Occasion to hear extraordinary stories of ordinary women

They narrate struggles undergone by them and the unrelenting fight they have put up

— Photo: G. Moorthy.

AN INSPIRING ACCOUNT:A woman narrating her travails at the International Women’s Day celebration in the city on Saturday.

MADURAI, India: “How many times will she feel shy? How many times will she keep offering coffee? How many times will she fall on others’ feet? How many years will she keep waiting to wear a silk sari? At last when will the day come when someone would accept her without insisting on gold jewellery and a motor cycle?” went a song recited at a meeting organised by Koodu (meaning nest) Women Readers’ Club under a thatched roof at Gandhi Museum here on Saturday.

Sung by Bhagyalakshmi, a member of a women’s welfare organisation based in Theni district, the song gave a perfect start to the event — celebration of the International Women’s Day which fell on March 8. It was not an event to hail the exemplary achievements of women celebrities but an occasion to inspire from hearing ordinary women, whom we meet in our day to day life, narrate the struggles undergone by them and the unrelenting fight they had put up.

Bhuvana, now 39, hailing from Chennai was harassed, tortured and assaulted frequently by her husband 18 years ago. Once he went to the extent of beating up their one-year-old son. It was on that day, she decided to leave the house. But she was not clear on where to go. She did not want to be a burden on her parents. So, the woman picked up her son and his 10-day-old brother and walked up straight to the railway station and boarded a train without even knowing its (or perhaps her) destination.

The train brought her here. Until then she did not even know that a place called Madurai existed in the world because she was born and brought up in Chennai and had not travelled beyond that. A good hearted person saw her standing with bleeding injuries along with her children and admitted her to a hostel managed by Nanban, a social welfare organisation, where she learned to drive an auto rickshaw to fend for herself as well as her children who do not even have a vague remembrance of their father.

“I was the first woman to drive an auto rickshaw in Madurai and I am indebted to the people here for their patronage. All these years, I had been driving only rented auto rickshaws. I wanted to own one and there is no office be it that of the Ministers, Collector or the bank officials whom I had not petitioned seeking financial assistance. After a long struggle, only now a bank has come forward to give me loan,” she concluded with a blink that made tears, waiting all this while on the brink of her eyes, trickle down her cheeks.

Sugumari, now a lecturer in economics with Sri Meenakshi Government College for Women here, was born visually challenged as were her two elder sisters. “When I was a child, some of the villagers seem to have suggested to my parents to kill all three of us. But my father chided them away. Unfortunately, he died when I was in fourth standard. Thereafter, my paternal aunt remained a spinster and educated me and my five siblings,” she reminisced and stressed on the need to have the determination to achieve.

Many other women, including an Head Constable’s wife, who was made to run from pillar to post for 14 long years to get a job of a sanitary worker on compassionate grounds after her husband’s demise, a Muslim woman hailing from Maharashtra who settled down in Andipatti in Theni district and fell victim to usury narrated their travails in the presence of Qudsia Gandhi, an Indian Administrative Service officer having a keen interest in women’s empowerment.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/29/stories/2010032959840200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu