time, has lost his business, and reluctantly eased out Arumugam from
the workshop. In those odd occasions when some rough stones do arrive for polishing, they do not
yield enough both for Arumugam and his owner. The result: neither of them any longer is part of
gemstone cutting activity.

There is this sentiment factor, as Arumuga m explains “It pains to do the same job now for a low
wage. It was a trade that we worshipped and respected for it gave us enough and more to my
previous generations and to me whenever we turned to it. Now it hurts to do the same for a wage
that is pittance. A load man earns more than me for the same hour of doing. It is an insult to our
trade to do it for a criminally lower wage. If it is God to us, I would not sell it for peanuts I get as
wage now”.

Suddenly, the uniquness of his handiwork that stood him in good stead all along no longer means
anything. He is just one among those who have been reduced to paupers. “Globalisation does not
distinguish the best one from the rest. It metes out the same treatment to both”, Arumugam blurts
out the statement he heard from the speakers at the end of the protest march that the gemstone
industry labourers took out few days back against the government policy to import artificial
gemstones from foreign countries.

The anguish in Arumugam is not on account of his sudden demotion from the status of the genius
craftsman whose finished gemstones glistened more brightly than that of others. In fact, he hardly

22
distinguishes himself for that. It was others around him who would identify him along this line.
For Arumugam, getting thrown out of gem industry has affected him in many ways rather than
one. He has known him more as an efficient provider to his children: as a husband of a woman
whom he courageously had taken from outside the gem-belt, as he believed he would cater to her
needs till her death: as a respectable son-in-law that he looked in the eyes of his in-law family. All
these are in peril with the changing economic scenario and so why he is agonized.

He does not know where to start off every morning. All his neighbourhood friends gather around
and discuss as to what to do. Some would talk of moving into quarry work, so many have already
moved into optical fibre cable laying work for the cellular phone companies in the nearby
Pudukkottai city. There are few who would share stories about the insults, abuses and physical
exertion that have to be borne with in doing these works. All these talks scare Arumugam out of
his wits. Yet Arumugam broods over the merits of all these options days in day out.

What survived him in the early days was the little bit of savings his wife had maintained. “Having
enjoyed the comforts of the cool interiors of the workshop, where the owners, on demand from
labourers, would fix a TV set and a music system, apart from fans so that we would work more, it
horrifies me to imagine doing the cable laying job in the scorching sun” Arumugam expresses his
helplessness. “I also hear stories about many of our men swooning due to heat, hunger and long
travel”, He adds.

In the initial days it was okay as the doom was shared by everyone here in this town. Collectively
distributed grief sat less heavily upon Arumugam. But as days progressed and no sign of
returning to the flourishing days of gemstone-cutting business in sight, life is becoming
unbearably miserable day by day for Arumugam. No one is there to lend money, either because
everyone has become moneyless or because the moneyed ones do not want to lend, as recovery is
impossible.

“My wife would go on trips to her parents to collect some rice, vegetables and money.”
Arumugam confesses. To this Kalarani adds, “There were days when I would not have money to
pay for the bus fare when I deicide to go to my parents’ house. Then I would wait for my parents
to come with the provisions, which they did as they had realized our plight.”

The days of meat-eating and purchasing snacks and provisions are over. “We are even struggling
to cook two times a day, how could we imagine rice and meat? Arumugam questions.

It is with tremendous amount of pain and shame Arumugam declares the following, “No longer
being able to buy rice from the bazaar shops, I have done the most unthinkable - I have started
using up my quota in the ration shops (PDS Shops). I had never bought rice from the ration shop
before now, as I had always thought that it was for the poorest people”. Not only for Arumugam,
for many in the Iluppur town, the ultimate hallmark of touching the rock bottom of poverty is to
resort to buying ‘ration rice’

“On those days when the ration rice is finished and no money is available to purchase more, we go
hungry the whole day. But I had to do something for my children. I cannot see them starve. Even
tonight I had to wait till 9 P.M for this 10 rupees that I eventually I got from a blacksmith shop
owner. By the time I returned home my children were fast asleep, as they had waited for me to
return so that some food could be cooked. Now I have to wake them up to feed them some rice.”
He speaks as he looked at his children sleeping in front of the doorsteps of his house.

“While all my co-workers in gemstone-cutting industry have gone to cable laying, load man, or
quarry work, I am unable to get into any one of them, as those physically demanding jobs are

23
denied to me. You know, I do not have a body that could convince the employer to offer me those
arduous jobs.” Arumugam informs as he gazes at his own dwarfish body measuring below four
feet. He is as tall as his 12-year-old son.

Nowadays, Arumugam walks to the bazaar street every morning hoping to get some odd jobs that
would fetch him 10 or more rupees. “These days I volunteer to do any work. I wash tea glasses in a
teashop, also glasses in which fruit juice is served in other juice shop. I clean the shops sweeping
both the inside and outside. I manage to get 10 rupees, thought not all days”, says Arumugam. In
the last few days he has been working in a blacksmith shop that is also the house of the shop’s
owner. “Though I am supposed to work as the person pulling the hook of the fire-blowers up and
down, I, most of the time end up running errand for the family, all for the 10 rupees that I get at
the end of the day”, Arumugam remarks cryptically at what he has made out to be his occupation
at present. “ Everyday I have to wait for the shop owner to return, to receive the ten rupees. He
invariably returns late, as he does many other things other than owning the shop. So he is out most
of the time. On those rare, fortunate days I get the money around evening itself. It is only with that
10 rupees that our kitchens ovens burn, again not every day.”

Kalarani’s woes too are only mounting. She says, “I could not bear to say no to my children’s
demand for that odd 25 Paise coin, when they want to purchase sweets, candies and other eatables
from those hawkers carrying them into the streets. It hurts them so much when I say no to their
requests. My elder son understands but not the younger ones. Soon schools will also be opened
after the summer holidays. I am worried about their education next year. On the strength of the
fees we had managed to pay last time they had finished their last year of schooling. Now the new
year is fast approaching. For the annual fee and books alone we need lots of money. May be they
will not go to school,” she hurries to add.

Kalarani’s homemaking role too had to undergo a change, as she also has been forced to react to
the economic slump that has befallen the family. These days Kalarani does those odd jobs like
plucking the tamarind fruits from the roadside trees to sell the nut-removed fruits for a price, or
collecting firewood from the bushes and shrubs growing in the wastelands to sell them among the
neighbours. “Her parents would be heartbroken to see her do these. She was a pampered child for
them”, says Arumugam.

Kalarani summarily announces, “We have lived in dignity all through. He tells me that everything
will end, once the Chinese stones stop coming here, and that life will go back to normalcy. He has
been telling me this for the past one year. Only life has gone from bad to worse, and slowly to
worst. I have told him not to worry. There is one brass vessel left in the house. If nothing works
out, we will sell the vessel and purchase some pesticide and commit suicide by consuming it
together.”
_____________________________

24
If Seasons Come Flowers Bloom Too!

Thenmozhi instantly impresses you with her readiness to take on the strangers who appear at the
doorsteps of the school or, as it became clear later, at home. Thenmozhi is 11 years old, but so
undernourished to look younger by three years to her age. Both Thenmozhi and her next sister,
just a year younger, do not go to formal school. They attend special school for dropout children
run by Paraspara Trust, an NGO in Bangalore.

Once ensuring the strangers trustworthiness she would encouragingly smile at them and scurry
around to be proximate to them. She would be the first one to bring water and other offerings
made by the cook in the school or mother at home.

It is with the same readiness that she volunteered to be my interpreter translating the information
narrated by Kannada -speaking students into Tamil.

Curiously enough she showed her excellent adeptness in telling stories. When other students
would stumble upon right words to narrate about themselves, she would put their stories in order
– of course adding her own details to it. Some students disagreed with her details but endorsed the
overall spirit of the story that her details added strength to.

Her ability to speak both Kannada and Tamil fluently put her at the pulpit, from where she
attempted to construct lucidly narrateable stories out of the fragmented details that her class mates
divulged of themselves. She was the self-styled interpreter who doubled up as the storyteller, even
when stories were not forthcoming from others.

Between those moments of marching past, when each student would come in front of me and tell
few things about them which will be translated by Thenmozhi, she would often return to refer to
her parents, home, sisters etc, depending on what the filing past student tells. If the last details she
translated of a student’s narration were about his/her parents, Thenmozhi would talk about her
parents and so an and so forth. It was striking to realize her enthusiasm for speaking about herself.
She always appeared to suggest that there is a story in her life to be told to the world.

She grandly announced to her classmate as she was preparing to leave for home in the evening
“Sir, will come with me to my house to see my youngest sister.” Her words carried both an
invitation and a final order.

Later, she took my hand and started leading me out of the school towards her home. On our way
to her house, she reveals that of all the things she had at home, she wanted to show her second
standard Tamil Medium books she still preserves. “You must look at them. I still keep them in the
same bag I took to school three years back. I take them out and read few pages every now and
then,” She details.

On reaching her small thatched house built next to the railway track Thenmozhi rushed into her
house and out she came with a bag made of thin cloth, from which she took the books out. They
were second standard books. She held them very tenderly and delicately like she would handle her
newborn sister, even as she reminisced her school going days.

Thenmozhi was delighted to recall those days of going to school but not so much about attending
the classes. That time she was growing up in her maternal grandmother’s house in Thirukkoilur in
Tamil Nadu.

25
Though Thenmozhi’s parents are originally from Tamil Nadu, her father had migrated to
Bangalore when he was very young whereas her mother came to Bangalore on getting married to
him. Thenmozhi is the eldest of the three daughters, the youngest being just two months old.

Thenmozhi had to grow up in her grandparent’s house as her mother, Muniamma, found it
difficult to take care of both her children with the limited means to support the family on the one
hand and the tight work schedule she had to wrestle with on the other. When Thenmozhi grew up
old enough to go to pre-school, the second daughter was two years old. Thenmozhi’s mother had
difficulties managing both the girls with the income that Thenmozhi’s father earned as a load man
in the RMS section of railways as a daily wage labourer. That he was a drunkard only aggravated
the situation for the family.

Muniamma had to take to working as masonry workers’ assistant in the construction sites to
support the family, but found it physically demanding. Her undernourished body could not take
it. Later she took up the “Chatram work.” She was a sweeper and cleaning worker of the dining
hall of the marriage halls (Kalyana Chatrams).

On marriage seasons she would get regular offer to work in the kitchen and dining hall. Her work
ranges from washing the vessels to cleaning the dining hall, before and after every dining, by
removing the plantain leaves off which the food was eaten.

She liked this job, for on all those days of work she could also get some food to eat for herself as
well as for the family members, and what is more, the money. It is with this money that she ran the
family without much assistance from her husband, who, if any thing, only caused trouble and
nuisance to her. However on those days when she went to Chatram work she had to leave both her
daughters behind at home, for her work begins the night before to the next day afternoon. Soon
she realized that it was not possible to do it that way. Hence she took the younger daughter to the
Chatram, leaving Thenmozhi behind, who was going to her pre-school. But on her return from
Chatram work, she found Thenmozhi unattended to by her husband and underfed.

The agony of seeing an uncared daughter on returning from Chatram work persuaded Muniamma
to take Thenmozhi to her parents’ house in Tamil Nadu.

Thenmozhi grew up in her grand mothers home till she was 6 years doing her first standard in the
‘crow’ school. So called, as lot of crows used to perch on the roof of the school.

Going to the school that was located quite a distance away from her grandmother’s home was fun
for Thenmozhi. To begin with she walked her way to school, later her mother managed to get a
free bus pass to go by bus. What excited her more was the walk or the bus rides to school, not
much the school itself. She said that the teacher used to beat her for no good reason. So she begun
to play truant and was spotted by her grandparents’ neighbours in all other places except school.

Soon the news reached Muniamma in Bangalore and she became very concerned. She thought that
now that Thenmozhi had grown up enough to care of herself in her absence, she could take her
back and put her in a Tamil medium school in Bangalore. Moreover her ageing parents could not
be bothered any more; they had helped her enough in keeping Thenmozhi for nearly four years
and bringing her up into a reasonably nourished girl.

She departed for Thirukoivilur one day and brought Thenmozhi back to Bangalore. In the early
months after returning from Tamil Nadu, Thenmozhi babysat her younger sister and occasionally
accompanied her mother to Chatram work, where she would lend her hand in the cleaning work
when she was not taking care of her younger sister in the Chatram itself.

26
Finally, when the new academic year started, Muniamma took Thenmozhi to the Government
school in her neighbourhood for admission to second standard as she was well past six years of
age. But the school authorities needed a proof of her having completed the first standard, which
Muniamma did not collect from the previous school. In fact, Thenmozhi withdrew from the school
on her own and Muniamma too took her away without paying attention to the nitty-gritty of
collecting proof documents etc.

Her repeated plea that Thenmozhi could read and write much better than an average first year
student in Tamil did not impress the authorities of the school. They needed a transfer certificate
(TC) from the previous school or at least a birth certificate for the proof of age from the hospital
where she was born.

Muniamma set off to Thirukkovilur the very next day, to collect either of these certificates. But to
her utter dismay, the school refused to give a TC as Thenmozhi dropped out quite early from
school. The second option of collecting the proof of age also threatened to become unyielding as
Thenmozhi was born in her house and not in the hospital.

Some one in the village suggested that she could get a certificate issued by the Village
Administration Officer (VAO) of Thirukovilur village, as if Thenmozhi was born in the village,
while in point of fact she was born in the slum of Bangalore. She approached the VAO only to be
told bluntly that if she wished to get a false certificate she had to part with a sum of 1000 rupees. It
was very big money for Muniamma.

Witnessing all her hopes of putting Thenmozhi disappearing in thin air, Muniamma slumped as
she returned to her parents’ home and sobbed inconsolably.

Eventually Thenmozhi had to be admitted to first standard once again. Thenmozhi did not like it
much. She always felt she was more matured and qualified than her classmates. Now that she was
also an elder sister after the birth of another girl in the family she felt even more like a grown-up
than the rest of the students in the class. To add to that was the age factor - she was six and half
when her class had students as young as four year old. She always felt a bit odd and like a misfit in
the class. The classmates too treated her differently. The teachers did the worst by holding her as
the failed model in front of other students, as they repeatedly referred to Thenmozhi as an example
of what consequences await the truant student or a bad student. It hurt Thenmozhi a lot. She was
never recognized for her abilities to be ahead of others in all aspects of learning. Instead they were
taken to be the natural outcome of her one-year stay extra in the first standard in the previous year.
Nonetheless, Thenmozhi continued to attend school and progressed to second standard. Here
again her good works were not duly rewarded for they were taken to be the consequences of the
‘unfair’ advantage of the one-year seniority she had. She gradually lost interest in going to school
and returned to her old truant habits.

Her mother took her back to school but truancy continued unabated. Thinking that Thenmozhi’s
fate would be no different from her own fate as she also had studied only up to 3rd standard,
Muniamma stopped insisting Themnozhi on going to school. In the next year or so Thenmozhi
accompanied her mother to the Chatram work assisting Muniamma in menial chores. During off-
season days, Muniamma worked as a domestic servant during which also Thenmozhi joined her.

This arrangement continued until the staff of the special school run by Paraspara Trust spotted her.
They promised to put her back to formal school at an appropriate standard that her age warrants.
She has been attending this school ever since.

27
Muniamma is happy that her daughter has been going to this special school for the past three
years. Above all, Thenmozhi too likes this school. Muniamma wants her to go to government
school. She thinks that Thenmozhi has to go to school and get educated to match her otherwise
“educated- girl’s look.” She believes that Thenmozhi has inherited it from herself.

Muniamma is proud of the look of the educated lady she is often taken to be by the strangers. That
she is often considered to be an educated woman, for she possesses fair complexion and elegant
demenour, is all the more reason why she wishes to put her daughter back to school. “My
daughter is very much like me in her looks. She will grow into acquiring a look of an educated
woman, and at that stage I want her not only to have the looks of an educated lady, but a really
educated woman. The looks business should stop with me” she says.

But Muniamma does not stop looking like an educated woman she thinks like, if not better than,
one too. She is mindful of the problem of living in the slum, its anti-educational culture, the lack of
facilities at home. Even when Thenmozhi wants to go to school there are other boys and girls who
distract her. There is no electric light at home, not even a single successfully educated person
around here to refer to as a model, and finally her father who hardly expresses concerns about the
children’s studies. She has to struggle against all these hurdles.

Muniamma elaborates, with a touch of her impending failure, about her limitations to inspire her
children to carry on their studies. She knows that the difficulties are only mounting. In the past
year, her husband could not work as efficiently as before after the veins in his left hand’s fingers
coiled back rendering his index and middle fingers stiff with a bend. He no longer lifts as much
load as before. This coupled with his already prevalent drinking habits, meant that he scarcely has
money to spare with the family after his expenses on drinks.

At this moment she refuses to acknowledge her weak will against these massive forces. Indeed, she
knows very well that her spirit would be crushed to ground, if she would go into the analysis of
what she is up against, and that her hopes would vaporize if she becomes so forward-looking into
the future. She breaks life into episodes that commence and climax at the moment of engaging in it
itself. Episodes cannot afford to have too many contingencies to respond. Episodes are complete in
the here and now. Present is the home they move out, move into and return to. Further more
especially a long look into the future jeopardizes the very composure of the episodes that have
made present their abode.

This wisdom has been bequeathed to Thenmozhi too. When asked what she wished to become she
says only after hard prodding from everybody, “I want to become a teacher.” She gives an
impression that she said as much only because she saw the teacher standing around and not
because she really had thought seriously about it.

She perhaps has never really thought about it. Having borne witness to her cart of education
getting upset or ending its journey several times before, she may not have wanted to hazard a
prediction into her future education-dependent social status.

Ask Muniamma as to how she visualizes her daughter’s future. She says that she has to ensure that
Thenmozhi joins school when the next academic year commences. Beyond which she refuses to
speculate. Not that she does not know how to but because she is so fond of her hopes. She wants
them to flower as seasons beckon. “Come and see the flowers as they bloom, do not ask me how
they would look like in five years time” she might retort.

28
Sufferings’ Successful Friends

It is easy to differentiate the insider from outsider in the colony largely inhabited by scavenger
community people. The residents would stroll by and hang around without their hands holding
the nose, while the outsiders would. The stench and the stomach-turning smell emanating from the
pigsteads, criss-crossing drainage that are choked, sewage in pools and garbage heap all around
the colony drive the strangers to hurry for their hand kerchiefs to cover their noses. The
inhabitants, in contrast, have got used to them and go about their routines as usual.

The place, located at the very heart of Madurai city, is called “Sudden Town” (Thideer Nagar)
though formally called Melavasal Slum. So named when the government built a colony of three-
storied houses on a war footing to accommodate a community of scavengers whose houses
elsewhere were gutted in a major fire accident in the 1970s. They were significant vote bank for the
politicians. These houses sprouted all of a sudden and soon many scavenger community members
as well as those who were homeless but could part with few hundred rupees to the party men
filled these houses.

Immediately afterwards the colony fell out of the favour of Madurai city administration and it
acquired a ghetto like character. It was further worsened by the government’s hurry to finish the
job well before the ensuing elections. It failed to anticipate the potential difficulties arising from
inadequate drainage facility, irregular water supply, and improper channel for sewage to run
down, resulting in disgusting stink and sanitation nightmare throughout the colony. Naturally this
is not a passage for casual visitors who are strangers to the place.
It is not that many outsiders visit this colony, for many in Madurai do not even know how the
interior of the colony looks like. The only ones who come here are the vendors and the
moneylenders who loan money to the residents at an exorbitant interest from which many families
could not redeem themselves. They were few families who have run away from the colony and
fewer than that have died by committing suicide unable to repay the galloping interest rate, let
alone the capital.

While the areas around the colony were fast changing, this low-lying colony remained stagnant.
Gradually the fast-paced urbanization closed the colony from all sides, leaving it to take on an
island like existence in the midst of rapidly urbanizing Madurai.

As it is the case with slums around the world, the worst of the inner city life were banished from
there, to exile inside the colony. Filth, dirt, poverty, stench, sewage, broken families, wandering
children who are school dropouts dominate the daily life scenarios of the colony.

Yet life goes on for the inhabitants who virtually create a manageable order amidst the chaos
surrounding their lives.

Veerammal is one such person, who hardly pauses to reflect upon her life like many others in the
colony. There is not even a single aspect of her life on which she seems to be having control. She is
perhaps afraid that to reflect upon her life would throw up a tragic story of how the forces, both
human and social, continually triumphed over her will.

Her life story may end up narrating the victory of others over her, for there is no single occasion in
which she led life. It was always the other way around - it was life that led her through humps and
thorns, as she may painfully characterize it.

Yet she continues to uphold the routines. Living is itself routine. Getting defeated is routine. The
awareness that she would wake up on the faces of grinning defeats today and tomorrow is routine.

29
She is a great friend of defeat - it is just that defeat experiments its newer avatars on Veeramma,
her best friend.

Her other routines do not have a silver line in the cloud either.

Working as a scavenger in the corporation sanitation office located outside the colony at walkable
distance, her day begins with her waking up in the early morning before the sanitation office bell
rings at 5’o clock. She rushes to the office to sign in the registers of the office and collects her
basket, rectangular iron plate, and a broom. With the implements in hand she walks towards the
public toilet assigned to her. Normally, the women toilet that she cares is used only by grown-up
women whereas the girl children use the outside portion of the toilet as well as the way that leads
to the entrance of the toilet. Veeramma has to remove the night soil left on both side of the way in
the previous night as well as the inside saloons of the toilets used by women. After removing the
wayside feces using the hand, holding the iron plate and putting them in a basket, she has to clean
up the toilet inside.

All the shit she collects from outside of the toilet has to be carried in the basket on her head and
dropped at a point where it will be collected by the corporation cart. After this first round of
cleaning, she has to sit outside the toilet watching the women users entering the toilet or
occasionally she slips out to the nearest teashop for sipping a cup of tea or two. After a point when
Veeramma reckons that the users’ number had crossed a critical limit, beyond which the toilet
cannot carry the deposited excreta, she would enter the toilet with her broom to force the shit
down the drain and wash the toilet once again. Sometimes the users themselves may call her to
clean up the toilet if they find it overflowing with shit or if it is dirty.

This she repeats for three to four times till the number of the users dwindles. At about 10’o clock
she would wash the toilet for the last time and depart around 10.30. On her way back she would
attend to private toilets of the residents of the upper side of area where the public toilet is located,
if called out by the members of the house. She would also be called out to remove the blocks in the
drainage pipes of the residents’ houses. Some houses she attends to regularly.

She may get the leftover food or tea in a tin can carried by her or, one or two rupees coins as a
reward for her work in these houses. The residents may also give her used clothes if they found
them no longer usable.

After returning the implements to the Sanitation office at around noon, she rushes to a point where
her husband will be waiting to take her on the rag-picking trail. Normally she spends the rest of
the day with her husband, as they both go about collecting the plastic bags, utensils, newspapers,
and iron objects thrown into the dustbins. Both Veeramma and her husband would carry a gunny
back on their back held over the shoulder by one of their hands.

They roam around the inner city area till the afternoon collecting the worthy rubbish and sell it to a
waste paper shopkeeper for five to ten rupees. Their rag-picking itinerary includes a visit to a
theatre and a hotel from where they would remove the garbage and rummage it through for any
saleable items. For the unpaid cleaning work they do, the theatre staff let both of them watch films
free of cost and the hotel people will throw the left-over food into the polythene bag they carry.

On those profitable days when Veeramma receives one rupee and two rupees coins from the
residents whose private toilet she cleans, both she and her husband would buy a cup of tea or two.
Normally their breakfast is a series of cups of tea she and her husband drink in the morning. It has
been years since she had breakfast on successive days. Only tea helps.

30
When the collection is dull or if they could not sell enough to the waste paper shop keeper or if the
hotel staff do not give away any left-over food which is the case more often then not, Veeramma
returns to the colony, where a person sells the all-in-one kind of meals for a cheaper price. This
food seller goes to many hotels and collects the left over food and mixes them all together in one
vessel. This he brings into the colony that does a brisk business with the residents, who are mostly
sanitary workers in the corporation office. These sanitary workers leave their home early in the
morning and return in the afternoon only. They do not have time for cooking at home.

For Veeramma and her husband this all-in-one meal is the lunch. Afterwards they continue their
rag-picking work till the evening. The only meal that she cooks at home is the dinner, for her
children would return home in the evening.

This is her everyday routine for the past 24 years, from the period just after two years since she
arrived Madurai after getting married at the age of 18. She moved from her birthplace, Errampatti,
a small villages in the Usilampatti area of Madurai district, notorious for highest incidence of
female infanticide in the whole of Tamil Nadu.

In the early two years she was assisting her husband in rag picking. It brought them a sum of 50
rupees per month. Later when her husband learned that the municipal office was recruiting
sanitary workers, he persuaded Veeramma to take it, as she has studied up to 5th standard, the
minimum requirement for the sanitary worker job. Her husband had not gone to school so he
became ineligible.

It was not that the job came on a platter. Veeramma discovered that to get the sanitary worker job
she had to oil so many palms. They borrowed money from various sources at exorbitant rate of
interest and she got the job, ultimately.

Though it brought some relief to their life, it did not mean the end of starvation and poverty. The
beginning she made in clearing the debt incurred in paying the bribe for getting the job, has never
cseased. She has never taken the salary home, not even till date.

The repeated borrowing of money and pressing expenses due to the arrival of children one by one
– she has six children of which four are girls - and the subsequent marital expenses of the first
three daughters meant the debts only mounted beyond manageable proportions. “All the money I
collect as monthly salary disappears as I come out of the office. The moneylenders from whom we
had borrowed the money will pounce on me to take their dues, leaving me penniless on the salary
day itself” she laments.

It is the odd rupee or two she gets for cleaning the private toilets and the leftover food she gets
from the hotel and commiserating house owners that keep her life moving. For herself, for her
husband and for her two younger children –one boy and one girl - attending school no new cloth
has been bought for many years. It is those used clothes that they wear.

The elder son, who has got married outside their own caste, does not support the family any
longer. After he got married on his own he went away from the Veeramma’s family and never
helped the family out.

Her husband’s income from rag picking is very erratic and hardly reliable. Whatever little money
they get goes into paying the debt incurred in their daughters marriage and the whole lot of other
post-marriage obligation Veeramma had to fulfill.

31
The assured income that her sanitary worker job gives only leads her to more debt traps. The
usurious moneylenders normally lure the salaried residents of the colony with money, for they are
sure of recovery. Thus Veeramma, driven by her obligation to perform her mother’s role perfectly
and fully, borrowed money from these moneylenders on the strength of her job’s regular supply of
monthly income. She spent liberally on all her three daughters’ marriage and treated them well
when they come back home for delivery of their children.

For all these she herself was ready to bear the consequences - one meal for a day with other meals
substituted by cups of tea, no good dress etc.

Even now, it is her husband and she who forego their morning meals almost regularly and lunch
very often, not their school going boy who is in 5th class and girl who is in 4th. They somehow
ensure that they get their food all the three times. The previous night’s rice is kept for the next
day’s morning meal for the children. Their lunch eaten at school on working days, courtesy non-
meal scheme at schools. Their dinner is eaten together with Veeramma and her husband.

Nonetheless Veeramma is pained at not being able to provide them with new dresses. “That we
are still able to send them to school continues to happen miraculously. Paying their fees and
buying books always forces me to borrow money from moneylender,” says Veeramma.

Day by day things are becoming difficult for Veeramma. The mounting prices of essential
commodities means even on those days when the dinner is cooked at home, Veeramma has to
make do with only rice, with vegetables going to her children and husband. There are other dinner
times during which she fills only half of her stomach.

She looks very fragile and undernourished, yet still appears resolute. There is bitterness in her
recounting of life. However it is a bitterness that she does not seem to want to re-cognise, despite
the repeated cruel victories of all the forces over her life and will. It is an old bitterness, perhaps
when first tasted in her young age as she experienced her first defeat in the hands of life. The bitter
taste is missing in its bitterness. She might have become numb to it. Indeed she has become numb
to many tastes of life.
In one of her moments of resignation she says, “In our native village in the Usilampatti area female
children will be killed soon after their birth. But this is practiced only among Kallars, not among
our caste members. I wish our caste people had learned to adopt female infanticide. Then, my
parents would have killed me on my birth and I would have been spared all these miseries of life,”
Veeramma chuckles.

_____________

32
Vinodh’s Schoolless World

Vinodh hates formal schools! He does not even want to elaborate on it. He perhaps regards
elaborating on it a pointless exercise – something not worth his time otherwise spent as a
vagabond, when he does not attend a special school for the street children, that is. When pressed
for clarification on why he detests going to formal school, he brushes it aside by saying that
teachers beat him there. But he does not look into our eyes when saying those words, not do they
carry the load of conviction, otherwise thick in the statement ‘I hate going to school!’ He invites us
to know the original answer the hard way, meaning that we have to learn that from his friendship.
Not by simply interviewing him once.

Paradoxically, this 13 years old boy with an unhurried curiosity has simply taken a liking to the
pre-vocational school run by MAYA, a Bangalore based NGO that runs this school for street
children who are school dropouts. The teacher introduced him saying that he has not failed to
attend even single of the classes. To this Vinodh adds “I came to school even on the day when my
uncle died. Even on holidays I come around here walking two kilometers from my house just to
hang around the school premises for few minutes.”

He says that on holidays he just does not know what to do worthwhile. He roams around the
streets neighbouring his residential area. On these days of aimless wandering his hastily- and on
the spot- planned itinerary would include a visit also to his school.

However on working days he is the first one to arrive the school and last one to depart. He says
that he likes the school for many reasons and hates it for few. The trust the teacher vests on him-
she always takes him out as a trusted ally when she goes to market or when she goes on a home
visit to truant children; the sense of purpose it gives to his otherwise lonely and freebooter
existence – his mother leaves the house to work in the construction industry early in the morning
and returns late in the evening locking her children out of the house- make him an unfailing
regular to this school.

Vinodh, his younger brother, and sister do not have a place to spend their time during the day. So
this pre-vocational school is a good place to spend the time purposefully for all the three. There are
two more important reasons why he likes the school: One, his love for reading English- he gets to
have his hands on the English news paper delivered in the school, first, after the teacher, if ever she
reads it. He says that if only he learned English he will be able to survive in the harsh world. “With
English I can make friends with big shots (Marwadis) and rich people,” he firmly argues: The other
reason is his friend Rajesh whom he convinced enough to join this school.

He says that in the government school he won’t be taught anything. “There the teacher simply
comes and asks us to study then she goes to sleep, or reads a novel or worst she goes to the staff
room to eat the snacks often bought by the students from the shops nearby” he complains. He
himself had to run errand for the tea cher on numerous occasions. “I hate all those teachers. They
never treat us kindly, nor do they teach anything,” says Vinodh.

“There were days when someone in my neighbourhood would ask me to read a newspaper or a
pamphlet or a poster. Then I would struggle so much to read that they would laugh at my
inability. I felt ashamed. Having crossed fourth standard still unable to read properly. I thought it
was because of my teachers. I hated to say I was going to fifth standard.” Vinodh avers angrily.
Vinodh, in his sojourn with formal school, does not remember a single teacher who would come
off as a warm and kind person. “ All of them invariably beat us,” he says.

33
“It did not make any difference whether I went to school or not. My neighbour friend who went to
an auto mobile workshop after dropping out from second standard could read as badly as me,
though I was going to fifth standard then. At least he was not beaten by his owner, whereas I was
harshly treated by my teachers everyday,” Vinodh compares. “My parents were busy with their
own work that they hardly had time to assess my progress. They thought that what I could
imperfectly read at every stage was what was possible for even the best-gifted student.” Vinodh
replies when asked as to why his parents showed no interest in his studies.

Vinodh’s parents had moved from the northern part of Tamil Nadu to Bangalore long time back,
now having made Bangalore the birthplace for their three children. His mother is a construction
worker who leaves the house early in the morning and returns late in the evening. His father was
load man in the market area who died due to excessive drinking when Vinodh was 7 years old.
They live in a house that was more of a cubbyhole functioning rather as a storeroom to keep the
few belongings of the family than as a place to rest comfortably for all on the floor. Even this
storeroom like house is locked during the day, as the children play in the street, during their
mother’s absence.

Vinodh remembers his school experiences with distaste so visible on his face. He says in elaborate
details, “The bullies often stole the books. When I leave the bag for going home to have lunch my
books will be stolen. So far 30 times they have stolen my book. But the teachers would beat me.
The government schoolteachers are very bad. They smoke in front of students. Even my classmates
drink “Brandy” in the evening. My school becomes a place for selling and drinking arrack in the
evening. Near the school some five persons had hanged themselves to death. There will also be
exorcists driving ghosts out of women. That scared me so much that I did not like to going to
school.”

Thus Vinodh preferred to stay away from school, as he increasingly discovered that it was not a
place for his kind of people. “Many of my class mates were bad boys. They often formed gangs
and beat us the frontbenchers. They also took to smoking secretly and teasing the girl students in
the class,” he recalls. “Many girls stopped coming to the school because these boys touched them
wrongly. They were so aggressive and too many in number that going to school always brought
these nuisances in my mind. The teachers never controlled them. And it was their style all the
way,” Vinodh continues. Yet he persisted with going to school, simply because he did not have
anything worthwhile to do in the event of not going to school.

Back home things were not quite comforting either. His father was a drunkard who spent all his
hard-earned money on drinking. Horror of horror, he would bring his friends along at nights and
force his mother and children to move out of the house. Behind the locked door, he would drink
liquor with his friend, after cooking the meat purchased on the way. If his mother scolds him, he
would beat her too. Vinodh often took sides with his mother and would scold and punch his father
on those occasions. He says, “I didn’t like my father because he was a drunkard. He forced me to
buy pan and cigarette. I won’t touch the cigarette by hand. I would carry wrapping them in a
paper. When my father sent me to buy “Brandy” I would give the money to my mother. He would
beat me so we won’t talk to each other. I had never talked to my father since entering my second
standard. I never took money from him, nor did I eat the snacks he rarely bought.”

Just when Vinodh finished his second standard and was on his summer holidays, his father began
to fall ill regularly and one day he vomited blood. They took him to the hospital where he died
after few days. Vinodh says that he did not miss him much though his younger brother liked him
very much. However life seemed to take few turns in Vinodh’s life and curiously he liked few of
them. Take the case of his having to drop out of the school. When his mother had difficulty paying
his school fees and could not buy the new uniform and textbooks for the third standard he had

34
recently progressed into, he volunteered to drop out of school. Still his mother persuaded him to
go to school promising to make arrangement for the money in few days time. But Vinodh could
take it no more. Almost everyday, he was badly beaten by the teacher for not wearing the uniform,
for not bringing the textbooks. He stood outside the school, for not paying the annual fee. His
repeated complaints to his mother about his having to undergo the ordeal in the school did not
yield much result as his mother kept telling him that she would buy them soon.

Ironically over a period of time, his falling out of the orbit of formal education transpired in
performed silences. In the next few days Vinodh, unable to bear with teacher’s beating and school
refusing to accept him without the annual fee paid, wandered around the streets and market area
and returned home in the evening. On returning home he would maintain a studied silence over
the fees, school uniform, and textbooks. His mother in turn would keep mum on the same hoping
things were well. Weeks passed by with both sides maintaining silence on the famous fees, books,
and dress. Encouraged by her silence, Vinodh started hanging around the house after bunking the
school, after his mother would leave for her work early in the morning. One day when she came to
know about his truancy from the neighbours, her inability to cough up the money for his fees,
book and dress had rendered the act of her son’s truancy less offensive. What is more, she had lost
all her courage to even press him to attend the school anymore.

Though Vinodh was very happy not going to school, he did not regard his aimless wandering a
sweet idea. That is why he readily accepted the idea of working in an automobile mechanical shop
as an errand boy when his mother suggested it. Nonetheless, he could barely continue his new
assignment as an errand boy after three days. “The owner slammed on my head with a spanner, in
anger for no fault of my own. I decided to leave the job there and then,” informs Vinodh.
Afterwards he worked in the construction site, running errand for the masonry workers. But he
could not stand the verbal abuses and physical punishment from senior workers for his
mischievous behaviours. He did not continue there either.

In the next year or so he was a vagabond roaming around the streets with a few of his similar
destinied friends from the neighbourhood, till they were spotted by the staff from MAYA.
“Initially I hesitated to come to this school, but once I came here, the way teachers behaved, less
difficult nature of lessons and playful method of teaching immediately attracted me. Since then I
am attending the school regularly,” explains Vinodh. “Here also sometimes the teachers beat me,
sometimes there are big bully students bossing around and misbehaving with girls, but still I have
my own way. The teachers treat me kindly, the bullying types of students once identified are
stopped from attending the classes further. So I like to come here regularly,” he elaborates. Vinodh
has found this school so much an attractive proposition, that he successfully persuaded his mother
to take his younger brother and sister out of the formal school and put them here. Now all the
three of them attend this school, though he is always seen with his best friend Rajesh. “I fought
with my mother to bring my sister to this school because in the government school these ‘bad boys’
harass the girls. After learning from my friends about a six year old girl having been raped by 15
year old boy, I argued with my mother to stop her from going to government school and brought
her to this school,” he justifies.

He says that he wishes to study in this school as long as this school exists. But he would never
return to formal school even if he were put in the best of the schools. He tirelessly repeats that he
would not go to the formal schools. “All I want to achieve is speak in English, so as to make friends
with big people. This school has taugh t me to read English. Then I will learn driving, and will
become a driver to a rich man, preferably to Sachin Tendulkar. Because he has so many cars given
to him in every tournament. He may need new drivers after every new car is presented to him. I
will become his driver and impress him with my English skills and, my batting and bowling
abilities. He will become my friend and make me play cricket for India, that is my ambition,”

35
speaks Vinodh. He continues, “After learning English thoroughly I will go to an automobile
workshop, where I will learn to drive many types of car, then only I can become a driver to
Tendulkar.”

Talking to Vinodh tells us the culture of poverty that envelops his and children like his lives. It is
perhaps this culture of poverty that renders the process of falling out of formal schools so effortless
and easy. More significantly it is also a disparaging criticism on the formal school system, even
when it is run in the best manner possible. It is in the same culture of poverty lie the sharp pointers
towards the poverty of culture of our educational institutions, be it at the lower level where state
run schools are predominant or at the higher level where elite public schools run by private
agencies are ruling the roost.

What is very striking about Vinodh was that his sense of morality is not a rip-off from the middle
class morality that dominates the social air everywhere. His clean habits are a reaction to the
repulsive behaviour of the elders around him not a first time attraction to pontification from
middle class moralists.

Similarly his very non-instrumentalist approach to education comes refreshingly to all those who
have been pained by the crude instrumentalism governing our educational system in the recent
years. The increasing regimentation of students by our school systems to which the students
willingly submit themselves, for both students and their parents are success-crazy; the materialistic
abundance and seductive power to wield authority over the defeated and weak, that the education
system promises to vest in its surrendering subjects mean very little to Vinodh.

There is almost a hidden suggestion in him that these could be achieved through other means, not
necessarily by reducing education system to the status of cheap broker for these mundane benefits.
Even as he tries to rise above drowning waters of the culture of poverty, which is both a critique
and protest to middle class dreams masquerading as civil society ideals, there is this glaring
absence of higher value that he could hold on, to effect a successful floating. He does not even see a
meaningful shore to reach. He only sees a shore full of fifth and dirt with all the garbage of civil
society ideals appearing as flotsam in the shores. It is there he decides to dip into water once again.
Throughout his stint with schools, he did not look for a successful model with materials
abundance, nor did he want to hear about stories of students who struck the golden treasure so
that he could cling on to schools steadfastly, something that is also held near the nose of affluence-
desiring middle and upper class students who treat every other persons as a potential threat to
their success. He simply looks for good persons with good character to return his faith and love for
schooling system. As he very distrustfully reiterates that even the rich schools students would turn
against him one day like his government school class mates who stole his books very often. He
could not trust anybody.
_____________________________

36
Judgements are Somebody’s Problem

Thangaraj has a small hut that doubles up as the office of a Trust he has started for stonecutters
development, called Stone-Cutters Development Trust (SCDT). It is a small one-room house with a
thatched roof that sits on the mud walls. The house does not have electricity connection or any
other paraphernalia to characterize it as the office. One side of the house is the kitchen and the
other side has a steel cupboard in which he has kept few photographs and files for his fledgling
Trust. It was a convenient place as both his wives leave their home early for their work in the
special school and return late. His children, except the young two-year-old boy, go to school. Thus
during the day it is virtually an office, with no other family member staying back to give it a home
like character. In the evening when everybody returns the office turns into a complete home.

From his house one could see hollowed hillock forming a pond-like body with waters logged into
it due to the recent rainfall. The next hillock is being quarried with many people swarming over
the bottom portion of the hollow. “It is for these men, women and children I started this Trust,”
declares Thangaraj proudly.

One could see among the surfeit of workers, few children, mostly girls, carrying the stones on their
head. These stones are not the primary products of the quarry. They are the chips and flakes falling
of the big stones that are cut out from the rocks. The stones once cut into huge blocks would be
broken into pillar like structures, among other things, on the spot itself. These stones will then be
transported to crusher units. Most of these labourers who work in this industry are migrants from
the villages around the Pudukkottai area with some groups coming from Tiruchi and Karur
districts of Tamil Nadu.

Pudukottai district is known for its widespread quarrying activities as it posseses many rocky
hillocks, most of which have disappeared from the landscape in the last decade or so. There is a
strong demand for labourers as new quarries are started every other month. However the
labourers are the most exploited lot, as stone quarry is not recognized as an industry, thus part of
ungoranised sector. There are no legal protections available to the labourers who are thrown in
and out as per the whims and fancies of the quarry owner or the superintendents who recruit these
people.

There is also incidence of bonded labour though not so overt as in the past, with most of the
labourers indebted to the quarry owners. The lucrative advance money offered by these quarry
owners was so tempting for these quarry workers to refuse that they eventually end up serving the
quarry owners all their lifetime. It was during rainy season when there is an abatement in the
quarrying activity, that most of the workers find daily work hard to come by and reach the door
steps of the quarry owner for advance money. This ties them to the quarry owner for long time, as
the interest for advance money keeps mounting.

Even Thangaraj began his life as stonecutter only. It was after his 5 th standard when his father, who
himself was a stonecutter, died of an accident in the quarry site, that Thangaraj had to give up his
studies and enter into stone-cutting. His father had died of severe injuries sustained when a piece
of rock flying at a high velocity due to the explosives set off to split the rocks hit him on his head.
No compensation was paid to the family. Instead the quarry owner demanded the repayment of
the amount taken as advance by Thangaraj’s father or else he wanted someone from his family to
work in the quarry. Thangaraj joined the quarry instantly. After working in it for nearly two
decades, Thangaraj began to feel weak and his eyesight failing him often. In the intervening period
he got married to his maternal uncle’s daughter and had no issue through her. Though he went
about doing his work efficiently, he always was witness to the cruelties and injustice meted out to

37
his fellow quarry workers. He thought that it was because they were not organized that they were
being subjected to all these problems.

At the age of 25 he came into contact with a group of dedicated activists who were working with
unorganized labourers and farmers, under the banner Samathuva Samuthaya Iyakkam (Movement
for Egalitarian Society). He joined in it and worked fiercely to bring the stonecutters under an
umbrella organization so that they could fight for their rights.

The Samathuva Samuthaya Iyakkam (SSI) working all over Tamil Nadu made Thangaraj the
Pudukottai District Secretary, in recognition of his dedication and commitment. Thangaraj proved
his ability to inspire a mass of stonecutters by mobilizing them in huge numbers in a conference
organized by SSI in Pudukottai in the year 1987. In those intense days of activism he met his co-
worker whom he married in that year itself.

The movement of unorganized labourers spearheaded by SSI became a force to reckon with and it
had lobbied for many protective measures for the stonecutters, and most important of all, freed
many labourers from bondage with the help of the state administration. However in the years
following all these flurry of activities, the Samathuva Samuthaya Iyakkam lost its steam due to a
variety of factors, not the least of which was its jumping on to the bandwagon of electoral politics.
Having incurred the wrath of quarry owners for his social activism, coupled with his failing health,
Thangaraj opted out of stone-cutting work. He wanted to work fulltime for the welfare of the
stonecutters. However with no financial resources to support his family, now swelled into six
members including his second wife and three children, Thangaraj’s family was feeling the pinch of
poverty.

Undeterred by all these and deciding very clearly that his heart lies in campaigning for the welfare
of the stonecutters he went about meeting numerous stonecutters and helped them out in getting
benefits available to stonecutters from the government. He sought to redress their grievances in
whatever small manner he could and took their cause with government officials. However the
pinnacle of his relentless hard work was the government coming forward to auction a quarry site
to the stonecutters themselves, who can share the profit among them. This had set off a series of
similar takeovers in other parts of Pudukottai. Thangaraj however remained jobless and his family
survived out of the small donation given by stonecutters for whom he would have got a loan
sanctioned or application form forwarded.

Feeling strongly that he could serve the stonecutters better under an organization’s name he
registered the trust called SCDT in 1993. The relief finally came, when the government awarded
the management of a special school for child labourers to SCDT. Thangaraj virtually pounced on it
as he could get an opportunity to serve the stonecutters’ children who mostly end up becoming
stonecutters. The only problem with running this special school was that for the first phase all the
expenses incurred in paying the teacher, giving the noon meal and the monthly allowance of 100
rupees to each student would have to be borne by the Trust itself. Thangaraj did not hesitate to
borrow money at an interest of 5% per month. He successfully started the school and withdrew his
wives from quarry work. There was a provision for appointing a cook to prepare the meals for the
students. He asked his younger wife to take up the cook’s role, whereas the elder one assisted her
in the kitchen.

Personally Thangaraj was not willing to allow his wives to go for quarry work. Having seen in his
own eyes its injustices and cruelties and having fought all his life against these, though not so
successfully, he did not want to subject his wives to the cruelties of quarry work. Nonetheless in
the amount reimbursed by the government for running the school in every quarter of a year, there
was no salary that actually came for the cook. The final allotment coming from the government

38
having to be used for managing the school for the next phase and the interest that was snowballing
often cancelled out whatever amount accruing to his wife salary. However Thangaraj has vowed to
continue to manage the school in the future too. “All my political awareness and exposure had
inspired me to send my children to school. They are doing fine in the school. My elder daughter
who is in her 10 th standard wants to become a doctor, the second one in 8th wants to become an IAS
officer, only my son is a bit wayward.

“How can I rest content with my children going to school, I want every stone-cutter’s children to
go to school and end stone-cutting work with their parent generation. That’s why I want to keep
this school going even at the risk of surviving penniless. Believe me, it is this school that feeds my
family too. With my wives ceasing to be quarry workers and taking up the unrewarding work of
cook in the special school, finding means to make both ends meet was becoming even more
difficult. My wife brings on her return from school the remainings of the food she prepares for the
special school’s students to the family members to eat. We keep it for the night meal also.”
Explains Thangaraj as he leaves a long pause before calling his wife to get the tea ready for us.

It was a telling pause. It was to let us make our own judgements about his deeds.

_____________________________

39
Who Heals the Wounded Soul?

Thoppan’s looks belie the terrible illness he suffers from. Though fifty-seven years old he looks
younger to his age by 15 years. He was once a hard working construction site worker who was
also an agriculture labourer and firewood splitter, all rolled into one, depending on which work
was available in a particular season. While all these he did for the earnings they fetch, he never
had a dull moment even during the odd off-days, during which any one work would be very
hard to come by. He would go about collecting firewood for his home kitchen, re-thatch the roof
from time to time, do the repair work on the roof if holes had formed on it. It was something he
learned from his father. Thoppa n’s father had been brought to this village by the landowner
Naicker of the village to take up the cleaning work of the village. Normally the people involved
in the cleaning and scavenging activity are from the Arundhathiyar caste. They are relative
newcomers to the village. In most cases they are migrants from the drought prone or natural
disaster-struck villages. They are brought in by the village ‘big men’ to take up sanitation
activities in the village. In the same manner, Thoppan’s father was also brought into the village.
He initially took up cleaning activities such as removing the carcasses-- for both the flesh and the
hide, helping in the burial of the corpse etc. However in the later days he gave up those activities,
as more Arundhathiyar families were settled in the village. Thoppan’s father was ‘promoted’ to
the status of agricultural labourer and he worked in the lands of the same landowner who had
settled him in the village. Thoppan himself, the only son in the family, was born in this village.

Like any other members of the migrant scavenger community that has made the new village their
own, Thoppan was denied many privileges. He never even dreamt of going to school. The only
primary school located in the village never permitted him to become a student. Thus after the
initial days of assisting his father in all sorts of menial chores, Thoppan joined his father in the
agricultural field as well as the cleaning work that his father did in the landowner’s house. Later
when agricultural activities were becoming a rarity due depleting water resources the
landowner’s son took to building construction contract. Thoppan too continued the tradition of
owing loyalty to his employer, like his father. From then onwards through the days of his father’s
death, day of his marriage to his maternal uncle’s daughter and the days of endless wait for the
arrival of a child -- that never happened --Thoppan had been sincerely working as a masonry
worker with the same employer. Actually the landowner’s son who was the contractor was
known for his extreme miserliness and extraordinary greed for money. His lust for money knew
no boundaries, as he would squeeze the maximum out of his labourers. As a result, very few
workers stayed with his for long, but Thoppan continued with him. His considerations that the
contractor was from the family to which his father had owed unfailing allegiance and that he was
an upper caste man from whom Thoppan, the Dalit, could not extricate himself in a hurry and
could live peacefully later in the village, forced him stick to the contractor.

Though Thoppan worked very hard the earning was very low, as he would be paid a minimum
wage of 10 Rupees only, that too was available only on those days when the work was available.
The prevalence of severe untouchability practices prevented him from moving up in the
occupational ladder. The insufficient wage would not carry the family beyond a week on off-
days. So Thoppan would volunteer to work as a kitchen assistant in the marriage hall. His wife
used to engage in match industry work, as the village borders the match-belt. This fetched some
money on the jobless days. When no work was available Thoppan would involve in all kinds of
physically exerting work, like firewood cutting or fence-erecting and the like.

Thoppan’s intense physical exertion combined with his clean habits had given him a healthy and
robust body, and the villagers recalled that his body used to shine luxuriantly like a polished
brass statue. In spite of his poverty and bare minimum food he could eat, Thoppan had seldom
fallen ill. Yet all these lasted only till the age of 32 at which point Thoppan’s life took a disastrous

40
turn. No one would have anticipated that an innocuous injury to Thoppan, happening at such a
healthy age would cause such devastation to his health.

Since the day when the disaster had visited him, his health has declined fast progressively,
though the exteriors of his body have still retained their former shape. Internally, however, his
body has lost its immunity and even a slight exertion of body causes immeasurable ache and
exhaustion. What is more serious is that his mobility during the daytime is severely restricted as
the temperature of his body rises alarmingly if he is exposed to sun. On those occasions when he
is compelled to walk in the sun even for few minutes, he has to reach for shade and wrap his
body with a wet cloth, before he could take another round of strides in the sun. The exhaustion
too would be so disabling that he hardly comes out of his small hut these days.

It all happened when he was 32 year old. Those days, he was working as masonry worker with
the building contractor. On the fateful day when Thoppan went for his work, it was still
drizzling. The contractor had sent away other labourer as the work could not be resumed under
the overcast conditions. However, he had retained Thoppan to do the task of removing the
gathered water and silt from the pit, so as to enable the work to resume the next day. The day
before that, they had dug a trench for laying the foundation for the new house. After digging the
pit they had also planted the iron rods along the bottom of the pit.

When Thoppan made a quick inspection he found that the previous night’s torrential rain had
submerged the iron rods in the pit, apart from silting the dugout with mud. His employer
commanded him to jump into the pit and remove the silt and the earth after pouring the water
out of it. For a moment Thoppan wondered whether to refuse to do so. But thinking about the
wage he would get at the end of the day he descended into the bit barefooted and started to scoop
the water using a bucket. By afternoon he had managed to bring the knee-high water level in the
deep furrow down to ankle-height.

The building contractor was overseeing Thoppan’s work holding an umbrella only for protecting
him from the rain. Now he commanded Thoppan to scrape the earth out of the pit. Thoppan
commenced his earth-removing work with the same swiftness. In his intense concentration in the
work, he failed to notice the cut made by a sharp blade-like iron rod on the sole of his right foot. It
was very soft sinking of the rod into his sole without causing any pain immediately. That the feet
were covered with muddy water only added to its non-detectability. But soon the whole of the
pit began to look bloodshot, though spreading slowly due to thick mud deposited in the pit.

When Thoppan took note of the crimson colour of the mud, he paused for a while to verify its
cause. But the overseeing contractor egged Thoppan to go on, yelling that it was the red soil that
gave its colour. The contractor was afraid that if Thoppan came out of the pit the work would
remain incomplete, upsetting his crude business calculations. Few minutes past that, Thoppan
began to feel a slight irritation on his right foot and plucked it out from the earth and mud. It was
only then that he could see a long cut across his sole from where it was heavily bleeding. He
climbed out of the pit against the repeated dismissal of the contractor who kept saying that his
injury was minor. He felt a bit drowsy, and tied his foot with a piece of cloth torn from his own
loincloth. Waving to the contractor signaling that he won’t be available for the rest of the day,
Thoppan hurriedly walked to his wife’s brother’s house in the nearby village despite the
weakness he felt due to excessive bleeding. There they took him to a village medicine man who
gave a herbal treatment to the wound along with a dressing done around it keeping herbal leaves
close to sole.

In the next few days the pain persisted in the wounded sole with blood continuing to ooze out.
The next time when Thoppan went to his own village’s folk doctor, the wound had gathered lot

41
of pus. After removing the pus the folk medicine man crushed some more herbal leaf juice on the
wound. Yet the pain and bleeding never ceased. In those days the modern health care facilities
were not available in the vicinity of the village like today. The villagers had to go to the district
headquarters or to Rajapalayam, a halfway house between a city and town. Both these places
were a goodly 20 Kms away from Thoppan’s village. A quick travel to these places was possible
only for those who owned the bullock cart. For others, it was by walking all the way to these
urban centers that they reached them- but only in those extremely rare occasions in their lives.

Thoppan himself had never been to these two towns in his life. Being a Dalit, he could not afford
to travel in a bullock cart, leave alone own it. Nor were there any necessities to go there, since
these poorest villagers went to the native medicine men when struck with illness. The folk
medicine was very effective in most of the cases. But unfortunately for Thoppan it did not work.
He continued to bleed, as the wound remain ed unhealed. He had only his wife to attend to his
needs. She was very concerned too. It was never in their agenda to go to the town hospital.
Firstly, they did not have the money; secondly Thoppan could scarcely walk his way to the
hospital. But the fact that he continued to stay away from work had already dried up whatever
little money they had. They decided to ask the contractor for help. He too bluntly refused to offer
any assistance. In the next few weeks, Thoppan’s wife joined the group of women agriculture
labourers to win some bread for the family, even as Thoppan was resting at home.

Though the bleeding stopped in the next few months and the wound too slowly healed, Thoppan
was never the same person again. He lost his agility and his robust body shipshape only
externally. He could not bear the heat not even for few minutes and a few minutes walk tired him
thoroughly. Since then Thoppan stays indoor mostly. Very rarely he exits the home during the
daytime. The little bit of outing he does would be only in the evening. He could not take up any
work then onwards. His wife’s wage earned out of the agriculture work helps the family to carry
on. During the off-season months when agricultural work is not available, she arranges
matchsticks for the match industry. Thoppan would help her a bit, before being overcome by
exhaustion. The few rupees earned out of this help them to have one or two meals a day.

During the recovery period Thoppan needed to eat nutritious food. But the poor couple could ill
afford to eat three meals a day, to speak nothing of nutritious food. The numerous running to the
village medicine man only helped in reducing the temperature of the body, but only temporarily.

Thoppan could not bear to see his health weakening. He says that he could feel his strength
draining out with that blood that at oozed out ceaselessly in the early days of his injury. It was
difficult for him to lead life as an inactive soul, quite unnerving indeed for a person who never
knew tiredness. He had thought of suicides several times. It was his wife who gave him the
courage to hope for a day of recovery when he will be wholesome again. “I don’t know why I
carried on. There was this desire in me to regain my health and return to work. I wanted to earn
and treat my wife to good food and nice dresses. I know how much she has sacrificed, including
those bland meals that I get to eat nowadays. Seeing all these, my desire to return to those good
old days of well-being only got strengthened, but the day never came” he mourns.

In recent years when a local NGO staff wanted to take him to the hospital for check up, Thoppan
refused to accompany them, saying that he had become too old to need medical attention; only
that he awaits his death. “Now some social workers tell me that I could be cured, but my will has
bled its spirit out in those old days”, he says. His only regret is that he is childless. “Had I had a
son, all these miseries would have never visited me,” he laments.

