Om Shanti.
Subramaniam Anna, our neighbour, passed away yesterday. He and Munishwari, his wife, were planting ragi, He came home with a pain in the chest to rest. He collapsed. He has two teenage daughters. Nandini and Sindhu. His wife Munneshwari, herself with many health issues, fragile and beautiful like a china doll,works ceaselessly.
Now Muniswari has to singly sustain the two girls. The elder recently got married. The younger has to be educated. Supported. With only hard work as the token she can offer.Landless and assetless, working on leased land, grazing cows, they struggled. Without a complaint.
Looking back, i think. Of the ceaseless work Darkalaiyna as we all called him, put in down the years. On a poor insufficient diet of rice and rasam. Accepting that as his lot. As all others in the village. As in many other villages.
Overwork, and under nourishment, will take its toll. It did.
He has helped us in so many things. He was there to rethatch our homes many times. He has worked on our farm down the years, fenceing, plowing, gaurding.
And as the village drowns in sorrow today. I wonder. About poverty, malnourishment, untimely death, families left supportless.
And our own collective answerability there. Our role. Through our omissions and commissions. Towards those who sustain us on undernourished bodies. Growing our food. Giving us our milk. Our sustenence.
... a memory. From ten years ago, or more. He had given his daughter fifty rupees for an outstation trip to Chennai with us. A girl Redima from the next village came to join his his daughter for the trip. Knowing that.the Redima'a parents were very poor and could not have given her any money at all, he told his daughter, without a second thought, to share the fifty rupees equally with her. Fifty rupees was a very substantial sum. The giving was as spontaneous, as it was forgotten the moment it was given. But I will never forget this act. Of sheer majesty.
Now the living have to be cared for. A young wife, now a widow. A small child.
No comments:
Post a Comment