Tuesday 13 May 2014

And the last straw ...

Kala had come with her family to Dr. Girija  to addresss their chronic jaundice and a lifetime of poor nourishment. Her husband was also given medicines to stop his alcoholisim (in case he wished to stop !). She was delaying starting the medicines, and I was giving her a sharp talk each morning  and she kept saying that there were house problems.

Yesterday Varalu told me that her husband had attempted suicide. Had hung a noose, and in time someone saw through the windows, and the boys broke the door of the one roomed house down.

When I called her up - she said that she could not handle all this any more, but it was only the children she was living for, pushing for, trying to earn for.

She is young enough to be my daughter but I had to speak to her as an equal. I had to tell her to forget about the husband, and that that is not in her control. To simply learn tailoring or any other skill and start working out ways to address her two daughters. If her husband does something rash she cannot help it. She broke down and said that the village blamed her for driving him to this.

In my heart I cannot blame him either. I have known him since he was in class 5, very poor, undernourished. His mother died of a snakebite, his father had TB. After his marriage he does not have the physical energy to work ...and has lost mental stamina to cope. He got into drink, as the government has made drink easily available to all the villages, and now all the youth are addicted. He has made two suicide attempts.

Kala, like all mothers, will last till the end, because of the two children. She will draw on non-existant resources of strength and push on.

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