----------------------

42
Past (im)perfect? Future perfect!

Malliga has carefully created a world of her own. For the uninitiated, her world may smack of
deception, doublespeak, and cover-ups. But its vulnerability, susceptibility, and sadness will
become evident only when one enters her world with a deep sense of participation and
understanding. Malliga’s world unfolds only to the most reliable and trustworthy of persons.
Though Malliga was ready to divulge comfortable details in abundance to the casual inquirer,
they are mostly thought-on-the-feet replies. These, once pieced together, may reveal no coherent
pattern. Ironically, Malliga herself does not think that her life could be woven into a cogent story.
She remembers her life as a series of scattered incidents that are not necessary casually connected
with one another. It appears as though she had not raised too many questions about various
aspects of her life, or about the events that occurred. Nor did she seek to perceive them as an
organized whole. That seems to be reason why she was willing to relate her life in terms of
discrete events and details. Perhaps it does not make any difference to Malliga whether her past
could be seen as a well-sequenced story. Past is the territory she wants to look back only after
reaching a safe haven in future. Now she is only running away from her past as fast as she could.

It is exactly because she had not confronted her past upfront, that many questions about it terribly
surprise her. They are asked for the first time ever, as it were. The answers she musters up come
out of her after hesitations, uneasy halts and weak self-assuredness about their correctness. The
questions may be regarding her age or about the marriage with her lover-man at the age of 13, or
about the biological father of her sons. The answers are prefixed by empty groans and
interspersed by pauses. May be these hesitations and the pauses are also time taken to gauge the
trustworthiness of the listener. But once trusting the interlocutor, she is willing to seek a sense of
order for her past, for the first time perhaps, in the company of that reliable listener. That is what
she ultimately decided to do this time, despite the evasions in this initial phase of the
conversation. This becomes clearer later, as Malliga corrected her earlier answers. A warm and
tender listener is all that she needed to courageously reconstruct her past events and to confront
them boldly.

The tragic feature of a sex workers’ life is the tremendous loss of respect for their own lives and
their past. In spite of the vengeful quest to find strong justifications for what they are now or the
twists and turns that their lives had seen, they are convinced of the fragility of the justification
too. It was evident in Malliga’s narration too. There is no clarion call in her narration to agree
with her moral wholesomeness; she does not pretend to convince us about her victorious
recovery of dignity at every stage in life. There is only a simple plea to mourn her past in
solidarity with her. She needs people to jointly cry over her tragedies and express sorrow for the
vulnerabilities that are one too many in their lives. It was these emotions that suffused her
recounting of her life.

Malliga’s belongs to a family of 11 children born to the two wives of her father. Malliga was born
to the first wife of whose children she is 5th in line. Originally from Andhra Pradesh, this Telugu
speaking family migrated to Tamil Nadu during the generation of Malliga’s parents. Her father,
who was a contractor for erecting pandals, had died long before and it was Malliga’s mother who
had brought the children up. Theirs was a family of reasonable means. And as it was wont to the
families belonging to Telugu Naidu caste, they were planning the marriage for Malliga when she
crossed 13 years. But Malliga had taken a liking to a man 8 years older than her. He was living in
the same compound that had Malliga’s house. Fearing that her elder brothers would tear her into
shreds if they had come to know of her love affair with that man, Malliga kept quite. But things
were going out of control as their family was going about arranging for Malliga’s marriage to a
man from her own community. The day of marriage too arrived. Malliga did not have the guts to
spill the beans on that day either. But she decided to do the unthinkable. Just after the

44
preliminary procession when the bride is taken from her house to the marriage hall, Malliga left
the marriage hall via the back door and eloped with the man who meant a lot to her. It was
purely on the strength of the guidance of her loverboy that she took this bold step. Later she
learned that her sister married the same person who was a police constable on the same marriage
pandal.

Life with the man of her own choice was a mixed bag. She lived quite joyfully, albeit her later
discovery about her husband’s clandestine and immoral occupation as a pimp as well as about
his pervious marriage to a woman whom he had divorced as they had no issue. He worked as a
broker between prospective clients and sex workers. It was known as “sending women on
contract to clients.” Despite his dirty job, he was a loyal husband to Malliga, he kept her very
happy and provided her quite well. For nearly 10 years things went well for Malliga though it
had its share of misfortunes. She had delivered two babies during this period though both died
quite young. It was again during the course of her life in marriage a very tragic incident
happened. Malliga narrated this event in a trembling voice choked with sorrow and eyes tearful,
in stark contrast to the composure and poise that she had maintained when speaking about her
other tragedies. Her mother had visited her in one of those days to fiercely reprimand her for all
the bad name she has brought on the family by running away with a man from another caste. She
refused to enter her house and shouted at Malliga from outside the house. She vowed to treat
Malliga as dead. And, what is worse, she went about symbolically performing the ritual of ‘taking
oil bath’, marking the death of Malliga even when Malliga was alive and watching. From then
onwards all her family members including her siblings severed ties with her permanently though
all of them are living in Chennai only. Only her eldest brother visits her very rarely without the
knowledge of the other family members.

It was just around the turn of their 10th marriage anniversary that Malliga’s husband’s ‘business’
was not going smoothly. Malliga told with lots of pain and anguish though in a determined voice,
that it was then that her husband started bothering Malliga to ‘entertain’ a few select clients.
Malliga says, “He was wrongly advised by one of his friends who had convinced him that if he
engaged his wife in this ‘work’, he could take the money all by himself”. Malliga was immensely
outraged and stoutly opposed her husband’s persuasions. However what started as mild
demands soon turned into intimidations. “If you do not oblige to this suggestion, forget the idea
of living with me” her husband would warn. When Malliga persistently refused, he disappeared
from home for months together leaving Malliga in the lurch. Malliga suffered a lot. She did some
odd jobs to survive in those days of his absence. When he had returned after few months, he held
the same threat to Malliga. Shattered by her husband’s devilish designs she took poison but was
saved by her husband. Though the threat from her husband subsided for few months thereafter,
it returned with vengeance later. Utterly helpless and totally sapped of her willpower Malliga
succumbed to her husband’s continual coercion. Life went this way for nearly three years. In one
of those days in the third year of her entering sex work, her husband left for his parents’ home in
Madurai promising to come back, but never returned. Left on her own, Malliga took to
continuing the only work she had become familiar with then—sex work. It was during that time
she had met Sukumaran, a client 15 years older than her. In fact she had gone on a contract to him
for a weeklong period.

Sukumaran, a Malayali, would patiently listen to her sad story and would often promise her
tenderly, assuredly yet very subtly that he would accept her as his wife if she decides to leave sex
work and agrees to live with him. Malliga readily accepted it, as she was not any way interested
in sex work as such. Sukumaran was not a rich person. He was one of the three partners of tailor
shop that had fetched reasonable money. Sukumaran himself was a good tailor. Malliga tells that
he is a nice and simple person who is good at heart. “I could have chosen a rich person as my

45
companion. There were many suitors who were more moneyed and influential than him,”
Malliga confesses.

Malliga had begun her housewifely life all over again in great earnest in the nearness of
Sukumaran. And in the early years of living together he used to stitch her nice clothes in keeping
with latest designs, “He took immense amount of happiness to see me dressed in new and trendy
clothes” tells Malliga, “What is more! When I was expecting my second son he even had
employed a housemaid to do the household chores” Malliga adds.

However, Sukumaran’s tailor shop business had begun to experience some problem. The
partnership into which Sukumaran had entered broke as the tailor shop had incurred heavy loss
due to flawed investment in Diwali clothes. Sukumaran himself had a debt of rupees fifty
thousand to clear. Overnight Sukumaran became jobless. Unable and unwilling to continue his
tailor’s work as his eyesight was failing progressively, he switched over to all kinds of odd jobs
before settling down on a watchman’s job in an export company. He is paid a monthly salary of
Rs 1200/- of which he could spare only 800 rupees after his expenses on bus fare etc. “I used to
wonder why God punishes good people who have been already trodden by fate” Malliga says
wryly.

Squeezed by the sudden drop in the income, Malliga too had to take up some jobs. She initially
became a housemaid in a family of doctors. But left it when the young son, himself a doctor, of
the family misbehaved with her and, but for the timely intervention of his mother, would have
succeeded in molesting her. She joined a garment export unit later. There again the men who
occupied different ranks harassed her sexually. Her short stint in the direct selling of soaps and
detergent powder did not prove monetarily rewarding and there too there were many instances
of sexual abuses she was forced to undergo.

Frustrated at workplace harassments, Malliga decided to stay at home and make living out of
hearth-bound works like tying flowers into garlands for flower vendors. Nonetheless it could
scarcely sustain her family of four members. Moreover the abrupt drying up of money made
Malliga feel sick. Already unable to pay the rent, they had moved from a two-room house to a
cavernous one room thatched house. Having seen and earned reasonable sum of money all along,
the sudden poverty impacted heavily upon Malliga. She says, “Without a penny in my hands I
would visibly look sick, totally immobilized, and staring vacuously. Even my younger son would
make out the cause. In contrast I would be full of agility and energy when I have money in
hands.”

These days of absolute penury drove her in to sex work though as a last resort, without the
knowledge of her sons and husband. However there was a distinction between the way she did it
in the past and now. She serves only her former, familiar clients who contact her through other
sex workers or over neighbours’ phone. She explains, “I practiced sex work in a manner unlike
the ‘regulars’. The ‘regulars’ normally hang around the cruising points (street corners) where
prospective clients will pick them up. The risks faced by the ‘regulars’ are too many, either from
the police that round them up and send them to vigilance homes for fifteen to thirty days or from
the rowdy elements that forcefully keep them in their custody for many days, during which the
sex worker will be sexually assaulted by numerous faceless individuals”. She further elaborates
with the fright in her eyes “People like us will have to be very careful and alert. We should know
how to read clients. The most dangerous of the clients are the prisoners who have been just
released. We can make out the brute and bestial lustfulness in their eyes. We would shun them
instantly. If they scare us, then we move close to the traffic police we have befriended with for
safety and protection. Many of my friends were nor smart enough and were whisked away by
men who let go of them only after committing sexual savagery on them.”

46
She adds dramatically, “ I myself have made many escapes. In one such escape I lost my teeth
and injure my eyebrows when I jumped off a moving motorbike driven by an innocent looking
customer whose terrible gameplan I sensed as few more men in autoricksaws joined him. It is not
just for these risks alone that I avoid returning to regular sex work, but for the cruelty of
separation from my children for fifteen days to one month when sent to vigilance home on being
caught by police or for few days when landed up in the midst of sex-hungry animals. During
these days no one will be there to take care of them or to feed them.”

Particularly after her sons have grown up Malliga did not want to run the risk of somebody
seeing her standing in the wrong places and informing her sons about it. On those days when she
‘serves’ known clients she justifies her going away from home telling her sons that she is going
for ‘film shooting work’. This helps her rationalize the availability of handful amount of money in
her hands later on. However she has no clue at to how her Malayali husband understands this.
Perhaps his own helplessness to contribute substantially to the family income and to the
children’s education could have rendered his rage fragile and weakened his will to enforce the
promise extracted orally and obliquely in the early days of their living together. Personally for
Malliga sex work appears to be a better proposition than other jobs where she had to live in
constant fear and danger of sexual abuse. “In those occasions when subjected to forced sex with
the garment company supervisors or the manager in the direct selling company, I felt miserable
and cheated. But when I entered commercial sex work on my own I treated it as a business
transaction. I offered service and they paid for it. In sex work I feel I have control over my own
destiny, my life,” Malliga reasons out.

It is almost seventeen years since she and Sukumaran had agreed to live together as married
couples. Sukumaran has remained a loving and supportive husband to her and responsible father
to the sons. Malliga too has more or less stopped going for sex work these days. In recent days
her association with ICWO, an NGO working with children of sex workers has given her different
sense of purpose and significance. She is part of ICWO’s street theatre troupe to spread
HIV/AIDS awareness among the villagers in northern Tamil Nadu. She gets hundred rupees per
day when she is on a tour with the troupe. The spin off effects of the theatre experience that has
strengthened her whole repertory of expressive skills are stunningly evident in her entire
narration of her life.

Asked about her future she says that she does not want property, gold or large sums of money.
All she needs to have is good health and good health only so as to stay alive to see her sons live
successfully. In all probability all these talks about menacing sexually transmitted diseases like
AIDS have such an impact on her sense of wholesomeness occupying her mind fully. That is why
she repeatedly referred to having a health body as the most important property she wants to have
in future. Yet her thoughts about future always return to her sons. The two sons have now grown
up to attend 11th and 9th standards respectively. They are doing well in their studies. One wants
to become a computer engineer and the other wants to end up working in the banking sector as a
manager or some officer. Malliga has made her sons’ aspirations as her dreams too. She cares for
them so much. It is important that they have a secure and a highly ordered future, for Malliga is
well aware of the disorder that she has to wrestle with throughout her life. Indeed she was
amazingly honest about the assessment of her life, including its past as clearly mired in disorder.
There was no attempt to cover up the cracks and fractures in it. She has accepted them as such. It
is precisely because of her awareness of the disorder that she resolutely aspires to give a sense of
order in the lives of her sons, even if it means that she has to admit more and more chaos and
disorder into her life. The only desire is to ensure an organized life for her sons, not only for them
but also for her too. Because it is only in the shadow of the success of her sons’ future Malliga
may collect the courage to reflect on her past. When everything goes well, the past may appear in

47
the perception of Malliga as a devil that she had to necessarily make friends with, so as to
exorcise it from the lives of her progenies. But as of now she sees the present itself as an extension
of the past she has hardly reminisced.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

48
The Ever Lasting Childhood of Fenita

Many people who know Jyothimani Patti1 remember her for her continual pestering for money or
for her incessant complaints about her plight. At best, they warn us not to meet her, or, at worst,
prepare us to anticipate her troubling demands for money or ceaseless lamentations, if not for
both. She is known for her nuisance value. But these are just perceptions. Perhaps if we give up our
touchy sensors that trigger raw emotional responses in us, including irritation and rage, and enter
into the universe of Jyothimani Patti with a mind full of passion for understanding, then the
wisdom and the valuable experiences of Jyothimani Patti may become evident to us.

Jyothimani Patti’s world has boundary walls at visible distances. It has very few inhabitants in it
too. Her existence centres around her granddaughter Ahis Fenita, aged 10. Fenita is a person with
cerebral palsy. She is severely crippled physically and retarded mentally. Her little bit of mobility
is purely due to her dragging her along the stomach. Jyothimani Patti has started taking care of
Fenita barely nine months after her birth. All these ten years Jyothimani’s body and mind have
hardly been away from Fenita. Except those few rare occasions when she would have gone away
from Fenita because of some work or obligation, Jyothimani does not remember a month in which
she and Fenita were not continuously together. All these years Jyothimani Patti has always
responded to the calls of Fenita -- a girl who has been endowed with permanent childhood -- and
served the dependent grandchild unfailingly. Jyothimani Patti has quite effortlessly reconciled to
Fenita’s ever-lasting childhood and its attendant demands. She has prepared herself very
resolutely for the extended childhood of Fenita knowing fairly well that Fenita will remain this
way for many more years to come. Here is a woman whose combined years of dependent-child-
serving motherhood would be reckoned as 15years considering the fact that she, as a mother of
five children, would have spent that many years nurturing her five children, if one were to assign
three year period of dependency to each child. For a person with this remarkable track record, it is
even more poignantly amazing that her feat as a mother serving the needs of child in utter
dependency has to last forever. Yes! bringing up Fenita thus far is like rearing four normal children
successfully. And it will go on.

In all these 10 years Fenita has become an extension of Jyothimani Patti. As one could observe in
their togetherness, there is also this perennial connection, continuity and proximity of
physiological processes even when they are apart yet wandering at mutually noticeable distances.
Jyothimani Patti misses none of Fenita’s movements-- even the minutest of them— be it moaning,
smile and body needs. Fenita has become an outgrowth of an otherwise ageing and atrophying
Jyothimani Patti’s body. In the past 10 years Jyothimani Patti has grown with her granddaughter
who herself has grown only physically however stunted the growth may be.

Fenita was born as the second child among the five children. Her brother too has slight symptoms
of mental retardation albeit his normal physique. In Fenita’s case the abnormality was becoming
noticeable only in the ninth month after her birth. Soon after that Fenita’s mother left her in the
custody of Jyothimani Patti. Fenita’s mother was carrying the third child and could not hope to
manage Fenita, then detected to be below normal. Since then Fenita is growing under the close
supervision of her grandmother.

This is very much in keeping with what is happening in this part of the country, particularly in
rural areas, where children diagnosed to be afflicted with mental retardation or cerebral palsy are
immediately abandoned by their mothers at the instance or under the compulsion of the husband’s
family. The retarded child is seen as a threat to the manliness and virility of the husband, and his
family treats the child as source of threat to its self-perceived eugenic lineage. Under these

1
‘Patti’ is a word used to refer to an elderly woman respectfully in Tamil Nadu

49
circumstances the abnormal child is invariably adopted by or handed over to the maternal
grandparents. The mother of the abnormal child too agrees to this arrangement in order to ensure
that her other normal children grow with healthy self-image and a sense of normalcy about their
own selves.

Jyothimani Patti too accepted Fenita both with a sense of moral responsibility to share the burden
of her daughter and also with a fragile hope that some miracle would turn Fenita into a normal
child one day. It was a stubborn hope that Jyothimani Patti has been nursing despite all the odds
stacked against it. Above all, Fenita had brought a sense of purpose in Jyothimani Patti’s life that is
otherwise spent vacantly in the company of her mentally unstable husband, Abraham. Abraham
had worked as labourer in Sri Lanka in a textile factory. He returned to India about 15 years back
after nearly two decades of not so successful employment there. Ten years older than Jyothimani
Patti, Abraham aged 65 has been suffering from scary hallucination and paranoia ever since his
return. He would suddenly scream “fire” and rush to seek shelter in the lap of Jyothimani Patti like
a frightened chick. This illness combined with his already failing mind meant that he could not do
any productive work whatsoever. He was the only companion to Jyothimani Patti before the
arrival of Fenita in her life. Of her married children, one female (Fenita’s mother) and four male,
the sons went to live in far away places. Only her daughter is living in a nearby town. Jyothimani
Patti now lives with Fenita and Abraham in that small one room house, their only family property.

In her efforts to bring up Fenita, Jyothimani Patti is all alone. Fenita’s mother seldom visits her
daughter and is mostly content to part with some money to Jyothimani Patti for she cares for
Fenita, whereas her father makes quick visits to Jyothimani’s house, which many a times had been
over without having even seen Fenita if she was away at school. However if she is at home, he
would play with her for a while before leaving.

The emptiness in Jyothimani Patti’s life after her children had gone away only grew unbearable
with the arrival of her husband who spent most of his time staring vacuously at nothing. It was at
this juncture that Fenita came into the life of Jyothimani Patti’s life despite the high emotional and
physical cost she demanded of Jyothimani Patti. Indeed for Jyothimani Patti life has been a series
of struggle that she seems to have waged ceaselessly and boldly. Even now she elaborates on her
recent crises wearing a permanent smile as if she is pleased with them. She appears bright only in
the background of a looming problem, as it were. She narrates her struggles in life with a detached
pose and swiftness amidst attending to other chores, among which keeping a vigilant eye on Fenita
is the foremost. Her cool yet cogent detailing of the various crises that she had faced--and still
facing-points to a mind numbed by continual onslaught of problems. She has single-handedly
brought up her five children as her husband had gone to Sri Lanka after the birth of the fifth child
in search of money that he seldom sent. She earned some money, by weaving the rope in the coir
cots, working as an agricultural labourer and by selling eggs obtained from the small poultry that
she farmed. With the money thus made she could educate her children (though none of them
crossed beyond 8th class), marry her daughter to a petty shop owner in the nearby town and
arrange for the marriage of her sons who went to different parts of Tamil Nadu afterwards.

Just as she was about to rest with a little bit of money that her sons send every month, she had to
support her mentally deranged husband after his return to India. Then came Fenita too. Combined
with all these was the loss of her left eye that seemed to have been attacked by some fungi. Since
she had left it unattended, as she was catering to Fenita’s needs, it resulted in the total loss of
vision eventually. None of these slowed her down or shook her. Nor did they take the smile off her
face, now having become toothless. She looks the cheerful person weathering these many storms
successfully every day. But in the last 10 years it has been around the life of Fenita that Jyothimani
Patti finds meaning for her own existence. In the early days of Fenita’s life, it was in the naïve
expectation that she would flower into a complete person that Jyothimani Patti would go to sleep

50
in the night and wake up in the morning. And she enjoyed watching and announcing to everybody
Fenita’s small improvements, such as those incomprehensible sounds, her inch by inch dragging of
her body etc, often exaggerated as remarkable feats in self-delusion by Jyothimani Patti.

Jyothimani Patti remembers the minutest of the details of Fenita’s growth record. She knows when
Fenita made her first effort to lean against the wall; when her hands became little bit prehensile;
when she made those monosyllabic sounds; when she fixed eyes on others etc., -- every details to
suggest as if she was observing her own limbs grow. Ironically during all these days of intense
supervision, she forgot to pay attention to her own body. Once when someone suggested that
Fenita would be cured if she was taken to a Siddha doctor in Kumbakonam, Jyothimani Patti had
decided to take Fenita there. Just around the same time Jyothimani Patti’s left eye was afflicted
with fungus infection. The doctor in the nearby town hospital had prescribed some eyedrops to be
administered in her eyes every day. But in her hurry to take Fenita to the Siddha hospital in
Kumbakonam she had forgotten to take the bottle of eyedrops with her. Unable to pay for a new
eyedrops in Kumbakonam (where she had kept Fenita for few days) as the expenses on Fenita
were mounting, Jyothimani Patti ignored her affected eye. By the time she had come back from
Kumbakonam the fungi attack on the left eye was so complete that it had lost its vision. All her last
ditch effort to save her eye were in vain. Now the doctor has suggested that this afflicted eye be
removed to save the right eye from getting affected. The removal of the eye was also
recommended to stop chronic dripping of water from the left eye when kept open.

There was no anger in her voice in relating these incidents to us. There was no attempt to level
blame on any one for what has happened. There was a pure matter-of-factness in the entire act of
her narration. It is with a same matter-of-factness that she tells about her hens in small poultry
mysteriously falling dead, caused allegedly by poisoning of them by some jealous neighbours;
about the non-remittance of money by her sons for the last two months rendering her penniless; or
about loss of money to the tune of Rs 6500/- by a woman who posed as relative but eventually
made off with the money in one fine morning. Jyothimani Patti takes all these facts as they
occurred in her life. No attempt to trace the roots, no energy spent on worrying about the
repercussions they would entail. She refuses to enter into a discussion on it. She may tell wisely
that it is all part of life.

But she likes to have money. She wants to give Fenita good food, some rice cakes and some snacks
every day. That is why she knits plastic wire bags to sell them in the petty shop run by her son-in-
law. Whatever she cooks, she makes it for Fenita’s sake only, but it can also go to her husband.
Over the years she has begun to accept Fenita for what she is. Though Jyothimani Patti continues
to retain her excitements at the sight of an iota of improvement in Fenita’s abilities, she has scaled
down the standard of normalcy exclusively for Fenita. The best she expects her to achieve in the
future is the ability in Fenita for self-care. “This will relieve me greatly from the arduous task of
physically lifting Fenita. I am becoming old and Fenita is becoming heavier, ” she says. Besides
these, she does not have any illusions about Fenita.

In recent days Fenita is attending the village school thanks to the efforts taken by a local NGO,
TRUE that works towards mainstreaming the disabled children in the formal schools. Jyothimani
Patti is realism personified when it comes to having hopes. She says that sending Fenita to the
school means few hours of freedom to her and a reasonably good meal to Fenita, served as part of
the mid-day meal scheme. However, two good things have happened out of the NGO efforts. One
is the acceptance of Fenita by a peer team of normal children who take care of Fenita whilst she is
at school, besides ensuring that she is taken to school in the morning and dropped at home in the
evening. This has been made easier by the wheel chair provided by TRUE. Another good thing is
that Fenita is a happy person nowadays. She gets to have a chance to be with a boisterous and
playful group of students, whose joy and enthusiasm is infectious on Fenita. Even though she

51
could not take part in these activities Fenita vibrates with joy watching them as she is seated in her
wheel chair. Jyothimani Patti is happy about it too. Yet, even at the time of being away from her at
school, Fenita always lingers in the mind of Jyothimani Patti. “I rush to clean her up on hearing
that she has excreted or urinated in her dress,” Jyothimani Patti explains.

The growing acceptance of the harsh realities associated with binging up a disabled child whose
conditions are worsened by cerebral palsy has also instilled certain wisdoms in Jyothimani Patti. In
one of her rare moment of her soul’s weakness, she says, “If we come to know very early that a
newly born child is disabled then we should kill it using numerous benign methods that almost
look like accidents. I hear that in certain parts of Tamil Nadu, parents who want to finish off their
babies keep an electric fan at the highest speed in a close range to the baby’s face so that it will die
of suffocation. This they do to even the normal female children. If it is a disabled female baby, then
there is even more urgent need to do it with impunity, for I only know the agony and difficulties of
nurturing a disabled child. The pain and distress of looking after such a child last the entire life of
parents or grandparents. If killed at the birth itself, it will be just a matter of a day’s mourning and
crying, otherwise it is an every da y suffering for every body.”

Though she is willing to apply the same measures of killing a child, when it comes to Fenita she
has different ideas. She says that it is too late now. Fenita has grown into Jyothimani Patti’s mind
and life inseparably and it will be unbearable for her to reconcile to her absence all of a sudden.
“Fenita calls me Amma! How would I prescribe the same methods to Fenita? It should happen
before the child calls its mother Amma and before it is given a name,” she retorts.

It is exactly because Fenita has blended into her existence that Jyothimani Patti had even refused to
send her away to the home for the disabled. “I have seen how these homes; there is no one to show
love and warmth. I will die thinking of how Fenita would suffer in these homes after sending her
away. I want to keep her as long as I am alive. Then it is between her parents and Fenita to decide”
Jyothimani Patti says conclusively.

It is quite poignant that even as Jyothimani Patti discusses about the need to have “finished off”
Fenita at the birth itself; about the uncertain future of Fenita; about how much of a burden Fenita is
to her, one could see Fenita seated on her wheel chair responding to her grandmother-turned-
mother by giggling at and stretching out her hand to Jyothimani Patti, obviously unaware that it is
her fate that is being discussed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

52
A Weak Heart’s Strong Mind

Prelude: Baskar’s story is an excellent example of how a person who stories others’ lives gets
storied in the long run. Baskar actually volunteered to help me to write stories of children who
turned child labourers due to poverty. He quite elaborately told stories of such children since he
had known them for many months before. Though he would often hint at the commonality of life
circumstances abounding in suffering and anguish, with those children whose stories he narrated,
he never wanted to force his story on me. The very uniformity of plight must have quietened him
from finding uniqueness in his own life story. As his story below would attest, he did not want to
be seen as a sufferer-sympathized-with or whose suffering mitigated by others. He wanted to be
the one who contributes to reducing the difficulties in others’ lives. Nonetheless the more I
interacted with him the more I felt that the story of Baskar weaving to me. In a similar vein, the
more distant I became, both in time and space, the more solid the story was growing into. The
below is what emerged when the details that kept flying in my mind’s face, got pieced together.

I
Baskar, aged 18, just talks about himself commencing exactly from a stage in his life that he wishes
to forget resolutely. It was that five long years, during which Baskar lay on the bed at his house as
a heart patient, which seemed agonizingly longer than the rest of his life lived. Baskar recalled
these hopeless days with so much of bitterness, that given the option he would discount them from
his life span, as ‘days-not-lived-fully’. He speaks about that eminently forgettable phase with
wonder, “ It is incredible that I survived them. They were very tough days indeed.”
Baskar’s house is located in a colony of very small houses in the highly cramped Vinayakapuram
Nagar in Yesvantpura area of Bangalore. Its living room can hold only a double cot besides leaving
a narrow space for passage to the adjacent kitchen. The kitchen itself is only half the size of the
living room. The living room is cluttered with a steel cupboard that blocks the passage when its
doors are opened and clothes rolled into bundles that have been shoved in the corner where the
roof meets the wall and also in a place above the cupboard. The walls themselves are chockablock
with photographs of his family members and his diseased father as well as the posters of Tamil
film actors Rajinikanth and Ajith. A black and white TV set is sitting just above steel cot on a wall-
mounted wooden stand. Baskar informs that the cot, cupboard, and TV set are new additions to his
house. They came as part of the consignment, traditionally given by bride’s family to the groom,
on his brother’s marriage.
Since the houses in the colony area are located in close succession, they share common wall on all
the three sides. They are, thus, windowless except one on the front side next to the entrance door.
Sun light hardly passes through the only opening provided by the threshold, as the houses on the
opposite row are barely five feet away, leaving a narrow lane between the two facing rows of
houses. Therefore the interior of Baskar’s house is drowned in darkness even during the daytime
requiring the electric light to be switched on throughout. Space is the scarcest of the item in the
colony as large number of people live in very small habitats. In Baskar’s house itself six persons
live in a mere nine square feet area.
It is in this cubbyhole where Baskar was lying immobilized for five long years. “ It was here I spent
my time sitting, and sleeping day in and day out, for my breathing became very heavy and
difficult and doctors had advised me bed rest. I could not walk, nor could I exert myself in any
manner whatsoever. I used to have bouts of fever very often and regular vomiting. So I would stay
put at home except for a small stroll I used to take till the end of the lane of the colony,” tells
Baskar. Not accompanied by any body for all the family members were engaged in work out side
the area, Baskar was alone at home staring emptily at the roof. “More than the physical exhaustion
and illness it was the vacuousness that sickened me. I would toss and turn and sit purposelessly on

53
the bed for most of the time. There was no TV in our house at that time” Baskar elaborates.
Dropping out of school after his fifth standard due to his illness, made things even more miserable
for Baskar as it robbed him of the assured companions that school life promises. Baskar was not a
brilliant student in the class. The family members too cared the least for the progress of his
education, as each one was busy with their own work. Baskar was attending the school simply
because there was a Tamil Medium school nearby and it did not cost his family much. However
when his illness required him to stay indoors neither his family members nor Baskar himself did
think twice about dropping out of school.
Baskar’s family members hoped that things would turn for the better for Baskar after giving the
medication suggested by the doctors. The intense poverty worsened by the lack of education
rendered the family members content with the periodic to visit to a government hospital and the
administering of the medicines prescribed by the doctors therein. On many occasions Baskar went
to the hospital unaccompanied by any of his family members because they could not risk losing
their one-day wage. The visits to the hospital were on the complaints of fever, vomiting and
coughing that afflicted him at regular intervals. The family members themselves did not believe
that the illness Baskar was suffering from could be serious. They thought that since all other family
members were hale and hearty, Baskar too could not be near a fatal sickness. The general
robustness of other family members was simply extended upon Baskar. It was this naïve denial
coupled with moneylessness that delayed their seeking an appropriate medical advice and proper
diagnosis.
Baskar had lost his father when he was six years old. Thereafter his mother took upon herself the
task of bringing up the children. She took up her work as a domestic servant even more seriously,
serving more number of houses in the nearby middle class neighbourhood than she had done
before the death of her husband. In the last thirteen years since his death she had fed and sent to
schools her six children, of which two are girls and four are boys. Baskar is the last but one in a line
of offspring starting with the eldest daughter followed by a brother, sister and brother. Baskar is
followed by another boy studying eight standard, the only child to have reached this far. Baskar’s
mother managed to marry the first three children with the little bit of money she earned as a
domestic servant. She leaves the house in the morning and returns in the evening. Baskar’s elder
brothers are driving autorickshaws.
Baskar’s illness was left undiagnosed for five years after he became bedridden, till Beema made a
visit to Baskar’s house. Beema was the director of an NGO, Paraspara Trust, working for the
eradication of child labour system in that area. In one of his visits to Vinayakapura Slum he had
heard of the condition of Baskar and made a quick dash to his home. On learning that a proper
diagnosis had not been done to Baskar, he arranged for one free of cost. It was then that it was
detected that Baskar was suffering from rheumatic heart disease with two of his heart valves
becoming thickened and doming. The long neglect of Baskar’s health on the part of his family had
added to the severity of the problem with doctors declaring his illness having reached close to
irreversibility. They advised that a surgery at least for single valve replacement must be done as
early as possible to prevent any further damage.
It was at this juncture that Beema entered into Baskar’s life fully and significantly. Beema took it
upon himself to ensure that the operation is done successfully and at the earliest. When he
contacted the Manipal Heart Foundation along with Baskar, he came realize that the operation
would cost Rs1,70,000/-, a sum whose exact number of zeros neither did Baskar nor his mother
know precisely. Beema approached many philanthropists and institutional donors for money. He
even inserted an advertisement in the newspaper. It was only after one year of relentless trying
from Beema that his efforts had borne some fruits. He could mobilize some 41,500 Rupees only.
However it was sufficient to persuade the hospital authority who generously agreed to bear the
remaining expenses. The single valve replacement surgery was performed on Baskar on 22-3-2001,
exactly a year after the illness was diagnosed first.

54
This is only a first phase of the operation. The next phase for replacing the second valve will have
to happen at a latter stage when Beema could mobilize more money. Nonetheless the Doctors have
assured that the thickening of another (Aortic valve) valve is mild and could be corrected via
medication. If things ever turn worse for the second valve, the operation is the only way out.
Nevertheless Baskar has got some breathing space now, both literally and figuratively!
The love, care, and above all the extraordinary amount of interest that Beema has shown on
Baskar’s health have made such a huge impact on Baskar. He felt that the one-year of fund raising
period during which Beema had visited him regularly brought both of them very close and Baskar
had become inspired heavily by Beema’s commitment to the cause of poor. Baskar says that after
every one of the Beema’s visits he would resolve to repay the kindness to Beema, in the only way
he likes the best, that is, by serving the poor and needy.
He is so proud even today that on those days when Beema comes on his customary visits to the
slum or if he happens to pass by the slum area, he never fails to meet and spend a few minutes
with Baskar in his house. “The neighbors are very jealous of me for such respectable and
influential persons visit this humble house among all houses” Baskar declares.
Immediately after his recovery from the postoperative phase, Baskar presented himself before
Beema at Paraspara trust and announced undramatically that he would do anything to be near
him. He could not imagine spending a day without meeting or at least seeing Beema once. “I
would not mind doing some work in this office for no pay whatsoever. It is just that I want to be
near you” Baskar was stubborn. Though Beema was visibly moved by this unadulterated loyalty,
he did not want to encourage him to do any work. Therefore he told Baskar that he would find a
suitable work for him soon, and then sent him away to take rest. But Baskar was not the one to
give up. Everyday, without fail, he would stand at the corner of the street where Paraspara trust is
located and would be content to greet Beema as he arrived the office in the morning. On those days
when Beema could not reach the office in the morning due to some official work away and comes
to the office late in the afternoon, Beema would still see the unfailing Baskar standing in the street
corner to greet him. Baskar would not go away unless he meets him once. Baskar himself will be
very exited if Beema converses with him for few seconds before entering the office. Invariably in
these conversations Baskar would make his usual request “I want to work in the organization so
that I can meet you and be with you every day. I don’t want salary.”
Finally Beema relented and asked him to work in the Paraspara-managed special school for the
child labourers, as an assistant to the teachers. His job would involve making home visits to the
truant students’ homes and persuading them to return to school. He himself would turn into an
instructor when need arises. Baskar liked the job for the opportunity it gave him to contribute to
the education of poor and needy children. Above all it guaranteed him a legitimate chance to
interact with Beema on an every day basis. He enjoyed the importance it accorded him in the eyes
of the students. Particularly after the long period of isolation and bitter loneliness that he was
condemned into on those sick days, he virtually enjoyed the sense of the purpose that this job
vested in him. “Beema Sir is unsurpassed in being kind to poor. Even for this job he gave me a
monthly salary of Rs 600, even when I was ready to work for no pay. He knew that to purchase
medicines every month I need around four hundred rupees every month,” Baskar is unrestrained
in his appreciation for Beema.
“Now that my health is improving, I could go for autorickshaw riding or work in the STD booth,
as either of these two occupations would fetch me thousand five hundred rupees per month at
least. But I stick to the Paraspara school job, for the opportunity it gives me to meet Beema sir
everyday” Baskar details on the possibilities at hand.
“For Beema sir I would do anything. I want to be like Beema sir when I grow up. Beema sir cannot
bear to see people suffer. If I am walking around like a normal person it is because of Beema sir.”
Baskar continues. Baskar told that there are so many children like him in the world and in the

55
neighboring slum itself he had heard about a boy suffering similar illness. He is planning to take
him to Beema.
Baskar is immensely moved by stories of people who helped poor in one way or another. He
remembers many instances of kindness and dedication shown by other s to the needy. He himself
is a testimony to the meaning and significance of working for welfare of the poor, not so much as a
doer but as a recipient. And he wants to end up working for the poor and needy like Beema. Baskar
could not conceal his apprehensions and helplessness when speaking about how he wishes to
follow the lines of Beema. “I am from a poor family. My mother collects the food from the houses
where she works so as to give us something to eat. How can I, a poor boy, be like Beema?” Yet he
consoles himself this way, “I understand that Beema sir himself is not a rich person. He lives in a
rented house only. If he could do it, I could do at least half of what he does”
He thinks that he has made a small beginning in that direction, for he is the one to whom the
neighbours express their grievances regarding their children’s education and health. They take
him even more seriously, for ‘big' people visit him at his home itself. He was insistent that I too
visit his house. So proudly he took me to his house wading through the colony residents who were
looking at as curiously. On returning from his house he accompanied me to the bus stand despite
my discouraging him. As the bus moved he waved good-bye at me with tears in his eyes.

II
Postscript: After a month since I had met Baskar I received a letter from him that had the following
information. “Sir I am so sad these days. Beema sir has left Paraspara and is going to join some
other organization quite distant from our place. I do not know whether to continue working in the
Paraspara school or not. I cannot meet Beema sir every day. I asked Beema sir whether I could
come to join him in the new office. He told me to look for a place very close to my home, if do not
like Paraspara job. I miss him. How can I hope to see the days pass by without meeting him
regularly? Even recently he has made arrangement for five thousand rupees for the postoperative
health check up from the Chief Minister’s Fund. I am not going to stay away from him. I will
surely go to meet him every day and convince him to take me to work with him. I will tell him that
I have health only if meet him regularly.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Pilgrim’s Progress
The important things in Shiva Prasad’s life are the finest details he carries about his past and the
willingness to accept it as such – namely, its cruelties, ironies and paradoxes. He was so insistent
that we listen to his past story in its fullness. He warned at the beginning itself that unless we listen
to it fully he would not narrate it, even if it meant listening to it over a period of many days. The
demand for an extended audience from him is not just to relate merely one version of his story, but
several versions, about which he maintains stunning precision and neat separation. He presents his
lifestories not just to convince us – and more importantly him – of his self-righteousness but
facilitate many possible perceptions of them. He simply acknowledged our right to judgments. He
narrates the stories of his past in such an organized manner as if he has mulled over them and
rehearsed them several times before. He said something to that effect. “Not knowing the languages
of various places I have lived outside Tamil Nadu, my only pastime used to be revisiting my past. I
have sequenced it in all possible permutations and combinations – in some of which I was an
immaculate soul tainted by circumstances, in others I was a self-conscious sinner. I have imagined
my position in my past in all ways. In a way, I did not deliberately want to learn the languages of
the new places I sojourned. It gave me the much-needed loneliness that I always enjoyed,” he
confesses.
His knowledge about the possible meanings that his story would convey is astounding. He still
wishes to narrate it. Shiva Prasad may surprise you with his sharp wit and sensitivity to your own
inner thoughts about him. He could swiftly migrate out of his present existence as a pavement
dweller who begs in front of the Shiva temple area for living, into a life lived in dignity and with
means. Once convinced that one is not relating to him as a charitable almsgiver, he will readily
relinquish his role as beggar. He is willing to see possibilities and, more importantly, has green
memories of a life beyond begging both in retrospect and in prospect.
In a manner of speaking, Shiva Prasad’s story flies in the face of our common opinion that beggars
are what they are because of poverty, though in all fairness to things Shiva Prasad himself cautions
us that many beggars who are his colleagues were there only because of poverty – not just poverty
alone but the processes by which they were pushed into poverty. He has chosen begging in the
streets because that is his way of punishing himself, a measure in self-correction and he knows
what he means by it. There is something very remarkable about his saying that. It is the interplay
of the culture of asceticism very unique to Hindu and Buddhist vision of life with the notion of
voluntary poverty as a luxury. And Shiva Prasad is clearly aware of it. “I am Christian by birth.
My original name is Bright. I changed my name to Shiva Prasad when I was in Bangalore. I found
my name Bright very funny and I felt like changing my name for very long time. There was this
army personnel who used to visit the hotel I was working as a waiter. He had such a dignified way
of carrying himself and used to relate to me nicely. I readily took his name when I was
contemplating a change of name for myself” he elaborates. “Changing my name was only one of
the few innocent things I had done in my life, all the rest in my life were sins,” he continues
ruefully. It was because I had a trustworthy and attractive face that many people trusted me and I
cheated them and betrayed them all. It was because I had money in my hands that I had taken to
bad habits in my life. It is only over a period of time that I have realized that whenever I took to
begging neither my good looks mattered nor I could lay my hands on money. As a beggar I cannot
afford to look neat and attractive. As a beggar I do not have money in my hands. I am happy this
way. Because I have been free from all the vices this way”, he justifies.
The fact that he has changed his Christian name into a Hindu one gives him tremendous sense of
meaning to him now – now that he has entered into a demeaning role of a beggar. The way he
finds meaning for his present existence is striking. In a beggar’s life the first attempt to construct a
meaning for their lives at various stages happen in a deeply organized and brilliant way. It is in
their ability to create a uniquely exclusive moral universe to measure the correctness and
otherwise of their multitude of actions that they find a sense of purpose for their lives at they are

57
led. There is a deliberate attempt to be amnesiac about one type of world when inhabiting the
other. There is no overlapping whatsoever. Shiva Prasad puts it more illustratively, “During those
days when I was not into begging and worked in various capacities as a waiter, load man or as
shopkeeper’s errand boy, I would feel terribly outraged, if some one slights me for the dirty looks
that I had to necessarily sport at the end of the day due to my work as a waiter or as a load man. If
some one objects to my touching them accidentally, either I would fight back furiously, or if I
could not shout back, then I would remain agitated for the whole day over being insulted. The scar
would remain for long time in my mind. I remembered those persons or at least those occasions at
which I had faced such humiliation. But now I do not even reckon even the worst of the
humiliation as one. It happens so frequently and even more gravely that my sense of outrage at
such slighting cannot be a relevant feeling here.

Not only me many people who are into begging have had a life as normal people and do
imaginatively return to it in moments of sadness when faced with degradation. Yet they do not
mistake one for the other”, Shiva Prasad adds thoughtfully. It is as if they willingly define their
citizenship and personhood in a painfully new way when they are into begging – a citizenship
bereft of all the rights, a personhood minus many human emotions and feelings.
Becoming a beggar in Shiva Prasad’s life is both a matter of choice and a compulsion though
neither of these was exercised and felt overnight. It was a painful compromise and choice made
over a lone period of time. The series of events that occurred over the same period have convinced
him of the rightness and the necessity of what he was gradually slipping into – begging, that is.
Hard compromises and tough decisions were made during this period. How doggedly he strived
to see a sense of order in what was happening to him and how best he could he could find
meanings in them are stories unto themselves. Even today the ordeal of achieving a neat fit
between the cause and effect of all the subsequent events continues to be experienced by Shiva
Prasad as he engages in assembling of preceding events in his life in one order of another. What
was a cause in one manner of narration is the effect in another and vice versa.
Shiva Prasad was born in a small village near Nagerkoil in Southern Tamil Nadu. A few years after
his birth, he discovered that his mother would not be with them, as (this he learned very late) she
had decided to live with some other man. His father was a heavy drinker who hardly paid
attention to family affairs. Seeing the plight the children a childless couple from Kerala adopted
Shiva Prasad. Soon he went to Kerala. Luckily for Shiva Prasad his elder sister too found foster
parents in another childless couple in the same town. Shiva and his sister used to meet each other.
They were attending schools in Kerala. Shiva Prasad was in his first standard when suddenly one
day his paternal grandmother visited him to take both him and his sister back to his hometown.
His grand mother told them then that their father had corrected his ways and wanted to keep his
children near him.
But he continued to be the same person, drinking and not going for any work. Still his
grandmother took it upon herself the task of bringing up these children rather than sending them
away to foster homes. She was a vegetable seller in the village who would purchase the vegetables
from town market and sell them in the village. She was very fond of Shiva Prasad. “I was a fair
complexioned boy in our family, otherwise peopled by dark skinned people. So my grand mother
had a special affection for me”, says Shiva Prasad.
He went to school and studied up to 12th class in the town school. All these years his grand
mother supported both Shiva Prasad and his elder sister, despite and beyond the demise of their
father. To top it all Shiva Prasad’s sister’s marriage was arranged by his grand mother and soon his
sister left for Salem with her husband. Shiva was all alone to receive all the love and affection from
his grandmother. After his school education Shiva did not feel greatly inclined to going to college.
He knew his grandmother was getting old and could not be forced to toil any more for the sake of
Shiva Prasad. Hence he decided to be of some assistance to his grand mother. He took up some

58
odd jobs in the neighbouring town. It was during these days he used to get possessed by some
strange force and when he is in the grip of it he would toss and turn violently. Nobody could hold
him down during these moments of convulsion. He would also be seen sitting quietly and staring
emptily for long time.
Alarmed by these inexplicable behaviors of Shiva Prasad, his grand mother took him to various
swamijis and astrologers. One of the consulted astrologers advised the grandmother to arrange his
marriage as he predicted that the arrival of a woman in his live would solve the problem. However
finding a bride for Shiva was a Herculean task, for his mysterious behavior was a public secret in
the village and around it. But Shiva Prasad was happy for it. He thought that he was too young to
get married then particularly without a stable job at hand. He was only 18 then. But his grand
mother was frenetic about getting him married as soon as possible as the same astrologer had
warned that death would become him if Shiva Prasad did not get married within a year. Shiva
prasad agreed to the proposal only because he did not want to disappoint his grand mother.
Finally the only girl who would agree to get married to was his neighbour’s daughter who has
secretly developed a liking for Shiva Prasad. I was good-looking boy then. She told me that she
wound stand by me if I come to their home asking for her in marriage. I too liked her though she
was not a good-looking girl – to be very honest she was physically an ugly person. Only problem
was that she was three years elder than me and very poor too. She has five younger sisters and her
father did not hesitate to give his consent when I asked his permission for marrying her.
However life did not go as smoothly as he expected. His wife started suspecting him having
illusions about his extra marital affairs, as she believed she did not match Shiva Prasad in looks.
She would never permit him to wear good dresses, to have proper hair cut, to apply talcum
powder on his face. What is more, she never wanted him to look like an educated person, so much
so that she burned all his educational certificates one day. She would refuse to come out with him -
-even when forced to do that she would not walk apace with him. If Shiva prasad resists her
demands, then she would threaten to kill herself. Life was miserable for Shiva Prasad for nearly
two years. Perhaps because of all these, Shiva Prasad jumped on to the idea of taking up a job in
Bangalore when his father’s younger brother suggested it. He went to Bangalore promising to visit
his wife regularly. Yet he hardly returned to his village, and when his uncle, in whose house he
was staying, insisted on it he decided to leave the house and live separately in a rented house in a
nearby colony. He stopped meeting his uncle and they are not in talking terms since then.
The colony houses neighboring his house had all sorts of people engaged in illegal occupations.
Shiva Prasad developed an affair with one such woman who used to sell arrack stored in
polythene packets. Out of the affection for him, she invariably gifted him one packet of arrack
every night. Though Shiva Prasad resisted it in the early days, he soon began to become addicted
to it. He started drinking even during the daytime – this time spending his salary on it. He was
later sacked from his job after repeated warning to present himself sober at the workplace.
Consumed by his addiction to drinking Shiva Prasad started taking loans from all and sundry that
were ready to oblige his requests. The debt soon mounted to unmanageable proportions. One day
he secretly left Bangalore and landed in Chennai.
In Chennai he took a job in a hotel as a waiter for a meager salary but there was promise for a hefty
tips from the customers. He got reasonable amount of money, largely from tips. In the nights he
used to sleep in the same hotel where he worked. In the course of time he was earning enough to
rent a house in the cluttered neighbourhood of Chennai working class area. Here again he came
into contact with a woman who had some undisclosed occupation but had, more often than not,
money flowing in her hands. She gave handsome amount of money to Shiva Prasad when their
intimacy grew in strength. Later Shiva discovered the source of her income – she was peddling
narcotics to small time drug addicts, selling brown sugar and cannabises mostly. Shiva did not
bother about all this, as he was quite delighted to get money and the intimacy that the affair
provided with an unfailing regularity. She also gave him lots of money that she wanted him to
keep safely. He soon became the owner of a TV set, a steel cupboard and reasonable number of

59
dresses, all thanks to his ladylove. What is more, he returned to his drinking ways that he had
learned in Bangalore -- with the new addition being, narcotics his lover girl gave access to.
However all these came to an abrupt end, when Shiva was visited by the relatives of his girlfriend,
who informed him that the police took her under their custody for her involvement in drug
peddling. She seemed to have confessed to the police that she had given all the money earned
through her clandestine occupation to Shiva Prasad. They threatened him saying that he had to
hand over all the money and the belongings like TV set etc to them to avoid unnecessarily
harassment by the police. Shiva Prasad immediacy obliged fearing police arrest. He vacated the
house and retuned to stay in the hotel he was working.
All these days the thoughts about his wife and the village never visited him, though the brothers of
his wife soon smelled his whereabouts in Chennai and called on him. They wanted him to return
to the village along with them or take his wife to Chennai. Shiva Prasad already tired of the
disorganised life he was living, took very kindly to the idea of bringing his wife to Chennai and
attempt to live the life of a ‘family man’. So after many years of separation he and his wife started
living together in a rented house in Tambaram of Chennai. The second honeymoon of sorts did not
last not even for a month as both of them stared quarrelling over his late arrivals – or non-arrivals
for days together – to home as wells as over his dandyish nature and his addiction to drinking.
This led Shiva Prasad to take his wife back to the village from where under the pretext of searching
for a better job in Kerala he left the village, but arrived in Goa. He took the job of carrying water for
market shops in Panaji central market. The job was very tough, as it required that he had to carry
big cans of water each containing 50 litres from the corporation water tap to the shops, some 200
metres away. For each can they were paid one rupee by the shopkeepers. The best way to earn fast
money is to carry two cans in each hand on every trip to the water tap. It was impossible for even
the robust one among them to undertake more than 15 trips a day. There were many persons who
were doing this job and to enable themselves to lift these cans they used to get themselves drunk
heavily. Under the spell of the liquor the job was made easy, or so did Shiva Prasad believe. His
addiction to drinking, now rationalised by the arduousness of the work, had become chronic. The
thirty to forty rupees that Shiva Prasad earned was spent mostly on cheap liquor, as it was
available in plenty in Goa. Very little food they eat, for hardly was any money left in hands.
Shiva’s health was becoming very wea k. He had lost 20 KGs in the first year of his stay there in
Goa. His fellow workers who all gathered to sleep in the market area in the nights were very frail
and alarmingly weak. Shiva Prasad himself was witness to many of them swooning as they were
engaged in the watercan-carrying work. He would later learn from others that such swooned
friends died in or on the way to hospitals, if any one cared to take to the hospital at all.
Try hard as he might, Shiva could not extricate himself from his addiction to drinking. It was in
one of such drunken state, as he was walking on the road, that he was hit by a speeding car.
Luckily the only injury he sustained was on his right foot. The mound just above the fingers on his
right foot got split open and blood was oozing out ceaselessly. No one being around there to take
care of him, Shiva lay on the road till he recovered his consciousness the next day. He wrapped his
wound around with a piece of cloth torn from his lungi. He managed to walk back to the market
area and lay down in the same place where he used to sleep in the nights. Unable to resume his
work due to the worsening state of his wound, Shiva sat there starving and hungry, his body
shaking visibly as it had developed high dependency on liquor for normal functioning. The help
scarcely came his way, so he had to spend his days and nights lying in the same place. Much to his
surprise, he would find coins strewn around him as well as foot packets thrown beside him on
awakening from his slumber induced by pain, exhaustion and hunger.
Before long, he had something to eat and some coins to drink tea and smoke beedi. The wound
had not healed then. It gave him a lot of pain and precluded him from returning to his full
strength, if he ever was strong. However the only way his not reverting to his watercarrying work,
affected him was his inability to earn enough money to drink. Otherwise the present arrangement
of coins and food coming his way on their own kept him going for few weeks. One morning Shiva

60
was woken up by a middle-aged gentleman who inquired about the wound on his right leg, now
swelled noticeably due to the injury on the foot. Taking pity on his plight, he gave Shiva 300
rupees and advised him to go to a private hospital to get treatment for his wound. Shiva was very
excited not so much about the treatment for his wound that he would give himself with the
money, but about the prospect of buying liquor with that money. His whole body was shaking all
these days for he could no get near the arrack for many days on the trot.
He dragged himself all the way to the arrack shop the early morning next day. On his way to the
shop he saw a regular customer to the market who was also from Tamil Nadu. He, sensing what
Shiva was going to do, reprimanded him severely for returning to drinking. He warned him that
he would die of ill health if he begins to drink again and told sternly to go to the hospital to get
him cured of the illness. He also told him leave Goa as early as possible because he would get back
to drinking, for liquor is available cheap and aplenty here. For reasons not clearer to Shiva, he
obliged his advises and in the next month or so he visited the hospital and took all the medicine
recommended with the money given by that gentleman. He did not drink any liquor though he
could see his body and hands shaking noticeably.
One he became all right, he went back to market to work as the water-man. But he was unable to
carry more than three trips. Seeing his pathetic situation one of the shopkeepers who had owned
petty shop in the market agreed to take him as an errand boy. There, in one of his usual trip to
make purchase for the petty shop he worked, he met the Tamil friend who advised him against
drinking. He again warned him not to stay in Goa. Realising the truth in what he said, Shiva
decided to leave Goa that day itself. He had 1000 rupees given by the shopkeeper for the weekly
purchase. Shiva convinced himself of the correctness of his decision to make off with that money
saying to himself that this money will be used for his returning to healthy and normal ways of
living. Moreover he thought that he deserved that money for the three-month hard work he had
put in that petty shop for a criminally low salary.
Packaging the only spare clothe, he took the train to Hyderabad – some one had told him long
back that he could get a job in Hyderabad easily. However once he reached Hyderabad job was
very hard to come by. He roamed around Hyderabad for a few weeks looking for a job, spending
the money he had brought with him from Goa. He stayed in the platforms and railway station
areas during nights. The aimless wandering in Hyderabad was used by Shiva Prasad to brood over
many things that happened in his life. He spent night and days taking stock of the past events and
as to how it could have taken different routes. Soon the money in his hands got finished and the
much-wanted job never came. The Kacheguda Railway station area, around which he was whiling
his time away pensively and aimlessly, had many persons of all ages and both sexes, who earned
their livelihood by begging. There were many charitable people who visited the Shiva Temple
there. They used to give food parcels and other eatables to these beggars. Though Shiva Prasad
was not part of the group of beggars then, and sat well away from them in the shades of the shop
fronts, the devotees to the temple gave food parcels to Shiva as they mistook his unkempt and
hungry looks for a regular beggar there. For a starving Shiva food parcels from the devotees was
more than welcome. However the beggars occupying the Railway station area did not accept him.
But seeing his nice and friendly nature they began to like him and accept into the crowd. He used
to help the family beggars in caring their children, running around for purchasing coffee or tea,
and collecting water. Gradually he has found a place around a new station for retiring in the
nights.
Soon he came to the realization that surviving in Hyderabad would be easy as there were people to
give food, though money was hardly given by them. And all his thinking about his past had
convinced him that there were two primary sources for all the misery he underwent – one his
attractive looks and the excessive money in his hands. If he could deprive himself of these two
resources he could return to healthy and misery-free ways of living. Above all for all the betrayals
and wrongdoings he thought he deserved a severe punishment. And Shiva Prasad finally found
the answer by becoming a beggar.

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He wanted to talk about many other things – like his betraying people who trusted him the most,
about his misadventures with women whom he did not want to remember any more, etc. He also
talked about the painful memories of his past, particularly his having helped many of his friends,
who ultimately let him down when he needed their help, the most. In the mean time, he had
learned from his friends that his wife has been married to someone else recently and she is happy
with him. He himself is very content about this fact, even though he promises that he would never
intend to enter into the life of another woman in his life. He was ready to talk about all these
incidents in great detail – he didn’t want to mention that in passing details. May be, he wanted
these disturbing stories to be told to his friends and his former wife in an indirect manner, because
he wanted his friends to know that all the help that he had rendered them, eventually led him to
become a beggar. But he’s ready to forgive them and get on with his life. He wants to continue in
this manner for some more years, may be for two years. Then he would return to his normal life
and work to earn his money, so that he will be able to recover his normal life. Until then he wants
to use this two-year ‘deviant’ period to reflect on his life and redeem himself of every bad habit
and ‘sins’. The life in this form, till then, is a yatra to unburden the weight of the past.
As we readied to depart from the railway station at the end of the three-day long interaction with
Shiva Prasad, he bade goodbye to us and rushed to occupy his usual place in front of the temple.
Once reaching there Shiva Prasad is a different persona altogether – his shoulders drooping, eyes
descending to avoid making eye contact and very desolate presence on the whole. Soon a
charitable soul threw a food packet into the lap of Shiva Prasad. Yet we were wondering whether
he’s a beggar or a pilgrim on a yatra.

-------------------------------------

62
Vengefully Yours,
Mookkamma

Mookkamma, aged 35, lives in a slum by the northern banks of the river Vaigai. She is about forty
years old. She has a thirteen year old daughter who is supposed to be in the 6th and a son who is
aged fifteen. She is such a outspoken person that she cared the least whether she was narrating her
lifestory to a male or female. It will always contain the same details about her innermost secrets
and sexual adventures.

Before her marriage she lived with her parents in the Natham town located some 50 kms from
Madurai. Her father worked as a scavenger and mother is not a main source for the income of their
family. Her father, who is a drunkard, is not interested in cleansing himself. He has only a pair of
trousers and shirts given to him by the corporation. No one loves him besides Mookkama. In fact
Mookkamma’ mother was the second wife of her father. Through the first wife who died later, he
had two children very much older than Mookkamma. When Mookamma was born her father was
50 years old.

She and her sister had a dirty clothes stitched out of the dull blue colour. None of Mookamma’s
siblings had the habit of washing and bathing, because her family could not afford even things like
soap. Her family was clenched in the hands of poverty. They could have been rescued if they were
educated. The income of her father was not adequate to meet their routine requirements. It was a
painful situation and it gave them a horrid time.

At the age of fifteen, she got married to a forty five year old man who already had three children.
He worked as a cart puller. He had his house in the slum located on the northern bank of Vaigai
River in Madurai. When Mookkamma went to live with the man she married she had to share the
small room that he lived in with his younger sister who was as old as Mookkama. They all lived in
a single room which was unclean. She felt very uncouth to have sexual intercourse with her
husband. It only kindled her to ponder more about her life. She didn’t accept this situation, which
was a game of mere fate. Also, she cursed her parents for forcing to take up this kind of life. Her
frustration only mounted when she learned about his drinking habits. He used to come drunk in
the nights and hardly matched the sexual needs of Mookamma. Nevertheless she lived with him
for seven years. Since money given by her husband was not enough she had to work as coolie in a
rice mill. She used to get one sari and a bonus amount during Diwali time apart from the salary of
10 rupees per day.

As the seventh year of her married life was passing there was an upheaval in her life. Mookkama
had some concern for her neighbour man. He was married and had three children. He showed
sympathy towards her situation. This sympathy led her to develop an illegal relationship with
him. As the result of it she gave birth to a still born baby. When her husband came to know this, a
bitter quarrel arose out of their argument. Immediately, she left the place and returned to her
parental home.

Even when she stayed in her parents’ house she continued to maintain her relationship with the
same man through whom she gave birth to dead child. Soon she conceived again. But this time by
him she gave birth to a male child. However her affair with him came to an abrupt end when she
came to know that he was interested in another woman. She quarrelled with him over this issue,
but to no avail. He had gone away from her forever.

In the next few months Mookkamma became intimate with another man from the area where her
parents’ house is located. This person took her to a distant village where he stayed with her for a
month. One fine morning he went our saying that he was going to Madurai and would come back

63
that evening. But he never returned. Quickly she realised that she was deserted by him. She lived
in that unknown place. Unable to adapt to the situation, she started to beg for her food. This way
she could not carry on there for many days. So she returned back to Madurai and reached the same
slum situated by the banks of the river Vaigai. She reconciled with her husband and started her life
with him again. Now she realised that she could not depend on her old, irresponsible and
drunkard husband. She had to do something to ensure that the oven at home was kept burning, as
it were. She thought of many option such as becoming a masonry workers whom she used to see
gathering around the street corners to wait for a prospective building contractor to pick them up
for the day’s work. But she also knew the difficulties in getting regular work. She thought of
becoming a domestic worker. But that option did not sound profitable as her neighbours talked of
facing abuses from the women there and sexual advancements made by the menfolk there. She
thought of returning to the rice mill work she was doing. But the mill owner refused to reinstate
her, for he had brought in another woman once Mookkamma had left. She finally considered
sexwork as an option. Estimating the pros and cons of it approached her friends who were
involved in it.

The very manner of her getting initiated into sexwork has an irony and poignancy associated with
it. She did not get into sexwork as a first choice, just like any other sexworker who did not choose
it as the first choice. But in her case it was not a chosen economic activity. She entered sexwork as
result of a complex of factors – the most important of which being the loss of self-respect she had
for her own body. She had the least moral regard for her body, as she felt that it was put to
repeated use by more than one man whom she herself voluntarily solicited as a vengeful reaction
to the injustice done to her youth – she means her marriage to a man older than her by nearly 30
years. She took it as a viable economic activity only after considering that her body could be a
useful resource – a body abused by more than one man as per the existing moral standards. She
says that she did not find much difference between seeking men of her own choice for want of
sexual pleasure which ultimately leads to economic dependency, for she expects them to support
her during economic crisis, and men soliciting her for sex that also has an economic dimension
added to it. “Why not go for the later?” she convinced herself.

So to meet her family needs; she became a commercial sex worker. In course of time, she gave birth
to another child by her client. Under normal circumstances, the activity of this kind of woman
would definitely raise a poignant question about her children’s future. Because of her action, the
secret of their birth should be kept guarded. Also, she was ready to retain her husband for giving
her children identity.

She began to engage in sex work on a regular basis on her own. She used to go to Chinnamanoor a
village near Madurai, once she succeeds in soliciting a client. The place is a garment godown that
functions as a cover for the sexwork. She was introduced to this place by her friend. The owner of
the building will collect 25% of the money that she collects from the client, for permitting her to use
the place. On other occasions if the clients are willing to spend more, she even rents room in hotels.
Since it was a new profession to her she initially hesitated to practice. Usually she left her house
during night, citing one excuse or other. The main hazard that she had to face in her profession
was the police raid. More often, she escaped from the raid by using the surveillance system that
was worked out in her area. If she was caught by the police she bribed the police with a handful of
money. There were many occasions in which the police constables had to be satisfied sexually in
exchange for their connivance. Other wise they would unnecessary troubles for her. Also, she had
to pay money for the rowdies, brokers and to the owner of the place she used for sex work. This
was the routine happenings in her life.

Though Mookkama did not get raided and taken to vigilance homes. She had come to the jaws of
such raids but only to get aware with it due to her smartness as well as timely aid from the

64
circumstances. It was in one such occasion when she had a contract with a client whom she had
taken to a hotel in Palani, that she met with what she characterised as a close encounter with raid.
As she was engaging her client she heard the sounds of police boots approaching the door. In fact
the hotel owner had told her that he had oiled the palm of the police staff sufficiently enough to
keep them off from this hotel. But now that the police was knocking a door, she had to do
something to avoid getting dragged to the police station and then to vigilance home or sub jail. She
had heard of the wretched life in either of the two places. She instantly took a fresh sacred thread
(mangalsutra) from her purse and replaced the old one she was wearing. She told the man who
took her on a contract to do what she says. She opened the door with a confidence and arrogance
normally characteristic of a rightful residence of the hotel room and looked angrily at the
policemen standing there. She asked them very firmly as to what they had come for. The
policemen informed that they were conducting surprise raid as they had suspected of brothel work
going in this hotel. She retorted saying “Sir, you may have your own suspicion, but you cannot
disturb a legally married, decent couple like me and husband. We have taken up a room here for
we had come to attend a marriage here. Since there was no space available in the marriage hall we
had booked a room in the hotel.” The police looked at her closely and took note of the mangal
sutra on her neck. The man also came forward and confirmed that the statements made by
Mookkama. The police left the place.

On another occasion she was standing nearby the bus stand in Chinamanoor at around 10pm. She
had no money to return to Madurai as the client whom she had asked to come to her usual place
did not turn up. She was eagerly looking for some source to get the needed amount. At that
moment, three villagers approached her and enquired as to why she was standing alone in such
place. She did not replay anything because they were utter strangers to her. But hey persisted with
their probing. Assessing them as reliable persons who did not seem to be the harassing type she
had come across, she started narrate about the paucity of money in her hands to return to Madurai.
She cooked up the story that she had quickly rehearsed in her mind. She told them that she had
come to collect the amount from the garment shop owner for interest but he had one out of station.
The villagers replied saying “If you don’t mind come with us and we will provide you the needed
amount”. They continued “We would very well give the money if we had in our pockets. But we
do not have any money with us at the moment. Since it is very late we cannot not go to our village
some two miles away and come back again to the bus stand to give it to you after mobilising it
from our other friends”. Finding no other way, she decided to go with them. The villagers walked
ahead and she followed them. While she was following her she had many doubts in her mind. At
last, they reached a colony where there was no evidence of foot path or any human presence. It
seemed to have been a newly built row of houses yet unoccupied. With some hesitation, she asked
them the reason for taking her to such place. They replied saying “We will give you money, but
you have to satisfy our sexual desires”. Hearing this she tried to escape but the situation was not
favourable to her. Running away would have meant that she had to remain penniless till morning.
So she decided to yield to their demands. Though she accepted to go ahead she had a meaningful
question in her mind -- whether there would be any disturbance. They replied in the negative
saying that one of them is a Panchayat board member and these houses are newly constructed
through the panchayat, he had he keys for the houses, so no one would disturb them. She entered
into the house where there was no light. Immediately; one of the villagers lit a candle. Just at hat
moment she heard a sound of a vehicle approaching toward their house. From what was going on
outside the house they could sense that it was a police man who was enquiring with the two men
standing outside as to why they were standing there in the dead of night. Unconvinced with their
reply he with a louder noise tapped the door asking “Who is there inside?” The villager inside the
house opened the door and let him inside. Looking at him they all turned pale. He was dressed in
plain clothes and his face seemed to be very menacing. He started to enquire them to know the
reason for staying in such place. The villagers explained, “Sir, she had no money to return to her
station and we only took her to this place to provide her money”. Since he was not convinced by

65
their answer, he took them to the police station. There, from his enquiry; he came to know that it
was true. So he sent her back by giving her the required amount.

Barring these two incidents in which she had come in direct contact with the police, she could not
remember any other occasion in which she felt as helpless as she had in these two incidents. In all
other situations she handled the police with an ease. After several years of engagement in sexwork
she came to know about an organisation named ARD that was working for the enlistment of
women like her. Through ARD she could identify, “Where she stands in this society?” After the
intervention of ARD she concentrated more on her health status and also came to know that she
was infected with RIT (Reproductive infection tract).she goes for the regular check up to the
hospital with the help of ARD. It also instilled her more information about this infection. From
then she had regular contact with them to overcome this hazard.

In the initial stage she has the habit of consuming liquor and taking drugs with her customers.
That itself consumed lots of her money. She had her friends in the neighbourhood who also shared
her habit of drinking. However once she was home she would refrain from all these vices. In fact
her daughter still does not know about her mother’s involvement in sexwork, nor does her son.
Her old husband has now become senile and has lost the courage to ask where she goes and comes
from. Since the whole slum consists of many women who are into sexwork there is a lot of support
for mutual help and also to cover up the sexwork from other’s perceptions. In fact her acceptance
in the wider society could have been a problem but she hardly sought it, as she normally confined
herself in the slum, where there was enough acceptance.

The arrival of an NGO, Association for Rural Development in the border of her slum gave her a
renewed hope and sense of purpose. After getting acquainted with ARD, she could easily her
drinking and drug habits. Above all, gradually, she started to learn more about AIDS, HIV, and
STD. Despite, a sex worker, without any hesitation she could speak it out with the other workers.
This was also a kind of help rendered by the other sex workers. Usually, she spoke to them about
using condoms and health facilities available in the government hospital. It was possible to her
because the kind of relationship she had with the organisation only paved the way to do all these
things. She could now suggest to other workers about the preventive measures to safeguard
themselves from those infections. Knowing well about the facts of HIV, STD, and AIDS she started
to minimize her customer to safe guard herself from all the hazards.

As a human being, she could have failed in her life. In spite of all these things she succeeded in her
attempts and now she could easily meet her family requirements by providing good food, clothes
and education to her children. By practising sex work she had assured income.

Now she could meet out her daily requirements. Being a woman she craved to lead a normal life.
She also, aspired to have a peaceful life with a decent job. By engaging herself in such jobs she
could easily get an acceptance in this society. Being a mother, also, she had a thirst for her
children’s life. She wanted her daughter to be educated and married to a family which could with
the main stream of this society. On the other side she is also educating other workers by giving
awareness to them about the health hazards and preventive methods. In a way she also started to
do service to the society without any expectation.

66
Meet tragedies – Age No Bar

Life could not have been more eventful - though not for good reasons - in the life of Vijayalakshmi,
aged 22. At this young age she has seen so many twists and turns that she carries the wisdom of
them in her sad eyes. It has taken a toll on her otherwise beautiful face, now weathered due to her
personal meetings with challenges.

Vijayalakshmi was born and brought up in Calcutta. She is fair, good looking and always smiling.
She lost her father when she was eight. And after two years of his demise, her mother also passed
away. Her father, Sundaram was working as a guide for Tourists. Mother Indirani was teaching
dance to the children at her leisure. Sundarama and Indirani eloped from Tamil Nadu as their
parents did not accept their proposal. They settled in Calcutta and led a happy life. They owned a
big house in Calcutta and let it for rent. Known for her kindness Indirani used to be good to her
tenants. Once one of her tenants, a Bengali lady, Maya met with a fire accident in her kitchen,
Vijayalakshmi’s mother Indirani took care of her, like her sister. Maya had three children, one
daughter and two sons.

As Vijayalakshmi was the only daughter to Indirani, she adopted one of Maya’s sons. Then, both
the families started to live together. This became an advantage for Maya. Since, Vijayalakshmi’s
family had good wealth - Vijayalakshmi still believes - that Maya had started to practice black
magic against Indirani. She fell sick. Indirani was hospitalized. Maya pretended as though she was
taking good care of Indirani and did not allow Vijayala kshmi to visit her mother. But
Vijayalakshmi was very persistent and went on crying while refusing to eat for many hours. It was
then that Maya took her to see her mother. Since Indirani suspected Maya, she warned
Vijayalakshmi and wanted her to run away from home. But Vijayalakshmi refused to leave her
mother.

A few days later when Indirani was discharged from the hospital, Indirani gave poison to her
daughter. She wanted her to die since she was counting her days and was very scared to leave her
daughter in the custody Maya. But small and innocent that Vijayalakshmi was then, she went and
complained to Maya about the incidence. Maya immediately rushed her to the hospital.
Vijayalakshmi’s mother did not give up, even after Vijayalakshmi recovered from her illness, she
asked her to run away from there. This time Vijayalakshmi wanted to take her mother seriously as
she also began to see the true colours of Maya. When she suggested to her mother the name of her
aunt in Chennai who visits them for Durga pooja only if Indirani sends money for them, Indirani
bluntly refused as she was no better than Maya.

Meanwhile, Indirani fell sick again when Vijayalakshmi was studying in VI standard. This time
too Maya did not allow the daughter and mother to meet each other. Vijayalakshmi’s persistence
paid dividends once again. Maya took her to the hospital. The very next day her mother passed
away. One month after her mother died, the torture began for Vijayalakshmi. Maya wanted
Vijayalakshmi to sign the certain documents so that the property belonging to the family of
Vijayalakshmi could be transferred to Maya. As Vijayalakshmi refused to yield, Maya starved her
and locked her in a room on the terrace. One of her tenants was a Tamilian and they took pity on
Vijayalakshmi’s plight and gave her food at times. One day Maya’s daughter noticed this and
reported to her mother forthwith about it. Maya got very angry and applied red hot iron rod on
Vijayalakshmi’s legs. She also forced the Tamilian tenant to vacate the house at once.
Vijayalakshmi complained all this to Maya’s husband. Though he tried to solve this issue, he
could not do much as he was a very henpecked person. One day, Maya took Vijayalakshmi to the
Bank to sign the documents relating to her family property. Before she took her to the bank, Maya
threatened Vijayalakshmi with dire consequences if she continued to refuse her demand to sign the
documents. At last Vijayalakshmi signed all the documents.

67
When Vijayalakshmi was in eighth standard, Maya arranged for a party in her house. Many men
had come. They enjoyed the party with drinks. Maya introduced Vijayalakshmi to the men
present there with some chuckle and secret whisper as if to suggest that there was some
understanding between them. Vijayalakshmi was frightened and asked Maya what was
happening. Maya replied, “They will take you to Bangalore and you can continue your studies
there”. But she refused to go stubbornly. Few days later Vijayalakshmi overhead the conversation
between Maya and her husband. Only then she smelled that Maya was trying to sell her. To escape
from this situation, she ran away to her teacher’s house where the teacher gave her shelter and
food. She took some money from her, saying that she wanted to visit her aunt who was living in
Chennai.

She managed to reach Chennai but could not locate her aunt. She became a helper in a hospital.
There the ordeal did not end as the Doctor there tried to misbehave with her. She was a young
pretty girl who had no knowledge on sex. She says “I had never even watched a cinema
throughout my life in Calcutta. I did not know what he was trying to do. But the only thing I
understood was that he was trying to do something wrong.” She was angry and told him that she
would inform his wife if he repeated it. But he took her threats lightly as she was alone and had
nobody to support her and went on to make sexual advancements. So she left the job.

A lady who was working as an ayah in the same hospital volunteered to help her but her in-laws
refused to accommodate her. At this juncture, the neighbor of the ayah who had three sons and
had no daughters came forward to accommodate her. She started staying with her at Trustpuram.
She treated her very well and took good care on her. Vijayalakshmi then started to work in an
export unit as a quality inspector. She earned about Rs.700/- to 800/- a month and gave the
money to the woman who accommodated her. Vijayalakshmi used to call her “Akka” meaning
elder sister. This Akka was impressed by Vijayalakshmi’s good character and wanted to get her
married to her brother. As Vijayalakshmi was a young girl, she was not interested in marriage and
hence rejected the proposal. This upset Akka’s brother and he took poison in frustration.
Infuruaited by this, Akka’s mother and her neighbours beat Vijayalakshmi and chased her away
from home.

Vijayalakshmi was literally on the streets. Having known nobody to turn for help, she met a lady
who sold Idlies in the street corner. This lady was kind enough to support her. But she too was
living on the pavement. Though, Vijayalakshmi was given shelter, she was scared and frightened
to live on the roadside. She did not sleep for a week. Neither did she take bath nor brushed her
teeth. So, the woman who sold Idlies decided to put her in some orphanage and took her to a few
orphanages she had heard of in Chennai. But they did not succeed as many orphanages they visted
could not accommodate a girl beyond 14 years old. At last they went to “Mottukkal” an orphanage
run by Good Shepherd Convent in Chennai. At the time of visiting Mottukkal Vijayalakshmi was
depressed and almost planning to commit suicide if she was not accommodated here. As she was
asked to wait for a while, she was praying to God that she be accepted there. Yes, the sister of the
convent called her and after speaking with her, the sister decided to give her shelter.

She stayed here for a year and a half; she was given the position of a warden to take care of the
inmates at Mottukkal. While she was leading a happy life, the woman who put her in Mottukkal
came to meet her. She thought that she had come to meet her with the good will but later she
realized that she was selfish. She had brought a proposal of a 32 years old man who was already
married and had two children. He lost his wife and the children were living with their grand
parents. She wanted Vijayalakshmi to marry him. As she refused, they threatened her and
warned that they would ruin her life if she did not agree to the proposal. Vijayalakshmi was
caught in a bid dilemma. She was frightened to say “no” any further. The man also seemed to be

68
good. He said that he would not touch her or marry her without her willingness. This impressed
her and out she came. She did not give the true reason to the Superiors at the Convent, as she was
scared of these people. To circumvent this, she picked up a quarrel with the superiors and came
out.

She started to live with the 32 year old man, Chandrasekar and his mother. She says, “He was
good and did not trouble me but all that I understood was that he wanted a company for his
mother”. The turning point in her life began when she met one of her friends from the Convent
she had left. She motivated Vijayalakshmi to try for chance in Cinema as she was fair, beautiful
and young girl. This inspired her to try for a chance and she met the agents. She was given some
opportunities to act in some movies as support actress. During this period, she met a woman who
said that she would arrange for outstation shooting which fetched her good income.
Vijayalakshmi was carried away by her words and decided to go for outstation shooting. The
woman got her jeans pants and T-Shirts, high-heeled slippers etc. and booked her ticket to
Kodaikanal. She went along with another girl and the girl’s mother. As soon as they reached
Kodaikanal, she became very scared and asked in a suspicious tone, “Where is the shooting going
on, I could not find any trace of it”. The woman smiled at Vijayalakshmi. Then, slowly some men
started approaching them. Vijayalakshmi was even more scared. Then, the mother sent her
daughter with a man and the mother went with another, they left Vijayalakshmi alone. As she was
standing alone men started approaching her, as she refused to go with them, two men scared her
with the knife and took her somewhere. They forced her to take some hot drinks, she refused but
they forcefully poured it into her mouth and raped her. To make her comply with their demands
they burned her with cigarettes all over her body.

She some how managed to reach Chennai. She was not comfortable in sharing the bitter experience
with anybody. One day when she went for shooting, the cine agent who usually gives her call
sheet knew that she had gone out of station and asked her why she did not inform him about
going out of station. Vijayalakshmi got wild at him, and said that it was none of his business. In
anger he asked her to return the money that he had given her sometime back to resettle her family.
Vijayalakshmi was in sheer desperation to earn some money to repay the debt. She was looking for
shooting opportunities but she did not get any chance for a week or two. During this time she met
a Madam, who gave her an opportunity to earn. Though Vijayalakshmi knew what sort of a job
she was offering she agreed as she was in urgent need of Rs.2, 000/- to settle the debts with the
cine agent. This was the first time that she was getting into the sex work knowingly. The Madam
sent her with a man and paid her Rs. 500 to Rs. 700/-. It continued for some more days. During
those days she used to stay out for the nights. She was taken to Mahaballipuram, a tourist spot
where there were number of lodges with which the brokers and the clients have an understanding
with the managers. Sometimes she was not allowed to sleep in the nights, she has to engage the
clients one after the other through out the night. Vijayalakshmi says, “it used to be very tiring and
painful, but I had to satisfy them whether I liked it or not”. She adds saying, “the Madam takes
about Rs. 3,000/- to 5,000/- and pays me Rs.500 to 700/- only”. Since, Vijayalakshmi had to earn
for her daily bread and to feed Chandrasekar and his mother, she had no choice left out other than
adjusting with the Madam.

Meanwhile, Vijayalakshmi became pregnant, but nobody knew about it. So she forced
Chandrasekar to marry her though it was not because of him. Neither did Chandrasekar know
about it. He was happy as she agreed to marry him and he married her. She then terminated her
pregnancy. She continued her secx work without the knowledge of Chandrasekar, under the garb
of going for film shooting. One day Vijayalakshmi’s friend Padma motivated her to go to
Coimbatore. Padma promised that she can earn more at Coimbatore if she stays for 15 days.
Vijayalakshmi initially believed that this had nothing to do with sex work. She was introduced to
one Akka. She sent her to Coimbatore. “I was shocked when I reached the building whose address

69
she gave me. I could see about 20 girls living in that house. Then I realized she was running a
brothel”, says Vijayalakshmi. As the day dawns each girl woud be sent with somebody, they book
lodge and return the next morning, likewise, Vijayalakshmi also had a booking and was returning
the next morning where the Madam’s car driver picks them up from various places. Even as
Vijayalakshmi reconciled to this and was in her second day of her stay in Coimbatore
Vijayalakshmi and eight other girls were caught by the police who were in their plainclothes. The
police arrested them and kept them at the general police station for two days. They used all vulgar
words and abused the girls. They beat them like dogs. “Since I was the youngest of all they
abused me like anything and asked me why I should come all the way to Tamil Nadu, when there
is Sonakachi at Kolkata” said Vijayalakshmi in a depressed tone.

Vijayalakshmi continues, “Three of them were released and the police kept six of us under their
custody. The Police men wanted the Madam and her daugh ter to be caught before releasing us.
We were at the police station for two days. Then they transferred us to Women police station.
Here, things turned out for the worse. The Women police undressed us and beat us very badly.
They hurled filthy abuses at us and vulgarly abused us. They made us stay undressed in the
lockup. They did not give us any food or even water to drink when we were in women police
station. We were given the dress only when the media came to cover us. The police beat us even if
we were not showing our face to take the photograph. The matter was published in all Tamil
dailies”.

Then, these six girls were taken to the court and as they did not have any body to take them on
bail, they were sent to the remand home for 15 days. Here, these girls were engaged in doing some
work given to them by the caretakers at the home. They were given some food that was not tasty.
The rest of the time they remained in the cell. During this period, somebody not known to these
girls came to take Vijayalakshmi and her friend on bail. Though Vijayalakshmi’s friend was
interested, she refused. They somehow sensed that the woman, who came forward to help them to
come out on bail, was interested in doing business through them. After a few days, one advocate
took them on bail and they could come out after having lost all the good dresses, the small jewels
they had etc. in the home.

As the issue was published in all newspapers, Vijayalakshmi was ashamed to get back home. So
her friend suggested that they should return to the same Akka who sent them to Coimbatore.
They were well received by the Akka. She rented them a house and gave them food. She
motivated them not to go for shooting as people would exploit them particularly now that their
faces have been exposed in the papers. Vijayalakshmi came to know that Chandrasekar also
shifted his house after his lost his mother. She did not no his whereabouts. The Akka engaged
Vijayalakshmi in sex work. She brought some clients day and night to her house and asked her to
entertain them. She had wider contact with rowdies and police men. The clients were mostly these
people who troubled Vijayalakshmi day and night. They frightened her with knife if she was not
interested. She had to engage clients even when she was in her menstrual periods. “So, my health
got spoiled. I started bleeding very badly and spent all that I earned on medicines”. But one good
thing she says about the clients is that they used condoms which prevented her from the killer
disease with which many of her careless colleagues died.

After a few months she sent Vijayalakshmi to Bangalore. Vijayalakshmi thought things would
turn out better. But she experienced contrary. She has to engage 30 to 40 clients a day. In three
days, she earned about Rs. 7,000/-, but she was not happy with the situation and thus returned to
Chennai. Akka started to shout at her. She scolded her and said she was not adjusting at any
place. Her life in Chennai again began with clients waiting in queue. She was caught in raid thrice
at various places. “I was kept in police station for two days and then the Akka would come and
take me in bail. This was followed by the policemen visiting my place for their pleasure, I had to

70
please them too” says Vijayalakshmi. These tough times had come to en end when she met her
friend after a long time. She shared her story. Her friend showed sympathy on Vijayalakshmi and
asked her to stay with her. Vijayalakshmi started to stay with her and continued her work with her
friend’s knowledge. Her friend however took all the money that Vijayalakshmi earned through her
sex work. Vijayalakshmi too least bothered about it as she was happy being independent and free
from the demanding of the Madam.

It was in one of those days that she came across one Raju who came to her friend’s place. He was
basically a Fridge Mechanic and also a dancer. At that point in time he had no job. As they became
friends, he asked Vijayalakshmi to borrow some money. Vijayalakshmi decided to seek the help of
her friend whom she was staying with. Indeed till this point she had not bothered ask about her
income. But her friend said, whatever she earned was compensated with the shelter and food.
Vijayalakshmi says, “Only then I realized everybody was cheating me”. She adds saying, “I had
been to many artists during my stay at my friends place, where I could have earned good money,
but I never bothered about anything as I was satisfied with the tips the clients give me and they
used to get me drink and Pan”.

Around that time Vijayalakshmi learned from Raju’s friend that Raju was interested in marrying
her. Says Vijayalakshmi, “I knew that Raju was already married and had one child. But I did not
bother about it, as I felt that he is a good person who was showing some interest and caring for me.
So, we started to live together. We rented a house. I reduced my clients and earned just enough to
feed Raju and Myself. I even supported his family when they were in crisis. After Raju got a job, I
stopped going for sex work. He helped me financially and we were happy.”

Unfortunately for Vijayalakshmi this happy period barley lasted only for a few months. Once Raju
has got a permanent job, he does not bother to visit Vijayalakshmi. She complains “He rarely visits
and gives me little money. How could I live with this? So, I have started to go back to my earlier
work, whenever my empty hand pinches me”.

Nowadays Vijayalakshmi works part time as a Mentor in a NGO which, she says, gives her some
status in the society. “I take care of about 10 children in my area who belong to my community. I
feel satisfied meeting the children everyday at my house in the evening hours. I teach them not
only formal education but also involve them in building up their crea tivity, as I learnt it from the
training given by the NGO. At present only this keeps me occupied and I look forward to the
evening hours to meet the children. I feel left out on holidays without meeting the children”, avers
Vijayalakshmi.

Vijayalakshmi with all her bitter experience at such a young age still has the smile in her. But she
has the lost dreams. She says she has no aspiration in life, as all her dreams are shattered. But all
that she looks forward is a job in Front Office Management in a Hospital where she would
negotiate for regular timings even while she could continue being a Mentor.

---------------------------------

71
The Day Will Come

The life of Kalaivani has been a saga of repeated struggle to come to terms with her own self and
achieve a sense of coherent meaning for it. Even as she refuses to believe that the meaningful life
has come to an end, she still constantly strives to find an order for her life. Her life seems to be an
ongoing struggle to achieve a sense of completeness even as it eludes her for longtime. Faced with
in numerous incidences in life that have shattered her organized self on many occasions she still
clings on to the hope of finding an organized meaning for her life. To achieve the sense of fullness
for her self she has taken resort to both the socially acceptable paths as well as those that made
immediate sense to her, despite their social rejections.

Kalaivani hails from Pudukottai district. She is 32 years old. She belonged to an agricultural family.
Her father owned a small piece of land. However she has very few things to say about her father
for she lost him when she was nine years old. She went to school though she was least interested in
it. Few years after her father’s death at the age of 13 she started to work as an agricultural coolie.
Even at such a young age, as it was wont in the villages, she became very fond of her neighbor boy
whom she wanted to get married to. Yet it became an unrequited affair as the neighbor man got
married to some one else and went away. Her elder sister, who was married and living in Chennai,
brought an alliance for her. Kalaivani got married at the age of 16. The marriage life was miserable
from day one. In spite of giving a shop as part of the dowry the in-laws ill trea ted her and there
was a constant quarrel between her in -laws and her sister. When Kalaivani found out that all her
vessels and even the good saris were pledged she went and complained it to her sister. Coupled
with her dowry related harassment, was the more distressing fact that their marriage was never
consummated. Though for the outer world the dowry harassment was told, the real story is that
her husband never had any sexual relationship with her. Finding no fulfillment in her married life
she got divorced in the village punchayat.

Then as she was working as an agricultural coolie in her village she fell in love with a Christian
man who was also an agricultural coolie. Because of the religion all her relatives were against the
marriage. Since her sister’s husband was the head of the family she decided to approach him for
approval and support. She came to Madras to persuade him to permit her to marry her lover. But
her brother-in-law had other sinister designs. Using this opportunity and her helplessness he
demanded her to have sex with him in return for his consent. Her love for that man was so strong
that she yielded to his overtures, for the single-minded purpose of getting married to her lover.
When everything was settled and she was about to marry him inher village, she found herself
pregnant. Knowing that she is carrying somebody’s offspring, her lover still married Kalaivani.
Everything was sweet and he took care of her like the eyelids care for the eyes. Once the boy baby
was born Kalaivani let her first son grow in her sister’s house, as her sister was suffering from
cervical cancer and could not beget a child of her own. Moreover this arrangement suited her as
the son was actually born to her brother-in-law. Kalaivani gave birth to another son and life went
very smoothly for six years until Kalaivani fainted one day because of high fever. Her neighbor’s
son came to help her and admitted her in a hospital and informed her husband about her. The
period following that was very miserable as her husband started troubling her with very probing
questions. Apart from his own suspicions about Kalaivani’s pre-marital affair with her brother-in-
law and about her previous marriage that ultimately failed, he got even more alarmed as he
believed that Kalaivani might be ill due to some other terrible illness. His little bit of knowledge
about AIDS haunted his mind as he surmised that his wife must have contracted it due to her
multiple partners – meaning three partners. Since then, her husband was very indifferent to her
and started questioning about the first son and the reason for which he is made to live with
Kalaivani’s sister. He even refused to touch her, never talked with her and started to be away from
home for many days. Though Kalaivani could identify the cause of the problem and made all
efforts to convince his about her unconsummated first marriage, her husband refused to listen and

72
return to his old ways of caring for her. Indeed when Kalaivani talks about the heydays of her
marriage lasting six years, her eyes were filled with tears. She says that all these made her very
guilty. “Even if he had beaten me I would have felt happy.” Thus she became very depressed and
was taken to the mental hospital and she was under medication. Since there was no quarrel at all
in her marriage for six years and her husband gave her a wonderful life, which, she says, words
cannot explain, she had decided to commit suicide and swallowed all the tablets that were given to
her to overcome her depression. However it was noticed in time and she was saved. However in
line with her husband’s request she had told the police that because of her stomach pain she
attempted suicide. With the fear that he may get caught by the police for harassing her he went
away to his village to stay with his mother.

Left alone, Kalaivani started to earn to keep herself and her son fed by starting a snack shop (Iddli
shop) at her house itself. But she could not earn much. Whatever she could earn was only sufficient
to feed her and her son. She struggled for purchasing other essentials like soap etc. One day her
son was ill and to give him treatment she did not have any money. She decided to approach one of
her neighbors who was said to give loan for high interest rate. That woman took Kalaivani to a
house in T.Nagar and left her there and asked her to come back and give her opinion. Kalaivani
could see lot of women roaming around in that huge bungalow and as mencame in they started to
go inside the rooms with them. Kalaivani came back to her house and asked for that Rs. 500 from
that neighbor to save her son. Then the neighbor told her that she normally pays women only for
entertaining men and that is what they all do this in that house which Kalaivani had visited in the
morning. She said that it would fetch her good money if she also agrees to take that path. She
persuaded her there is nothing wrong in doing it and gave her the money. Kalaivani decided to
take it up and started her profession as sex worker only then. Because she was always having
problems with men at her snack shop and it was not paying well, she felt even more pushed in to
it.

After she entered into sex work she used to go out for contract. She had good demand as she was
looking very attractive and slim. She says that the 13th day is very unlucky because when she went
on contract on 13 th day she got caught in a raid. The brothel owner was not there in the police
station and vanished. Kalaivani was much panicked she was pleading and crying only to get her
ear torn with a harsh slap. The customer who came to her before the raid was a police and wanted
to catch her red handed. Therefore the sub-Inspector was harassing her and burnt her on her
thighs with his cigar. She pleaded him to leave her and he sent her with a constable saying that
she should show her house for address verification and then he let her go escorted by the
constable. That constable after seeing her house demanded her to have sex with him and
threatened her that if she refused he would expose her to her mother and brother. So she fulfilled
his wishes and then the nuisance started. The constable started to come again and again and that
too with his friends. She kept yielding to his threats fearing that he would inform her mother. She
had a very troubled time as a sex worker. Apart from the persistent harassment from the police she
faced others hardships too from other customers. For example when she was taken by a customer
to a closed office, four men raped her there and injured her. Even worse than these happened, once
when a young man picked her up and he asked her to accompany him to his house at Anna Nagar.
After she had agreed to go with him, he called his house to find that his servant was there and
asked her to wait a little while as the servant was planning to go for a movie. Then he bought her
food and again phoned his house and said that his servant was there. Just to kill time he suggested
that she could join him for a bike ride and took her on his motorbike to Poonamallie (near by
suburban town) where he stopped his bike to get her beer. He also drank some alcohol and asked
her to have sex with him behind the bushes. She also fulfilled his desires. Then he said he would
make a call again and take her to his house. After he left her in search of a phone booth she stood
in the road side. But the man never came back nor paid her anything. At that time of the mid night
she was cornered by the patrolling policemen and was taken to the police station. Since she was so

73
allergic to the ‘home’, she had no option but to comply with the demands of the police men to have
sex with all of them in thepolice station itself. What was even degrading was that she was forced to
satisfy the sub-inspector orally. When she refused to do so she was beaten badly. She said very
ruefully that this is something which she had never agreed to do in her profession. But it did not
end there. She explains with emptiness in her eye that she was not even allowed to rise up to
breath but asked to have oral sex. When she tried to raise her head she was burnt with the cigarette
on her shoulder and the nape.

Her hatred for the vigilance home arises from her earlier visit. When she recalls the atmosphere of
the ‘home’ her face is convulsed with disgust. She says that lots of women were put in the same
room and because of their dirty habits the room stinks. Some of them may urinate in the corner of
the room and they would spit the pan they were chewing and smoke and drink and vomit. She did
not even want to elaborate on this and switched over to other topic.

Having all these experiences she stopped working as sex worker and worked in the TVS group of
company as the damage inspector. By then she had huge debts. The income from the job was not
sufficient. It was then that she was lured with a good opportunity and good life by one of her
neighbors who and her husband were doing business by selling foreign goods they get from
Singapore. Kalaivani was told that if she was willing to go to Singapore and leave the Indian goods
in exchange of Singapore goods along with some gold she would be paid well. She was also
assured that there is no risk involved and everything would be taken care of. With out knowing
the consequences and thinking that it is only a favour to the neighbor, she accepted to go. She went
to Singapore with two more women who did not travel with her but told that they would join her
at Singapore. Once reaching Singapore she was taken to a place called “Theka market” and was
left in a hotel room. The next day her neighbor, who had asked her to go to Singapore, came to her
hotel room and asked her to be ready to go to the town in the evening. Though she did not
understand first the reason for that, she was explained. It was only then she realized that they had
brought her for sex work. Hence she refused to reenter into sex work and that too in a foreign
country. She was slapped and left alone on the first day. Then from the next day she was
compelled to do the sex work and was taught to bargain and fix the rate with the customer. Again
she got in to the raid on the 13 th day in Singapore as she got caught by the Singapore police. She
was warned and asked to leave the country immediately. Thereafter she returned to her hotel
room only to find out that all her savings and the presents her customers gave were gone with the
broker who brought her to Singapore. Then she went back to Chennai.

Few days after arriving in Chennai the neighbour woman’s husband who had sent her to
Singapore came to her house asked her to repay his debts. She borrowed the money for interest
and gave it to him. But soon after hedied hence his wife demanded that Kalaivani pay the whole
amount in one go. To overcome her financial burden she accepted to go to Singapore as a
housemaid and again borrowed money to pay the broker who got her a job at Singapore. She went
and worked without any problem in Singapore for three months or so. But again the fate played on
her and she got jaundice and was sent back to Chennai, because the employer complained about
her illness to the authorities instead of complaining to the local broker asking for an exchange of
worker.

Now having the illness and huge debt she had no other option but to enter in sex work. She also
started to act as an extra artist in the film industries and was residing in her sister’s house with her
mother and brother. In the mean time her husband who lived with his mother in the village had a
heart attack and died. Her sister also died because of cancer. All the brothers of her brother-in-law
asked Kalaivani and her family to go away. She was very much hurt since her brother-in-law never
uttered a word or asked them to stay back. After Kalaivani came back from Singapore her brother-

74
in-law was having sexual relationship with her, as her sister was not able to and suffering from
cancer. In spite of this he did not ask her to stay back.

But what gave her the strength to bear with all this was the fact that she was in love with a man
whom she met in the film industry. She strongly trusted his promise and dreamt of a wonderful
secured life. So she came out of her sister’s house and got married to this new lover and had a
horrifying life with him for two months. In one fine morning he left her never to return, leaving
her with her son who is now studying seventh standard.

But Kalaivani was not the person to get bogged down by all these. She wanted a secure life not
only for herself but for her son. Thus she registered herself in a marriage bureau. When she got an
alliance to marry a man already marred but did not have children, she agreed and got married to
him. He claimed that his wife had some problem and could not have sex with him. But to her
horror, when she entered the house after marrying this new husband she found his first wife
pregnant (around eight months) and did not ask her new husband anything about his second
marriage, perhaps to avoid the quarrel on the first day. But the trauma for Kalaivani began only
during that night itself. The new husband had switched on the video of some ‘blue film’ and on the
same bed wanted to have sex with both his wives. From the second day onwards Kalaivani refused
to have such type of sex and demanded a separate room. But he insisted on having it in the same
manner so she left him at once.

Kalaivani says that so far she has been caught eight times in the raid and only once was sent to the
‘home’. She says that she has always avoided going to the vigilance Home as she hated it to the
core. That the police was very corrupt and also that she was very pretty had invariably made it
possible for her avoid the horrible experience of living in the Home. It is not that she permitted
herself to be sexually exploited by the police. Indeed she had little options then. The circumstances
in which she was caught also forced her to comply with the inhuman demands of the police in
almost all the incidents of raid, she was caught alone. Thus it became easy for the police to convert
themselves into nonpaying clients in their own work premises and Kalaivani this meant avoiding a
visit to Home. Kalaivani says that it could have become a difficult option to choose if they were
caught as a group. Perhaps now it may be difficult as she has become old and fat. The police may
not want to see any error sexual utility in her so they may send her to home if she is caught again.

It was in during the only occasion when she was at Home one woman came and ‘advised’ them to
change their profession. She told that even if they earn very little from a decent work they could
lead a life with respect. Kalaivani says that she still reflecting on this as she believes that this
somehow will work in her. She assures that as soon as she pays back all her debt she wants to go to
any job in a shop or in an office and wants to lead a good life. Indeed every morning she always
opens up the newspa per just to see the job opportunity and the matrimonial column. Once the
debts are cleared amounting to Rs.15, 000 she wants to take up a job, which she is very confident to
get. She said that even on the day of interview she was offered a job in a shop to take care of the
shop and to write accounts but the pay is not enough. But her dream is not yet over. Not only is
she still is positive about getting job but also a man of her own choice with whom she wants to
lead a normal marital life as the other women. She says that she is in a hurry to find a man because
she thinks that after she crosses 35 years it might be difficult to find a man.

75
Mumtaj to Lakshmi: The Journey

It all began when Mumtaj (now Lakshmi) got angry with her father and decided make it clear to
him. The drama began when she went for a movie with her neighbours without informing
anybody at home. Somebody who had seen her in the theatre informed her father about Mumtaj.
Her father was wild at her behaviour and beat her badly. Mumtaj was very angry with her father
and came out of the house. Mumtaj aged 40, hails from Kallakkurutchi which is located in Salem
district of Tamil Nadu. She was born in the traditional Muslim family. Her father is a farmer and
mothers a house wife. She has two brothers and one sister. Her father was very strict with his
children and does not allow girls to step out of the house. She was a young 16 year old girl when
she left her house. She had no money in her hands but had the guts and courage to run away from
home. She walked upto Bunrouti railway station and planned to take a train to Kadalur without
buying a ticket as she had no money. While she was waiting for the train, a few rowdies in that
station approached her and asked her to follow them. As she refused they were trying to scare her
by saying all sort of scary things. It soon escalated into an argument and verbal duel of sorts
ensued.

The scene called the attention of a police constable who was on his usual in rounds. He hurriedly
came near the girl and asked her as to what was happening and who those guys were. She replied
that she was waiting for the train to kadalur and did not know who those guys were. The
constable advised her to leave the place immediately and that he should not see her again in that
place. No sooner had he constable moved from that place, than the rowdies again approached her
once again and forced her to follow them. They did not allow the mumtaj to get into the train that
she was waiting for. Nobody came to rescue her. By that time the constable came there again. As
he saw the girl, he asked her why she didn’t go. The girl was feeling nervous as the rowdies were
watching her from a distance.

Understanding her situation the constable took her to the police station and enquired about her. As
she did not want to drag her parents into the whole drama, she gave some other address as if that
was her own. The police were kind enough to her got her food and gave her some money for her
bus fare. They asked her to go by the back gate of the police station as the rowdies were loitering
round the station. She was happy that some one gave her some money to go and got into a bus.
She was shocked when she saw the same rowdies in the bus again. The constable who followed
her suspected her when he saw the same men around her. He suspected her relationship with
those men and pulled her to the police station. Later they went to enquire about the address she
gave. The police were annoyed and their suspicion increased as they found that the address given
by her was not correct. So, she was produced in the court and was put in sub jail for 6 months.

Along with Mumtaj there were 15 women at the sub jail who were also booked under the sec. 8 b.
She spent about 3 months chatting with the inmates at the jail and eats kanchi (gruel) as breakfast
and rice with some sambar and porial (Vegetable curry) for the lunch and rice and rasam at the
night for dinner.

At this time, she came across a brothel owner, Baby Madam, who had come to rescue some girls.
She normally gives bail to the outstation cases who are longing for bail. When she heard of
Mumtaj she volunteered to rescue her provided she would work for her in her brothel house. As
Mumtaj was longing for somebody to rescue her from that place she agreed to go with Baby
madam. Though the inmates and the police men warned her against her going with her, she
challenged them that she would come out of the brothel house in ten days and all that she wanted
was to leave the sub jail immediately. She went along with Baby Madam. For about nine days she
managed to guard herself from any exploitation by merely going out with the customers that Baby
Madam sent to her. She explained her background to every customer she met and pleaded them to

76
rescue her. Finally on the tenth day, she met Palanisamy, who was a government employee.
Mumtaj narrated her story to Palanisamy too. He sympathized with her and helped to rescue her.
He asked her to escape by the back door and said that he would manage the Madam by saying that
as he was fully intoxicated he did not know what happened. As planned, Mumtaj took the money
about Rs.20/- that she saved every day which she received as tips from the customers. She
climbed over the wall and reached bus stand and took the bus to Kallakuruchi. Thus she reached
her parents.

Her parents who thought that their daughter is no more as they did not know her whereabouts
and could not find her in any of her relatives’ house too. They decided that Mumtaj must have
committed suicide. Her parents, brothers and sisters were all happy on seeing her and hugged her.
Her parents slowly asked her where she was all these days. She built up a story and narrated that
as she was ashamed and infuriated by her father she left the home and got into a train that went to
Kadalur. She added saying that she slept in the train and that she reached Kadalur. She added
saying, as she had no money she was stuck at Kadalur where she met a lady who took her to her
house and engaged her as domestic maid. There she expressed her desire to see her parents so the
owners of the house permitted her to return to her home. Mumtaj’s parents believed the story and
consoled her.

Though things remained alright for sometime, a month later, she saw some policemen along with
Baby Madam coming to the village when she was going to fetch water. Baby Madam spotted
Mumtaj and caught her. Mumtaj was scared and ran to her home. The policemen informed her
parents that she was working as a domestic maid and left the house without informing the owners.
They demanded Mumtaj be sent along with them. But when her father refused, the police men
opened up and divulged the whole story of her involvement in sexwork. They said they had to
take her with them for she had to be produced at the court. Her father had a shock of his life when
he heard this. Ina fit of rage he thrashed her in front of the police and the villagers gathered
around there. After the big scene he assured the police that he himself would bring her to the
court. The police left the place. The next day, her father produced her at the court where a fine was
levied and she was released after a censure. Her father paid the fine and took her back to home.

For nearly three years life was incident free for Mumtaj. The problem started again when she was
19 years as, according to Mumtaj, some of her relatives practiced black magic on them. Her family
faced lot of problems and became ridden with one hardship after another. Brothers fought with
each other and left the family. By then her sister was married. Mother was in distress and had no
exposure of going out anywhere. So Mumtaj had to lead the family. She looked out for a job. It was
then that Mumtaj remembered a person named Jaya whom she met in the sub jail. She approached
her for help, knowing what she was going to engage her in. The innumerable difficulties faced by
the family drove her to rescue it in whatever manner she could. Thus she started to sell her body.
For about six months she helped her family with this income. During this period she met a friend
who took her to Ullunthurpet. There Mumtaj was introduced a Tea stall owner and a brothel
broker in the line. He asked her to stay there for a week. It was during the stay there that she
started taking liquor and drugs. It was in one of those intoxicated moments they sold her and sent
her to Mumbai. Not knowing that she was sold to the Mumbai parties, she went along with them
and stayed there for 9 months. She came to know that she was sold for Rs. 15,000/- to the Mumbai
party. “The brothel owner at Mumbai had two wives, and proposed to keep me as his ‘keep’”,
says Mumtaj. When the two wives knew about it they started to harass her. As the owner did not
turn up for many days from his trip to Pondicherry, Mumtaj and her friend Paappathi, who she
had befriended there ran away from house and complained to the police. Sine the police had a
nexus with the two women of the house from where they had escaped, they immeadiatley
reported it to them. The two women instantly reached the police station and beat Mumtaj and her
friend at the police station itself. The police did not want the nexus between themselves and these

77
brothel house Madams to become obvious for outsiders, as they were permitting these women to
continue their thrashing of Mumtaj and Paappathi in the police station premises itself. They told
the women that if they beat them at the police station it would become an issue hence they secretly
told those women, “We will send them to take their dresses from your house and you can use the
chance to catch them”. However, one of the police men who were kind-hearted informed this to
Mumtaj and asked her to escape. So they told the police men that they needed no escort and that
they would surrender on their own. The police men also believed their words and let them go. But
Mumtaj and Pappathi managed to escape and reached Chennai by train.

Pappathi had good contacts in Chennai. Through her support they approached a brothel owner
and started to work under him. She took up a contract and went to Neyveli. She fell sick there and
was hospitalized for two months. During the course of her illness the brothel owner helped her to
meet the medical expenses and spent about Rs. 4,000/-. In return, once she recovered, he sold her
to lodge owner at Pondicherry.

Known for her beauty and for the young age, the lodge owner fell in love with her and they lived
together. At this juncture, a man who stayed at the lodge committed suicide for the reasons not
known. There was a police raid at the lodge. In this raid Mumtaj was caught. In fact he owner did
not come to her rescue at all. She was put in Pondicherry sub jail for 6 months. In the third month
of her punishment period the lodge room boy went to meet her at the jail. He explained the trust
that the owner had on her and the situation why he had to surrender her to the police. He also
expressed that the owner was interested in taking her on bail. Having become convinced Mumtaj
agreed to take the help from the lodge owner who took her on bail. She lived with him for about a
year. Then one day she left him saying that she was going to her village to meet her parents. She
took about Rs. 3,000/- and left the place. She met her parents and gave the money she earned.
Then she met the brothel owner at Chinna Salem and practiced her work there. The owner of the
house sold her to a party at Kerala. At the age of 24 years she worked at Kerala. She earned about
Rs. 2,000/- per day. After a year, she got into a contract for Saudi Arabia. From 25 to 28 years she
worked at Saudi in a brothel house. Mumtaj says that she enjoyed the place and had no difficulties
in working at Saudi. She was not caught in the raid. Then, as she always had a liking towards her
native place, she came back to her village.

Few months later, she decided to start a brothel house at China Salem and rented a house. She
identified 3 girls and managed the house. It was around this time that she met Manickam who
was a tailor in that area. She got married to him at 29 years. As she married a Hindu, she changed
her name as Lakshmi. At her 30 years, she was blessed with a baby boy. They shifted their house
to Kalarampatti. With the help of her husband Manickam, they lured girls from other areas and
engaged them in prostitution. The money earned was sufficient to keep the family happy.

Lakshmi lost her husband 10 years back. He was sick with malaria for about 3 months and did not
recover from his sickness. As he passed away, Lakshmi was left with the child. She was unable to
run the brothel house without her husband. As the vigilance was also strict, she closed the brothel
house and became a street worker.

Lakshmi says she was caught in the raid for about 30 times. Five times she was booked under sec.
8 b of which twice she was put in the remand home and thrice she was put in sub jail. They have
also booked her on drug peddling and brothel owners case. Her husband had good rapport with
the police and so he had rescued her from big cases by bribing the police constables.

Lakshmi is proud that her parents have accepted her and her son who is now 14 years old. He
studied up to 4th standard. As he failed in class IV he lost interest in going to school. Lakshmi had

78
put him in a Tailor shop to learn tailoring which she says would mean that he would take up his
father’s job in future.

Lakshmi is presently diagnosed as HIV positive. Though lakshmi is not worried about it, she says
the society does not accept her and they try to isolate her. For the past four years Lakshmi has
been working as peer educator at VRDP, a NGO at Salem district, Tamil Nadu. She is also an
active member of the Self Help Group in her area. She educates her peers on health grounds and
takes them for medical screening. She wishes that the government takes steps to form a network
of the sex workers and provide proper rehabilitation to these women.

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If Only Mother Understood Me!

Sourastras in Tamil Nadu are migrants during the Naicker rule. They live in Madurai and
surrounding areas. They are known for their industrious nature, as most of them are engaged in
weaving work. Jothy, a sourashtrian by birth, comes from Paramakudi near Madurai in Tamil
Nadu. She is 35 years old. She has no idea of the school atmosphere, as she has not stepped into
the school at all. She belongs to a very orthodox family. They earned their daily bread through
weaving. All her family members including her sister and two brothers were also engaged in
weaving. Her sister was married to one of her relatives in Chennai. Next was her turn for
marriage. At the age of 14, she was married to her paternal uncle, who was said to be doing a
building contract work at Mumbai. He was widower.

He proposed to marry Jothy who was a pretty girl, as his second wife. He was then 35 years old.
Jothy did not like to marry him. For one thing, he was a physically handicapped person though it
would be difficult to detect at first sight. But even otherwise he was old. She expressed her dislike
to her mother. Mother was the deciding authority at home. Father’s duty was just to earn and give
the income to his wife. Jothy says that her father was not ready to take up any responsibility. So,
she could not have appealed to him to decide against this marriage. Her mother cared the least for
Jothy’s displeasure and went about arranging for her marriage. As her uncle preferred to have a
simple wedding, they got married at the Madurai Meenakshiamman Temple. He convinced his
sister that going back to Paramakudi from Madurai would cost more and so to save money and
time he has booked tickets to Mumbai to leave that day itself. Jothy’s mother was convinced. So
from the Meenakshi temple they went to the railway station and took the train to Mumbai.

He lived in Pune- Shivaji Nagar, Mumbai. He took her to an apartment at Shivaji Nagar. As she
entered his house she found some female dresses hanging here and there. Shocked and puzzled
she asked her uncle ‘as to whose dresses those were. He replied, “These are of our cousins who
come here occasionally”. Poor girl believed it.

After few days his friends started visiting their house. He used to introduce them to Jothy and
leave home at once. They used to crack sexy jokes and try to misbehave with her. She complained
to her husband about his friends. She was shaken when he supported his friends and asked her to
adjust with them. That she comes from an orthodox family and that she was that type of a girl who
respected traditional values in life, she could not bend to his requirements. Language being a
barrier to her, she could not ventilate her problems to any body. Her stubborn resistance to his
demands to satisfy the visitors, who came as his ‘friends’, irritated him. He conned her into taking
injections and drugs saying they were good from her health and childbirth. Unsuspectingly she
took them, and during her tipsy state the ‘friends’ exploited her sexually. The trauma shook her
completely when she discovered the unendurable pain in her body and the vague memories of
many men, who brutally had her slowly returned. But Jothy’s husband had always kept her in that
state so as to prevent her from returning to full consciousness, by drugging her constantly. This
way he involved her in prostitution. He brought customers’ everyday and earned good money.
When his neighbours asked about the visitors he would say that they were his cousins and
relatives. Sometimes she shouted out of agony and pain when she was drugged and sexually
assaulted, his neighbours questioned about this. He used to tell them in Hindi, “she is my sister’s
daughter I brought her here for treatment for her mental illness and she is repeating the same
here”. The neighbours did not believe him. But they were scared of him since he had contacts with
rowdies in that area. So they hesitated to interfere in his affairs. When they happen to meet Jothy
at the doorsteps in one of her sober moments they told that he had been doing this brothel work
for the past 10 years and even two months back there were two girls staying there. But Jothy got
only the crux of what they said as she could not understand Hindi.

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Six months passed like this. Meanwhile Jothy was badly brutalized by the happenings. On the top
all these was the fact she conceived. As she was induced with lot of drugs she was sick. Jothy’s
husband wanted abortion but the doctors advised her against abortion and said that it may
endanger her life, so they did not attempt for it. A few days later, a few men were approaching her
uncle regularly and she found something fishy about the whole affair. Soon she realized that her
Uncle had sold her to another party for Rs. 20,000/-. Jothy was waiting for a chance to escape from
her uncle. One day he told her that he was taking her to her mother’s place in Madurai and led her
to the railway station. But she guessed that he was taking her to the other party. As they reached
railway station and got into the train she acted as though she swooned. Her uncle got out of the
train to get her some drinks and food. As the refreshment stall was away from the compartment
she was in, he got into the other compartment. Sensing that now she had a rare chance to escape
Jothy jumped from the moving train and got into the train on the opposite direction which was
ready to leave for Delhi. She reached Delhi. She was utterly helpless. She didn’t know the
language to express her plight and seek help. When she felt lost, she was spotted by the Railway
police and they enquired her in Hindi. She then tried to speak in broken Hindi that she picked up
during her stay at Mumbai. She conveyed that she had no money and wanted to reach Chennai.
The railway police, who sympathized with her, bought her a ticket and put her in the train
towards Chennai. Her co-passengers in the train helped her by giving some money which she
used for the rickshaw to reach her sister’s place in Chennai. Luckily she had her sister’s address
and just about managed to locate her sister’s place. She narrated her situation to her sister amidst
wailing and anger. Her sister gave her some money and sent her to her village at Madurai. She
repeated her story to her mother. Horrifyingly her mother simply refused to hear the story,
instead she found fault with Jothy. Her mother thought that since Jothi’s husband was
handicapped Jothi was exaggerating the situation as she did not like to live with a handicapped
person. She was angry with Jothy and scolded her for wasting a chance to live as married girl. She
least liked Jothy staying in her place as she felt that after marriage the married girl should live in
her husband’s house. Thus she kept on scolding and ill-treating her. She did not bother about
Jothi’s pregnancy. “She used to harass me worse than a mother in law,’ says Jothi. She stayed just
for 13 days with them. To all these her was father was mute witness- he had very little say.

As she could not bear the talks of her relatives and her mother, she left home and reached
Madurai. Jothy was 15 years when she left the home. She sold the little jewels like ear rings, nose
rings and chain that she was wearing and spent the money for her living for about two months. All
these days Jothy whiled away her days sitting in front of the Meenakshiamman temple and nights
at the bus stand and railway station. People there pitied her as she was in the eighth month of her
pregnancy. A few women who had some shops near the temple gave her food at times. When
people enquired about her family she said that her husband had deserted her and that she had no
one else to go. Under these circumstances she gave birth to a baby girl. Even at the time of
delivery she had no one with her. After delivery she had convulsions and fits, so the hospital
authorities took the initiative to inform her parents. It was then that her mother came and took her
to their house. But the fact that she is fresh from delivering a baby and that she had epileptic
attack least bothered her mother as she continued to abuse her. Jothi, in spite of these difficulties
spent about five months at her mother’s place.

At the age of 16 years she left her parents and came out with the 5 months old baby in her hand.
She took to begging in front of the temple at Madurai. She met some of the girls in Madurai who
helped her at the time of pregnancy. Some of them pitied her and helped her initially. These girls
were in sexwork. They persuaded Jothi to enter in sexwork. “In order to save my child, I entered
into this work, but this time with my full knowledge and consciouness” says Jothi in a depressed
tone, in an oblique reference to her earlier stint with sexwork under drugged conditions.

81
One day, she was caught by the cops and was put in Madurai Central Jail for 15 days. She had her
small baby with her in the jail. ‘The wardens and the others took good care of my baby,’ says Jothi.

After she was released, she started to work under the big rowdy-Aruva Pandian. She came to
know of him through her friends. He was running a brothel house Madurai. Jothy thought it
would be better to work under the rowdy as there will be least chances of police raid. These
brothel house owners kept the police in good humor so there will be no raid at rowdies place. As
days passed she developed an affair with Srinivasan who came as a client. She was only 17 years
then. Though she knew that Srinivasan was married and had children, he promised to take care of
both the children. She moved out of the brothel home rented a house where they lived a happy
and a meaningful life for 6 years. She gave birth to another girl baby. Soon life turned sour for
Jothy. After she gave birth to a girl baby again, she became witness to the other side of Srinivasan.
He started fighting with her and stopped giving money to run the family. Whenever Jothy asked
him for money he beat her. Soon things came to a head and finally Srinivasan deserted her and
she was left with two children to look after. The first child was studying 2nd standard and the
second child was studying 1st standard. To keep the family moving she worked as helper in a
nursing home and earned for the family. But the money was insufficient to run the family. She
sought the help of Aruva Pandian and he got her back into sexwork. Since he also had political
connections he initiated her into politics.

One year later she met Mohan who was interested in marrying her. She lived with him for five
years and gave birth to a boy baby. As she was practicing sex work, she was caught in the raid for
at least four times. First, she was in the home for 5 days, second time when she was caught she
was in the home for 3 days. After that the 3rd and the 4 th time she was in remand for 15 days. Her
absence gave happiness to Mohan, he tried to involve the two daughters of Jothi in sexwork. Once
learned of his sinister designs she left him and lived with her three children separately. Apart from
continuing her sexwork her association with politics also got intense. She became the District
Secretary of Women’s wing in a particular party; hence she had good contacts with high level
people. In the meantime her relationship with her mother got improved. Now she could leave her
children under the custody of her parents at Paramakudi. She was becoming old and so unwanted
for the clients. The association with politics, though ensured that she made friends with many
bigshots in Madurai thereby least trouble from police, brought little economic rewards. Thus she
had to borrow money to get her daughters married. Now her son is also studying, she has nobody
to help her to meet her debts.

At present, she is 35 years old. She takes up contract work for 15 da ys with the agents and works
under them at Kalarampatti, Madurai. In her journey of struggle she feels that her uncle was the
architect of her miserable situation. Secondly, her mother, who should have given her love and
affection, abused and neglected her. She concludes by saying, ‘but for my mother and uncle my life
would not have become so vulnerable and shameful.”

82
The Elusive Intelligence

For Dhina silence is the only answer when asked of his future. He does not take part in the
discussion on what future holds for him. Ask his father, Agasti, who works in the brick kilns
moulding and drying bricks. He appears perplexed for a while before saying quite nonchalantly,
“If he has ‘intelligence’ (Bhuddhi) he would do some other good job; otherwise he has to carry on
what I do now.”

If Agasti looks at the future for himself and for his son as extended stretch of life mired in poverty,
that is only reflective of long history of life in poverty for himself and his family. For Agasti it is
poverty that seems continuous and assured to be with him. Experiences of poverty are eternal and
to get out of it calls for a major miracle and accident.

Indeed, poverty did not come in the lives of Agasti’s family members as a devastating rupture. As
they were poor in the limits of Agasti’s memory, there is no understanding of when he or his
family had slipped into poverty. There is no lowest point other than what they have already
reached. Thus there is no slipping down. In their lives it is slipping out of poverty that has to come
as a disruption in the otherwise continuously stretched experiences of poverty. They don’t foresee
such disruption in the near future. Perhaps, that is why this evasive reply from Agasti.

He does not remember any one of his family members having successfully broken out of this
vicious circle. No knowledge of anyone of his kindred slipping out of it in the village he hails from.
Agasti believes what was impossible for his grandfather and father should be impossible for him
too and Dhina has only sincerely inherited this wisdom from his father.

When posed the question “What do you want to become in future?” Dhina looks at his father even
as he plays with the very sand that he would turn into clay and roll them into ball when involved
in the work along with his father and mother during the hectic days of work. Now it is off-season
for them. And his father’s reply is what comes at the end of the first paragraph of this story.

In many middle class families the aspirations of the children are aspirations of the adult world that
has successfully transferred its anxieties and greed on to their children. The ones in the forefront of
the adult world who continues to triumph upon the world of children are the parents. It is these
adult representatives who inaugurate a world full of fixed possibilities for their children. They
disclose an adult world filled with desirable images of doctors, engineers, and all other
moneymaking and power-mongering ideals to their children. That is why rarely do we hear of a
child that wants to become a painter, a play write, a novelist etc.

Here in the world of Dhina, once again the adult world of his father Agasti has emerged victorious
over his son’s child world – but with a difference! Unlike the middle class children, Dhina aspires
to nothing, because his father and mother have aspired for nothing, nor do they have some lack
that they wish to fill through their son. The very emptiness of an answer is a mere evidence of
what his father reserved for him.

This is particularly so because Agasti believes that in his life, he has only became poorer. In
comparison to his grandfather days he has become more impoverished. And what life holds for his
son is even worse. Agasti recalls that his grandfather owned a piece of land whereas his father was
an agricultural labour in the field of other landowners. But in his life he has become a bonded
labourer working in brick kilns in the far away village called Dindigal in Andhra Pradesh.

This is because agricultural work is not available due to poor rainfall and repeated drought in his
village in Orissa. Even the drought relief given by the government was offered only to those with

83
ration card. He did not have one, so he bribed the officials by selling his utensils to get the ration
card, but to no avail. After parting with three hundred rupees, he could never hope to get 3000/-
rupees, even after six months. He then migrated to the Dindigal for working in the brick kilns
some fifteen years back. Those days when the contractor in his village offered him an advance of
Rs. 2000/-, it was godsend. He was having lot of difficulty without money and work then. Having
accepted the advance, he arrived in Andhra Pradesh along with his brother to work in the brick
kilns. Those days 30/- rupees will be paid for a team comprising of three for each day of work
starting from morning around 8 o’ clock to 7 o’clock in the evening.

Agasti had taken the help of his younger brother and another village man to form the trio that was
mandatory to work in the brickiln. The wage will be paid for the team only. The next year Agasti
did not need the help of the third partner in the team, as he had got married and brought his wife.
His younger brother, wife and himself toiled in the brickiln to survive on the meager income. His
older brother and his mother stayed back in the village, Tentenkhuuti in the Bolangir district of
Orissa.

This arrangement continued for several years as they would spend most of the year in the brick
kilns in Dindigal and during rainy season go back to their village for three months. This period
also coincides with festivals for village Gods and Goddesses. Therefore to spend more money on
the festivals, they would take advance from the contractors who hover around the villages that
time. These contractors know that it was around now that the villagers would have pressing needs
for more money. The money taken as advance would warrant that they have to return to the
brickiln at the end of the period of stay. The cycle is set in motion again.

In Agasti’s life too, the cycle repeatedly has come several full circles. The only change over a period
of several years is that he could dispense with the services of his younger brother as Agasti’s son
Dhina had grown up into a 10-year-old boy. With his nimble hands and feet quite ideal for clay
ball making and mixing work, he was taken to be a qualified member of the threesome insisted on
by the brickiln owner. Though their wage had now increased to 120 rupees, the advance taken also
shot up, thereby canceling out the advantages of marginally increased wage. With Dhina joining
them Agasti could take the team’s wage all by himself. But it did not improve their lives any better.

As the major portion of the money earned will be deducted for the advance collected, what will
ultimately reach their hands would be some 200-250/- rupees per week. With this money the
whole family has to survive the entire week. They cannot afford to eat nutritious food and have to
make do with poultry feed, low quality rice and rejected piece of meat in the chicken and mutton
stalls in the market.

Dhina has grown up accepting this as absolutely normal. He has not seen the other side of the
world. Hardly has he gone out of the brickiln area. The only other place he has gone is his village
back in Orissa. Before becoming a labourer joining his family team, he was staying in his father’s
elder brother’s house and also in the custody of Agasti’s mother. Though he attended the school
there, the constant movement between his uncle’s house and grandmother’s house affected his
studies. Thus, even at the age of 10, he was going to second standard!

After his grandmother’s death some three years back, Dhina had to grow in his uncle’s house. But
they themselves were struggling for survival; they could not care for him well. So, when Agasti
went to his village on one of his usual annual visits, he brought his son to the brickiln area to stay
with them. He knew very well that Dhina could act as the additional labourer they needed form
the trio.

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In the past three years Dhina is with his parents. His playmates are children from the same
community of brickiln workers. His playthings are brick and clay, as he is surrounded by it all
along. The ease with his he maneuvers his ways through the harsh paths filled with pits and sand
mounds, confirms his long period of stay amidst bricks and clay as well as his gradual absorption
into the ways of life there. He has no other distraction except attending a school run by an NGO,
but not fully. He returns form the school for lunch and does not return for the afternoon session.
Instead he starts assisting his father, who has got the clay and water mixed up already for his son
to come and tend it into malleable balls.

Agasti himself does not have great deal of enthusiasm for his son’s schooling. He believes that
even those who had gone up to eighth and tenth classes have not got any work and finally
returned to wage labour. Therefore he is remorseless about the fact that his son is not going to
school in the afternoon. He has no plans to send him to a school away from here – both resident
and non-resident. His reluctance is the result of the fact that he is very fond of his only son, and
wants to keep him at arms length. But yet, Agasti expects that the intelligence that would relieve
his son from the drudgery of brickiln work should come from the life and experiences lived
around here only. If it does not come, Agasti believe that Dhina may have to continue to engage in
work like this forever in his life.

On his part, Dhina is happy to be around his father. His parents care for him, though unable to
give him good food. Dhina does not seem to care for the emancipating intelligence his father
referring to, at least now. A life lived in the midst of bricks and clays may not produce a plurality
of experiences necessary to generate that liberating wisdom. Even the short break that the family
used to have in the form of visits back home in Orissa is not availed by Agasti these days since not
much money has been saved to spend back home. Also Agasti thinks that there is nothing back
home to do anything productive. This time he decided to stay back in the brick kilns and take up
clay collection work, normally done by local labourers during the rainy season, when the brickiln
workers have gone back to Orissa. This fetches him seventy rupees per day. His son and wife are
not wanted in this work. Only Agasti goes for this work.

This year, Dhina’s world without brick and clay is impossible, as his parents do not plan to go back
to Orissa. He cannot hope to have a day during which he would not wake up at the sight of bricks
and vast open spaces dotted with mounted bricks everywhere. This may repeat in the next year
too, as the debts seem to be mounting for Agasti and economic opportunities are becoming
virtually nil back home in Orissa.

Dhina’s world is becoming more monocoloured than before. It is homogenized and filled with
same sights and experiences of clay, red soil and brick. He may begin to spend more years of his
formative phase of his life in the midst of this monolith. In the overwhelming redness of clay, sand
and brick, he may never acquire that spectacular ‘intelligence’ Agasti believes would rescue his son
form poverty.

85
Love Thy Neighbour Like You Eat

Devi is very playful, as she rocks herself on a chair kept at her mother’s head end of the cot. She is
a five-year-old child of Anjaneyalu and Madhavi. Anjaneyalu is waiting outside the hospital
awaiting his wife’s operation for abortion to be over.

Devi is very fond of her mother and father, yet both of them keep her at a safe distance away from
them. They show their affection and love to her mostly by giving her clothes, sweets and carrying
her for a while on their laps. She grows in her maternal grandmother and aunt’s house. Though
she is approaching school going age, her parents could not spend time to think about it. They
cannot compel her poor aunt and grandmother, who reside in the pavements and live by rag
picking, to send her to school.

Both Anjaneyalu and Madhavi are very engrossed in attending to their own health problems, not
because they are selfish, but because they do not want others to be bothered, as their illness is
‘serious’. Medical definition characterizes them as AIDS patients.

It was just a week before we met Anajneyalu that Madhavi was diagnosed to have contracted
AIDS and she wept profusely on being told gently about it. In Anjaneyalu’s case, his knowledge
about his illness is as old as his wife’s pregnancy. Just around the time when he was falling ill at
regular intervals he went to the hospital for treatment where the test revealed his having
contracted HIV virus. His wife too had just conceived for the third time then. The unsuspecting
Anjaneyalu never thought that his wife too would have been affected by the same illness till few
social workers, who came to work among the pavement dwellers in the area, persuaded Madhavi
to undergo the test for herself. On confirmation of her disease Anjaneyalu’s guilt grew manifold, as
he was the cause for his wife’s impending death. But the way Anjaneyalu handles the guilt is
different now than perhaps some few months back.

Anjaneyalu was a complete wreck then. In the initial days after the diagnosis for his own illness
Anjaneyalu led a miserable life. But as days passed by he became more matured. He even changed
his name and religion to mark his divided life. This is exactly why Anjaneyalu believes he has two
lives: one when he was just Anjaneyalu and the other after he became Ashirvadham. When he was
‘Anjaneyalu with AIDS’, he could not think of having many sides of personality other than himself
as AIDS patient. He saw himself as the disease itself. He always regarded himself as the carrier of
the disease. Worse still, the associated doomsday predictions made him very angry with himself as
well as with others. He was not angry because he was going to live for less number of days than he
wished earlier, but because everybody reminded him of that fact. He was angry because suddenly
his life centered around only himself. The sudden breakdown of social life meant that he could not
go anywhere; that none came near him and; that his interpersonal relationship with others came to
a halt. These contributed to his anger more than the terminal character of the illness itself. During
that time everyone he met reminded him of only one thing - his imminent death. He says that they
had a look in the eyes, that said, “You are dying”. Even his parents and cousin brothers too became
distant carers only, as they kept him at a distance despite keeping him at home.

On Anjaneyalu’s part too, his fragmented understanding of the disease and the terrible alarm
generated about AIDS by others and what he heard in the media affected him so seriously that he
stopped eating properly and lived the early days as the most distraught man. His fever and
diarrhea joined his confusions about what the disease actually held for him. He lay bed-ridden and
could not eat and did not want to eat either. In those days it was his wife, Madhavi, who cared for
him and washed his soiled clothes and his body as he passed stools in the bed most of the time.
But soon she had to go away to her parents’ place as her pregnancy was advancing. Madhavi’s
parents lived in the pavements in Chaderghat area in Hyderabad.

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Left alone to be cared by the ageing parents and cousins who lived in the neighboring houses,
Anjaneyalu had spent the next month in the hospital after his diarrhea and fever became worse. In
fact Anjaneyalu states very ruefully that his cousin brothers and his parents had spent all the
money he had saved, and even sold some of the things that he had bought for his daughter Devi.
He had saved some 75, 000 rupees and bought many household items for his daughter’s marriage
in future. All these were lost on the medical expenses when Anjaneyalu was admitted to the
luxurious Nitin hospital for treatment. But after a month the doctors told them that Anjaneyalu
was in his second and terminal stage of his illness and could not be cured. But by the time every
thing that Anjaneyalu possessed had gone away from him. On being discharged from the hospital,
he could not resume his regular work with the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad where he
worked as garbage collector. He had to leave the house he had rented as a Municipality worker,
for he could not pay the rent any longer. His family returned to where it had begun few years back
– the pavements.

Life was horrible then in the streets. He had mostly negative emotions, for others - anger, hatred,
bitterness, revenge abounded in his mind. He reacted to them only with these emotions for their
exclusion of him from their social universe and also for their withdrawal of normal interactions for
him. He believed that he was incomplete because he was not living his full quota of life. It is being
usurped through AIDS. That is why he thought he would turn a ghost after his death (his belief
goes like this: only people who die prematurely would hover around this earth as ghost, till their
designated time for death arrives) and would take revenge of who refused to come near him.

All these thought process made him a dying person. He was not available as a human – as a person
who can love, relate to them humanly etc. And the fact that others were not available to him as a
human person, who can laugh and joke with him as much as cry with him, made him to enter into
his dying phase. That he could not get near his daughter as a loving father confirmed his non-
living status even more clearly. Added to this was the guilt and bitterness that he has contributed
to his wife’s illness too. In those pre-diagnosed days, he had transmitted the virus to his wife who
is also entering into the second phase of the illness.
II
Anjaneyalu hails from a village in Kurnool district in Andra Pradesh. His parents were agricultural
labourers who moved to Hyderabad when he was a baby of few months old. They did not have
any economic opportunity there. The family hoped to eke out a living in Hyderabad. They reached
Hyderabad and made a living out of rag picking, by occupying a portion of pavement already a
home of Anjaneyalu’s maternal uncle who had migrated much before.

His father was involved in rag picking and other odd jobs. Life went this way for the next 15 years.
Anjaneyalu had grown into an adolescent boy who never went to school and loitered around and
the area he lived all these days. He had friends among his co-habitants’ children. The only
apprentice or learning he received was in sorting out the garbage his father would collect, into
plastics and papers etc. With his apprenticeship he joined his father in collecting rag picking. A
few years into rag picking Anjaneyalu was given a cart by the municipal corporation of Hyderabad
to collect garbage from the middle and upper middle class neighbourhoods for which he was paid
15 Rupees from every household. These apart he also sold the garbage for 15 to 20 rupees
everyday.

This helped him to make enough money and become an eligible bachelor, who was married at the
age of 20 to a girl from his own village. The girl was just 15 years old when the marriage was
solemnized. Within a year they had a female child, Devi. Anjaneyalu, who loves children so much
was delighted beyond measure at his having his own child, and dreamt of caring her well and
giving her a secure and good life.

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He started saving money to buy a plot of land so that he could build a house. He purchased many
things like cooker, TV with remote, Cot etc. to give away to his daughter at the time of her
marriage. He wanted to send her to school and bring her up into an ‘educator’. The husband he
dreamt of for her was a government salaried person so that he would provide her a secure life.

He worked hard during the days his wife was away in her parents’ house for her first delivery. He
spent a lot of time thinking of how he would provide his daughter. He would join his friends and
share his dreams with them. Anjaneyalu says that since he was very young and could not control
his sexual urge, he used to visit sex workers along with his friends. He now recalls that this could
have been the cause for his carrying the virus in him now. A few months later, Anjaneyalu’s wife
and daughter returned and he used to spend a lot of time with his daughter. In a period of
following the next two years, the couple had another girl baby and it died within two months.

It was around the time when his daughter was four years old, Anjaneyalu started falling ill very
often. Sometimes his running stomach would not stop for many days together and during those
days when he was bed-ridden, it was his wife who used to take care of him well. Though he
recovered a bit, the exhaustion stayed with him. He grew very thin and wiry. He used to take
tablets purchased across the Drug stores’ counter. His fever and diarrhea would stop for a while
only to return few days later. Finally when it was recurring at regular intervals they took him to
the hospital. In the medical diagnosis it was confirmed that Anjaneyalu had tested positive for
HIV. He became a complete wreck afterwards.

III
Even as he was fighting his own guilt, bitterness, anger and personal self-worthlessenss, he met
with few evangelists who asked him to attend a prayer session. When he went there they
conducted an exclusive prayer for him assuring him that it was not his fault that he has got AIDS.
They egged him on to live hopefully and to pray. This impressed him so much. For the first time
he met some one who told him that he could live even if only few years are left and gave him lots
of courage to expect miracles in life if he lives his life loving and helping others. Anjaneyalu says
that he just needed some hope like this and it did not matter where it comes from. He seized upon
this solid promise, and to tell himself and others that he is leading a life with renewed vigour he
even changed his name into Ashirvadham.

And just as he became hopeful he also started meeting more people who gave him hope and
courage to live his life meaningfully. He says that he discovered more hope-givers as he started to
move around and meet more people than he did when he was bed-ridden. One such person was
Nalini who even offered her car whenever Ashirvadham needed to move around to hospitals and
prayer meetings. Though Ashivadham hardly used her car, he always knew that the promise from
her was real. Nalini also gave him the confidence to look at life more purposefully and live it
intensely.

The regaining of the strength in Anjaneyalu has brought him to take care of his wife and now he
spends a lot of time with his wife, as she awaits her operation for terminating pregnancy in the
maternity hospital. He told that it was his fault that is bothering his wife too.

Though both love children a lot, and though they hoped for a boy after the female child they had
to agree to terminate the pregnancy into its six months, to prevent the child from becoming an
AIDS patient from its birth, if not even before it. They have already seen what it means to be an
AIDS patient.

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Recently Anjaneyalu has adopted a boy, who was abandoned in the hospital where he had gone
for usual check-up. He frequently tired to find out whose child it was, but to no avail. Fond as he
was for babies always, he had taken him along and entrusted him to his parents to bring him up
till somebody comes and asks for him. If nobody comes, he will ensure that he grows in his house
in the custody of his mother, till a point at which Anjaneyalu lives and hands over the garbage
collecting cart, that stands unused, to the boy to make enough money. He knew how profitable it
was for him to work as garbage collector.

Now Anjaneyalu thinks least of his death. He is only thinking of his life and living. He has gained
in confidence and eats well. He has even gained 7 kilos from a wiry body to some flesh added to
him. He even flexed his muscles to me and showed his biceps. He has stopped thinking about his
death. He says that if some one thinks of him as AIDS patient and avoids him it is their problem.
He would continue to be affectionate to them as revengefully, as he eats these days.

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A Blunder to One but Crime to Many!

Shoba, a 22 years old, good looking and smart woman, was often caught looking vacuously into
the ceilings of the vigilance home where she has been lodged for the past six weeks. But it was only
during the early days of her stay there during which she had befriended few and often kept her
aloof from other. All these early days she regarded herself as distinct from others who might have
had every reason to be there. But she had been trying very hard to reconcile to the fact that has
been locked up here for a fault that looked less offensive when compared to that of most of her
fellow inmates.

With a stridently strong sense of self-righteousness Shoba assessed her stay in this wretched
vigilance home as totally unwarranted – firstly because, in comparison to many there in the home
she has a shortest history of involvement in sexwork; secondly it was purely with the noble
intention of helping her ever-struggling parents to live comfortably that she had entered into this
profession. She told that her parents have struggled all their lives to live and lead a life like their
siblings who lead a luxurious life with all the wealth taken off from her father. Her father is an
auto driver- even the auto is not his own and he has to pay a rent of Rs.200/- every day.

But once she started to get friendly with others and gradually found her own companions with
whom she had exchanged lifestories, she began to realize two things. First every one there felt as
self righteous about their engagement in sexwork as Shoba had felt. Invariably in all their cases too
there was just and genuine intention of fulfilling the essential needs of their family members be it
parents or children that drove them into sexwork. Second, like Shoba they also thought that their
crime was more pardonable that that of their inmates.

While these revelations dented her deep sense of self righteousness, it had also exorcised the ghost
of self-pity in her. Yet Shoba was not very clear whether she was satisfied with her findings. She
was overcome by mixture of sadness and contentment – sad, for her sudden discovery that she
was in common with the others inmates from whom she had secretly desired to distinguish
herself; contentment, for these community of sufferers there made light of her own thin judgment
that attributed some degree of criminality to her choosing sexwork as the only way out.

Shoba is first in line in the family. Of her three younger brothers, second brother is no more. Her
first brother, aged 20 years is married and lives separately as his wife is a problem creator. Her
third brother helps the contractor in construction work. Shoba has studied upto VII standard in
Telugu Medium School at Guntur and had to drop out from the school due to her mother’s illness.
Her mother was mentally disturbed when she saw her neighbour’s dead body hanging from the
ceiling after she committed suicide by hanging. Her second brother, who was then one year old,
also fell sick as he too saw the incidence along with his mother. In a week’s time he passed away.

Shoba, being the first in the family and moreover being a female, was burdened with the
responsibility of managing the family by taking the mantle from her mother. She had to do the
household chores and take care of her mother and brothers. However her mother became alright
when she gave birth to her fourth and last child, a boy, who is now aged 17 years and works in the
construction line.

Coming from an orthodox Hindu-Naidu family at Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, she got married when
she was 20 years old. Her husband, Kumar who was 23 years at the time of marriage was looking
after the farms of his family. But the married life did not offer any relief to Shoba from the
hardship she had faced in the family of her birth. She hardly lived with Kumar for 6 months after
that she was separated. She says in a depressed tone, “No girl should suffer like me; I had
undergone all the torture that no body would have faced in life”. The trauma and torture began

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from the first week of her marriage life. With tears in her eyes, she said that she had her
menstruation period on the day of her marriage. Therefore their first night was arranged after a
week. She says even on the first night they did not have the relationship that the newly married
couple should have had. Her husband had come into the room heavily drunk. So she ran out of the
room and slept along with her relatives. Then her father, mother, uncle and aunty all searched for
her and found her next to another aunt. Later her aunt counseled her and advised her not to leave
the room till morning as it would lead to suspicion that the marriage was arranged without her
consent. And if there were any problems on that then it would reflect on her parents. So keeping
all this in mind Shoba went into the room but slept separately. It was two days later they had the
sexual relationship. As he consumed alcohol every day, she hated to have sexual relationship with
him. Later she complained her parents about her husband. Her co-sisters counseled her saying she
should ignore such things and should not complain about her husband to others and whatever it
is, it should be kept within four walls.

By the time they could understand each other it was the ‘Adi’ month (which is said in Tamil which
falls between July and August, where new couples are separated by means of taking the girl to her
mother’s place) and Shoba too was taken to her mother’s place. By the time this was over she had
typhoid and her parents refused to send her to her in laws place. Kumar, her husband aged 24
years old repeatedly asked Shoba’s Parents to send her with him but they feared if they have
sexual relationship during typhoid it would kill Shoba and so parents did not send her with him.
This irritated Kumar and he asked them to retain Shoba with her parents. After all this, when she
went back to her in -laws place he did not accept her. He was drunk and beat her every day. Once
he even tried to hang her in the fan. Despite all the torture he gave her she lived with him. As
days passed she came to know that he had an affair with a girl in the same village. So she hated
him first for being a drunkard, secondly for harassing her and finally for having an extra affair. So
she did not like to live with him and informed her parents to take her back. Her parents and elders
in the village tried to counsel them and unit them but as both shoba and her husband did not bend
to it, the village panchayat was called where the couple where also present, the panchayat
president asked the young couple whether they liked to live together, Shoba refused and said ‘I
don’t like to live with him’ so the panchayat decided and separated them.

After her divorce in 2001, Shoba lived with her parents at Guntur. As her parents were all the time
worried about Shoba she thought she should engage herself to get ride of her worries. She took up
a job in a soap company where she was earning about Rs. 800/-. She says, “being born as a girl is a
curse, she is treated as tool to satisfy the sexual thirst of every body “. Because, at the soap
company, the manager tried to exploit her sexually, as she did not bend to his need, she was asked
to leave the job. She did not inform her parents about the problem.

As she was skilled in tailoring and embriodary, she did tailoring and chamkki work from home,
but that did not fetch her much income. Hence she had to search for a job again. She succeeded
and got job in a plastic company where she was posted in the damage department to clear the
damage goods. At this juncture, she compares her life with the work she was doing and says, “like
my work, my life was also damaged there, owner’s son wanted me to satisfy his sexual thirst.
Since, I was unlikely towards all such misbehaviors, she left the job immediately.

Meanwhile her parents were keen to get her married again. But she did not like to remarry and
undergo the trauma that she had experienced earlier. Despite her unlikely ness towards marriage,
her parents were looking out for a match. As the proposals came thru, they demanded high dowry
which her family was not in a position to bear it. So her parents were depressed and wanted her to
get married some how. In order to reduce the burden of her parents Shoba decided to earn for her
marriage. As the work she was doing earlier did not fetch her good income, she decided to contact
a person who was earlier working in the soap company and now into sex work. As she contacted

91
her, Shoba was told about the contract at Bangalore. In the mid of 2002, Shoba left for Bangalore
knowing the type of job she would be doing. This was the first time that she got into sex work. She
thought her parents would not know doing such work in some other place and so informed them
that she was going to work at Bangalore as sales girl in a leading show room which will pay her
more.

The madam took her to Bangalore and introduced her to the Hotel owner and soon she left. Shoba
then stayed their for three days. That was enough for her, as she could not cope up with the
demands of the hotel owner who was all the time in romantic moods. She says, “I did not like to
live like that because I would have hardly allowed my husband to touch me but due to the
situation I agreed still I could not digest doing such work”. She had engaged three clients on the
three days and all the three were alcoholics and behaved very graceless to her. “The contractors
take more money and pay us very less. We go for such shameful work to earn but they earn at our
cost” says Shoba in a dejected tone. So, she left the place in 3 days taking home Rs. 4,000/-.

After she reached back home, she was sick with typhoid fever. So she had to rest. Three months
later, she faced the same situation at home. Her mother cried all the time looking at her as they
were not able to get her married again because they were unable to give the dowry. Moreover the
talks by the relatives and neighbors troubled her parents very much to get her daughter married
but they had no money. To come out of this situation she again returned to sex work though she
did not like, she thought she should keep away her likes and dislikes and this time her only aim
was to earn more money. So through the phone number given to her by the Madam she contacted
a person in Chennai who asked her to come over for the work. She reached Chennai on the 21 st of
February 2003 by train. As she called the owner from the railway station, he had directed her to
come over to the AVM studio at Vadapalani and said that the car with a particular number would
come to pick her up. As she waited at the gates of AVM studio the car with the said number
arrived and she got into the car. She was then taken to the house where she found a women
named geetha who was also from the same place. Geetha had come a few hours before Shoba
reached the house. They had time to take bath and have their lunch. At that time they heard the
calling bell, as they opened the door, five men with thick mush entered the house and pulled the
two women, Shoba and Geetha by the shawls, they were wearing, the cook and the driver were
dragged out of the house and took them to the Anti Vice Squad (AVS) station.

The policemen had used big lathies on them. Though Shoba and Geetha were also beaten she
feels pity on the driver who was dragged from the jeep to the station asking him to give the where
abouts of the owner. The policemen abused them for doing such work and have even kicked
Shoba’s friend , when she raised her voice against beating them. One could read the aversion
towards police that Shoba has created from this incidence. Shoba says raid is a sort of step taken
by the government to arrest people who do wrong. But the police takes the law in their hands and
exploit the situation. They do not differentiate between the prostitute and the women who are not
in this occupation. On suspicion they arrest even the innocent women too. They do not conduct
any thorough enquiry before putting the women in the vigilance home. Shoba was cursing the
police when she heard from the other inmates that how police tried to violate their Rights. She
even had some questions like, “Do police have the Right to beat us? What right do they have to
expose us to the public, giving us a trademark? If we are punished for doing sex work for our daily
life where should these police men be sent and what punishment do the Government has for such
men who misuse their powers? If they catch us to correct us, are they doing right by exploiting
us?”

Shoba was taken to the Vigilance home on the 21 st February by 9.00pm. As the court does not
function on Saturdays, she was taken to the Magistrate’s residence, where the Magistrate did not
even meet the cases but on enquiry with the policemen, she had given them the remand for 15

92
days. So Shoba is very much annoyed with the whole process of raid. She says not only the police
even the law enforcers take people for granted. Shoba is kept in remand at the Vigilance home in
Chennai from 22 nd February, she has to report at the court on the 7th March . All her worry is who
would take her on bail? How will she come out? She is more depressed that her parents should
not come to know about the whole incidence at Chennai as they would die if they hear about her
daughter being involved in sex work. She says, ‘my life has come to an end now. Even if I want to
lead a fresh life and do some socially recognized work, will the society let me do it, because my
photograph is published in the Newspapers’. Shoba speaks in a dejected voice the Media too takes
advantage of the situation and exposes the cases by publishing the photographs and also using
taunting language.

She shares in an annoyed tone, “when there are people who do it for pleasure, why should the
police harass and exploit poor people who do it for their livelihood. “Especially people like me,
how long can I be dependent on my parents, I entered into this work mainly to earn for my parents
and see them living happily with no problem for money, as they had struggled very hard to bring
us up. I wanted them to lea d a wealthy life who love me so much. Due to the exploitation in the
work spots and lack of choice to earn more, women like me become the victims of sex work”

At the remand home, every inmate is given a uniform -two sarees and two blouses, which looks
very old . They are given a piece of Lifebuoy Soap for bathing and a piece of Rin soap for washing
which is common to all the inmates. They get hard water at the corridor of the dormitory where
the inmates are engaged to fill up the tanks at the bath rooms. She says, she is feeling sick of eating
the food provided at the home. She was suffering from loose motions and stomach pain. The
nurse of the home gave her tablets which kept her better. The inmates at this home had no
recreation facilities at all. All the inmates are put in one common hall irrespective of the number.
The hall has a common toilet attached to it where there is no water connection. The inmates are
asked to fill up the drums kept in the toilet by fetching water from the corridor of the hall. They
are locked up all the time except during breakfast, lunch and dinner. Shoba and the other inmates
are allowed to come out to the dinning hall during breakfast, lunch and dinner. They get kanchi as
breakfast, white rice, some vegetable poria l and sambar and butter milk in lunch and white rice,
some porial, sambar and rasam in the night. Once in a week, they are given egg in the afternoons.
The inmates long for visitors as that would be a chance for them to come out of the room. The
visitors, are the students of the city colleges who visit the home as part of their studies in some
discipline. No personal visitors are allowed at the home. Shoba did not experience any abuse in
the home but she was disturbed by the way the Caretaker calls the inmates. The caretaker can use
the names to call people by names rather than calling them as ‘aee’. She adds more about the
particular Caretaker that she treats the inmates as slaves. She enjoys night shifts as she checks the
inmates she seizes some of the things like the gold rings, ear rings or even money. She even
demands the inmates to wash her clothes. This happens without the knowledge of the
Superintendent whereas the inmates are scared to approach the superintendent without the
permission of the Caretaker. No counseling is given at the remand home. The Social Worker or
the Researcher of this study was the first person to talk to her where Shoba was given the
opportunity to ventilate her feelings.

Even after the 15 days of remand, Shoba was not exposed to rehabilitation at the home. As of her
she had not consumed any drugs nor has the habit of smoking. She has not conceived so far and
justifies saying Bangalore was the only experience of sex work and she hardly had intercourse with
three clients she met. And in Chennai she was caught by the police a few hours of her arrival itself.
She feels proud that she had no major health complaints so far in her life.

As Shoba was taken to the Magistrate on the 15 th day of remand, She says, the Magistrate hardly
looke

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On the Tender Shoulders

Subbu grew restless around 8 O’ clock in the evening, even as he was trying to answer the
questions posed by us from 7 PM onwards. He was sitting nervously to begin with, but grew
friendlier as we continued to speak with him. Seated comfortably on the floor beneath the foot
overbridge in the Secundrabad railway station where many families of the homeless people had
taken refuge on a rainy day, Subbu was answering our questions. His mother along with his
youngest sister, Nagarani, had taken shelter there too.

Subbu looked visibly excited, though slightly confused, to converse with us. Perhaps because of
the comfort of his mother’s presence he looked secure. Soon his elder brother Sekar joined us,
making Subbu feel even more comfortable. If one happens to see Sekar somewhere else other than
amidst this community of homeless people, it would have been difficult to identify him with one
among the homeless. Sekar, aged 12 likes to appear very neat. He hates being dirty and detests
being surrounded by filth and dirt. Yet his wishes remain only as wishes as his family continues to
live in pavements and railway stations’ platforms. Filth and dirt surround and follow them
everywhere they go.

Subbu, just about 6years old, in contrast does not look neat and cares least about being so. He
cannot afford to look neat, for it would affect the whole family’s survival. It is because of the food
collected by Subbu through his acts of begging in the nearby slums that the family could afford to
have two square meals everyday. If he appears neat he may not get food from the sympathizing
households he collects his food from.

Their mother Shoba, aged 35 years but looks in her forties, goes about picking rags in the daytime
leaving the one-year old girl baby in the custody of her husband, who is more of a companion than
a husband. He does not go for any work as he has lost the functionality of the right hand. It
happened when he was badly beaten by a group of pavement dwellers like him for he tried to steal
the rags they had collected for selling it in the morning. Since then, he stopped going for any kind
of work and nowadays lives off the money earned by his wife and the elder son Sekar. However
this is for drinking purpose only. For the food he depends entirely on Subbu.

Sekar does not like his father for all the trouble he creates for the family. In fact, he is not the
biological father of Sekar. Their mutual hatred may be because of this. Sekar though fond of his
younger brother Subbu yet dislikes him whenever he takes sides with his father. Subbu and
Nagarani were born to him, whereas Sekar was born to the first husband of Shoba.

Shoba herself was a runaway child when she left her home in anger at her father’s scolding and
beating her for a small fault she had committed back in the village. She was fifteen then. She
reached the Hyderabad railway station and met a rickshaw puller whom she married after few
months. He was from a nearby village and hailed from a different caste. So his marriage with
Shoba irked his family members. His elder brother came to Hyderabad and persuaded him to give
up on Shoba and return to the village. But he persisted with his plan to continue to live with Shoba
and took her to his village hoping to convince his relatives and village elders. But he could not
succeed and lived away from the families in the villages. After four months he returned to
Hyderabad to work as a rickshaw puller once again, leaving Shoba back in the village. There he
developed an affair with another women and eventually married her.

The fact that he stopped sending money to Shoba, brought Shoba also to Hyderabad where she
came to know of his marriage with another woman. However hard she tried to convince her
husband to come away from this marriage, he refused to budge. Instead he asked Shoba to live
with the second wife in the same house in Hyderabad. Shoba was carrying this time and agreed to

94
this arrangement. After delivering Sekar she realized that she could not adjust with the second
wife of her husband. There were several quarrels between them and she decided to leave the
house. She went to Warangal and worked as a construction laborer. There she was advised by an
old man, who offered protection in the early days, to have a male companion to avoid trouble form
the anti-social elements. He even found a person who was working as a carpenter.

He too was willing to accept Shoba with her child, Sekar, and they began to live together in the
pavements of the Warangal city. But soon they found the going tough there and decided to
migrate to Hyderabad for better work opportunities. But Hyderabad offered grimmer hopes than
Warangal and they settled down in the platforms of Bogiguda near Secundrabad railway station.
The only work they could get was rag picking, which both Shoba and her companion did together
earning some 25 rupees everyday. However her companion’s drinking habits only got worsened
after their arrival in Hyderabad. All the money they had earned was squandered on drinking by
him. If Shoba refused to part with her share of money earned by rag picking, he would often beat
her and forcefully take the money away.

As life was an utter struggle all these days, Subbu and Nagarani were born to Shoba out of the
relationship with her companion and Sekar too grew up. Shoba’s companion in the mean time
stopped going for his rag picking work as he started depending entirely on Shoba is work. His
earning through carpentry skills, which he got to do very sporadically, came to virtually nothing
when he lost the functionality of his right hand. Shoba too could not go to work on a regular basis
as she had weak body that fell ill very often. Sekar, who never went to school, was assisting her
mother in rag picking work. On those days when she could not go for rag picking work he would
take up the work. The time at which he would give the money to his mother would generate lot of
quarrels between his mother and her companion. Try as she might to keep the money for herself
and for feeding the children, her companion would always succeed in forcefully taking the money
away from Shoba. Sekar could not bear to hear the filthy abuses hurled at each other as they fought
to keep possession of the money. Nor could he bear to see the bruises his mother would sustain as
a result of the fight between them. Sekar himself often took recourse to drinking, sniffing glue or
going to watch movies in the late night to avoid being witness to the scene created by them.

When the solidarity between Sekar and Shoba grew stronger and they started resisting the
pressure created by the companion of Shoba, he took Subbu and Nagarani away and pressed them
into begging in the railway stations. Subbu being a very small boy with his innocent looks fetched
him enough money and food to his father. He spent the money earned by Subbu for drinking after
feeding them with the food brought by Subbu. He himself went about begging with Nagarani in
his arms. Since she was a small baby, he could elicit the sympathy of the traveling public.

After sufficiently punishing Shoba who would grow frantic at having lost her younger son and
daughter, Shoba’s companion would return to Shoba only after extracting from her the promise
that she would part with sufficient money for his drinks. She would agree to it for the fear of
missing her children again. But Shoba’s own frequent ill health and Sekar’s fierce reluctance to part
with the money to his social father would often result in him taking Subbu and Nagarani away.

Over a period of time in the midst of all these drama, Subbu became a skillful person in the act of
begging. The fact that his father very often pressed him into begging both at the railway station
area as well as in the nearby residential locality including a slum, made him a habitual beggar.
Thus even on those days when Subbu is returned to Shoba by her companion after his sojourn
away from her, Subbu would volunteer to repeat his begging acts in the residential area near the
pavements they stayed. Shoba’s non-cooperating health and Sekar’s increasing resistance to take
part in the ragpicking work, as he was averse to looking dirty and shabby, forced the family to
silently endorse Subbu’s instinctual enthusiasm for begging. Subbu also brought enough for the

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family to feed in the morning and night. Shoba told that in those days when Subbu would have
been whisked away by his father in protest against her refusal or inability to give him money for
drinking, she herself would venture into begging in the same areas where Subbu goes for begging.
But invariably she would get only very little food – just enough to feed Sekar.

Over a period of time it so happened that the whole family started becoming dependent on Subbu
who at this tender age carries the family single-handedly. It is thanks to the food he brings through
his begging that the family of five members survive. He is unfailingly regular in his begging
responsibilities. Every day he starts at 8 O’ clock in the morning and goes about collecting the food,
mostly leftovers, and returns around 10 am to the awaiting family. What he brings will be eaten as
the brunch as rarely there will be any thing left for lunch. Then again Subbu will resume his work
only in the night at 8 O’ clock and return at 10 pm. This will suffice the family’s needs for night
meals.

Subbu has become very important for the family, so much so there is an intriguing and silent
competition going on in the family between the mother and the father in keeping possession of
him. His innocent and instantly sympathy evoking face has made him a prized possession, as it
were. Subbu’s begging forays now fulfill everybody’s personal ambitions. Subbu’s father manages
to get his money for drinking, Shoba could get enough to feed her children out of the food items
Subbu collects and Sekar himself could refrain from the ragpicking work and afford to appear neat
and tidy.

In the recent past Sekar has totally stopped going for his rag picking work. As a matter of fact
Sekar’s love for neatness never permitted him to be full-fledged ragpicker. Even in those days
when he was engaged in full time ragpicking Sekar, instead of dabbling with garbage, was lifting
some one’s sackful of rags or steal silver wares as they were being unloaded from the lorries in the
late nights. After getting thoroughly beaten by the police when caught stealing the silver ware,
Sekar completely left ragpicking work. He switched over to some sort of nocturnal work. In the
nights he started collecting empty whiskey and beer bottles, as the liquor-drinking auto drivers
and others would throw them away after drinking in the open grounds and other spots they
gather in the nights. This ensured that everyday he gets at least 10 to 15 rupees. He keeps five
rupees for himself and gives the rest to his mother.

With that five rupees he plays videogames in the nearby area during the daytime. Since the
videogame shop owner does not accept nor the children who come there treat very kindly those
persons with dirty looks and dresses, Sekar has to dress up decently. He aspires to live his future
free from dirt, filth and squalor. But at the moment the contribution from Subbu keeps things
moving.

It was just past 8 pm when we were talking to Shoba’s family. Even as we were enthusiastically
proceeding with more questions, Subbu was getting restless and was looking at his mother and
brother. Once getting the green signal from his mother who beckoned him to proceed from the
corner of her eyes, Subbu started to move away from us. Soon he emerged with two plastic cans
held precariously in both his armpits and started proceeding towards the slum area.

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Sagita

14 years old Sagita used to walk untiringly to meet her mother Juleka in the women prison almost
every two days. On those days when she was not going to meet her mother, she would walk to
meet a group of social workers in their office. There she would meet with any one who promised
to help her in bringing her mother out on bail. She would stay in the office premises from morning
to evening to convey her stubborn seriousness and concern for her mother’s release from the
prison. Her grandmother too would join her in her efforts. They both would readily respond to
each other’s suggestion of walking some 6 Kms to the office where these well-wishing social
workers worked. They could not afford the bus fare as the only breadwinner of the family was
inside the prison.

Sagita does not have her father. He left the family some four years back. In fact very frequently he
used to disappear for some time, only to surface again. But when he went away from home last
time, that was for long four years and the family had lost hope of his return. Sagita had got used to
the intermittent presence or absence of her father and did not grow profoundly fond of him. That
is why her father’s disappearance from home for the last four year least occupied her mind. It was
her mother who is very important for her. She hardly had a day spent without her mother around
her.

When Juleka was arrested on charges of murdering her own father and sent to jail, Sagita took it
upon herself the task of seeing her mother out. The moment she learned from a social worker that
her mother could be out on bail if efforts were made to move a petition to that effect, to provide
surety and to pay the bail amount, Sagita was relentlessly pursuing for her mother’s bail. Her
grandmother was her only ally. She never even gave a thought to the difference her father’s
presence would have made, for good or bad reasons.

Living in a dilapidated, makeshift house made of asbestos walls and thatched roofs, on the banks
of Musi River, Sagita had no security and happiness in the house. In the days immediately after
her Juleka’s arrest she was so distressed and heartbroken that she hardly came out of the house.
She was a very good student and always came on top with her sharp brilliance. Yet she had to
drop out of the school, as she became irregular to the school due to her continuous engagement in
seeing her mother out. The school did not like her irregular attendance.

Her mother was her only hope and she missed her deeply. She would walk up to the prison to
meet her mother every day. When she meets her in the visitors corridor across the grills, Sagita
would have to take extra effort to actually communicate her feelings to her mother, separated by
one foot gap and filled with bustling voices of other visitors who would competitively shout over
the others’ voice. Sagita always had to depend on the intense days of togetherness with her
mother, during which Juleka learnt to understand each and every utterance made by Sagita, whose
cleft palate problem disabled her from speaking properly and clearly. In the visitors’ corridor too,
it was this deep bonding that had enabled both to communicate with each other despite other
visitors’ voices shouting down Sagita’s voice easily.

After many months of relentless walk to the prison and social workers office, Sagita is now a
happy person as her mother is out and lives with her. She hopes to resume her studies, though she
had dropped out from the earlier school. She knows that her mother is yet to cross some more
hurdles in the form of long trials. However, she is still hopeful that everything will be alright. Her
conviction flows from her faith in God, very curiously not only what just Islam taught her to
believe. Sagita visits mosques, churches and temples, though a Muslim by birth. She is sure that
the combined blessings of these three religions would end every thing positively. At least for now

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she is a thoroughly delighted person as she can sleep beside the assuring and comforting presence
of her mother.

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A Doctor Turned Schoolteacher

Sarala decided to run away from the resident school she had been admitted only a few months
ago. She was in a hurry to leave the school before her mother came to meet her in the school on her
usual monthly visit. On her last visit Sarala’s mother had talked about the marriage of Sarala and
promised to return the next time to take her away from the school back to her village where she
would be married to one of their caste men. Sarala did not like it wee bit. She was only 14 years old
then and detested marriage deeply. The thought of marriage generated terrible anxiety and dread
in her.

In Sarala’s case her ignorance is definitely not the source of her anguish about the marriage. It is
instead her clear awareness about terrible consequences that her mother’s marriage first to Sarala’s
biological father and then, on his death, to the stepfather had caused in the personal life of Sarala.

Sarala was a small child of three years old when her father died of tuberculosis. He was mentally
unstable and behaved as if he suffered from serious amnesia. There were many occasions during
which he would sit quietly staring motionlessly at nothing for long hours. Though scarcely did he
go for work, even on those rare occasions when he went for work he would return without
collecting his wage or would lose it somewhere if he collected it.

Yet Sarala remembers him very fondly, for he would carry her on his shoulders around the place
where they lived, and buy her candies. Theirs was a community involved in basket making and
always lived under the trees and other places that offered shade and shelter. With her father not
contributing financially it was their traditional occupation of basket making out of bamboo cane
that kept the family going. Her mother was involved in it mostly. They were very poor and could
not afford medical treatment to her father. Moreover they believed that it was due to black magic
invoked by some grudging relatives that he was ill. Progressively, her father’s health was
deteriorating and his mental derangement too was worsening, resulting in his death when Sarala
was just three years old.

Though Sarala’s mother continued to engage in basket making and took care of Sarala well, the
community people persuaded her to agree for the marriage with a man from the neighboring
village as they believed that a young woman with a child could not hope to live alone and safely.
They argued that since she was living under the tree and it was unsafe for a young woman, the
only protection possible was that which only the husband would offer. The additional compulsion
that she also had to migrate throughout the year in search of people who could purchase her cane
wares also became a good excuse for the community members to pester her for remarriage.
Sarala’s mother was a confident woman, yet she succumbed to the community members’ repeated
persuasions and remarried when Sarala was just three and half years old.

This was the point from which the travails of Sarala began in full intensity. The stepfather did not
show any amount of affection for her, instead he wanted her to be sent out to some other place.
Sarala says, “My mother was totally brainwashed by my step father and he had even bewitched
her through some black magic. That was why my mother simply obeyed his orders and danced to
his tune to the extent of chasing me away from the family”. At the age of four Sarala was sent to
her biological father’s elder brother’s house. In fact they were reasonably kind to her there. They
had even admitted her to a school in the village when she was five years old. Nevertheless, Sarala
missed her mother a lot. She would often return to her mother and after few months will be
unceremoniously sent away by her mother again to her Uncle’s place, at the instance of her
stepfather. In those few months when Sarala would join her mother she would go to various
places. Combined with rejection in her own home and not enjoying her life very much in her
uncle’s house, Sarala started to continuously shuttle from one place to another. And she had not

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progressed beyond her third class in whichever school admitted – both by her mother when she
was moving to new places and by her uncle when she returned to live with them. Since every time
she was admitted to the new school she had to start all over again in the same class she was
withdrawn from in the previous school.

In those days when Sarala stayed in her uncle’s place, she always longed for her mother. When she
persisted with the demand of meeting her mother, her uncle would take and drop her there. On
going there Sarala did her best to become acceptable to her stepfather by doing household chores
efficiently and swiftly and weaving baskets, despite her deformed hands that have got fewer
fingers in each. But he disliked her as ever and compelled her mother to send her away. Her
mother sent her to her uncle’s place again. Not wanting to go to her uncle’s house Sarala decided
to go to the village schoolteacher’s house. Sarala remembers her teacher very fondly. She used to
be kind to her and advised her to study well. When she approached her teacher and told her that
she was tired of shuttling between her own family and that of her uncle, the teacher enrolled her in
a school that had the hostel so she could stay there for full time.

Though happy to be there, within a month or so Sarala fell ill with typhoid and the school teachers
had sent her to her village. Sarala preferred to go her mother’s place when escorted by a school
volunteer. But on reaching the village she was informed that her mother and stepfather had left the
village for an unknown place since they had accumulated heavy debt and fled the village fearing
harassment from the moneylender. Sarala had no option but to go to her uncle’s place. However
soon after few days her mother had heard about Sarala’s illness and reached her uncle’s place. She
took Sarala from there to her place in another village. After recovery Sarala lived with her mother
for the next few years without going to school and in the midst of unkind stepfather and confused
mother who had more loyalty for her husband than for her daughter. Sarala led a nomadic life
during this phase of her life inhabiting in places under tree and platforms. All these days she
assisted her mother in basket making and household works.

It is in one of those days that a volunteer in Nandiyal town noticed her in their usual places under
tree and convinced her mother to enroll her in the bridge course school there. The bridge course is
meant for children who are school dropouts. Once passing specified examination they could be
mainstreamed in formal schools. Sarala was happy to go there as she too missed going to school.
The last time she went to school was when she was eight years old. She dropped out when she was
in her third standard. Six years had passed by then. Her mother did not mind though she was
interested in marrying her off than sending her to school. But the pressure by her husband to send
Sarala away was always there; therefore she agreed to enroll her in the school. She thought, at least
the school can keep her daughter in custody till she finds a suitable boy for Sarala.

Within few months after Sarala joined the bridge school, her mother came in one of her monthly
visits and informed that she had found a boy for her and would withdraw her from the school
when visiting her next time. Sarala was very worried. Just as she was beginning to enjoy her school
life again and make friends with girls there, this dreadful thing called marriage was going to
happen. She knew what her mother’s second marriage had done to her. She was tossed from one
place to another only because of her mother’s second marriage. She could never have a sense of
home only because her mother could not care for her daughter, as she had to serve her husband all
the time. Sarala strongly believes even now that if only her mother had not married after her
father’s death, she would have been spared of the troubles and tribulations she had been subjected
to. It is because of this intense hatred for marriage that she decided to run away from the school
before her mother came for her next monthly visit.

In one of those moments when the school authorities were little relaxed she slipped out of the
school and went to the railway station in Nandiyal. She took the train to Kacheguda railway

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station in Hyderabad. Instantly on reaching the station she approached the police booth in the
platform, since she had heard of the dangers a woman had to face in the big cities like Hyderabad
from her mother’s sister who had taken to sexwork and used to visit Hyderabad very often. The
police had been duly sensitized by the local NGOs working on Street and runaway children. They
immediately handed her over to the volunteers from one of those NGOs.

When the volunteers were counseling her about the need to be educated and part of the parental
family, she told them that she did not have parents. They did not probe any further as they
thought that she would take time to open up and disclose the true story. When the volunteers
discussing the importance of education with Sarala, they were surprised by the choice of words
that Sarala was using. She used terms such as “motivation” and “leadership” and
“mainstreaming” in her conversation, largely as a consequence of her previous experiences with
bridge course schools. The volunteers later admitted her to another bridge course school in
Dindigal.

For the past one year she has been enjoying her stay there in that school. But her mother has not
visited her throughout the period, perhaps because she has no clue about where her daughter is
living now. The last time when every one was going to their homes for vacations Sarala decided to
go to her uncle’s home. In spite of the hard work the uncle’s family had forced her to do, Sarala
remembers her uncle’s family every now and then. Her uncle who is a railway employee had
managed to educate his children well. It is from their family she takes inspiration to stay on in
schools and become a schoolteacher when she grows up. In fact she wanted to become a doctor
initially but having seen her own cousin with all the privileges failing to become a doctor she has
decided to change her aspiration. It was in her last visit to her uncle’s house that she heard about
her mother having become a beggar after having been abandoned by her stepfather and after
failing to pay back the mounting debt.

Sarala still believes she it was her mother’s marriage to her stepfather that caused all sorts of
problem to all, including her mother. Though the death of her biological father was a big loss for
Sarala personally, she and her mother were coping with it well and the memories of their
togetherness still linger in her mind. She thinks that her mother is essentially a kind person. It was
only because of her stepfather and the mesmerizing black-magical tactics that took her away. It is
with that memory still fresh in her mind Sarala says that she will become a teacher one day and
have a house rented/bought and care for her mother till her death. “What about your marriage?”
we asked. “I will never marry”, pat comes the reply

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