Pam hears three sad stories

January 22nd

Up bright and early after a good night’s sleep and Brian and I headed off to join Sekar at the Pachaikili Centre. 

Today is Peacock Day, a festival that is always exactly one week after the beginning of the Pongal Festival and we were greeted by a delightful Kolam design of two peacocks at the entrance to the centre. Padmini explained that some people fast during the morning of Peacock Day and Boonha who is the play centre’s Ayah rushed off at lunch time when she had finished her work to do Puja and break her fast with the family. In no time at all she was back and working as hard as ever. 

In honour of Peacock festival 

Sekar had beaten us on his motor bike and had brought a young student with him who was studying the work of Rani, the caretaker for the elderly. From our own observations it seems that Rani would benefit from some training on how to motivate the elderly rather than helping with the cooking. It appears that previously the RCO’s had to explain to her that it was better to talk gently to them rather than shouting when they were reluctant to cooperate and it’s possible there may be some bridges to build with relationships. Certainly Sally had no difficulty in encouraging the elderly to participate in sand play and today they had a wonderful time colouring in pages from a Creative Colouring Book for Grown Ups which Sally provided.

 Rajeshwhara

 Subramani

Rani failing to grasp that the idea was to encourage Saradha to colour, not to do it for her...

The purpose of our visit today was to have in depth chats with three of the residents with Sekar acting as interpreter. I hoped to discover if being part of the elderly centre has made a real difference to the quality of life for these three elders. I discovered that the main reason for attending was primarily because food was offered and all three had been told about the centre by neighbours or Self Help Group Members who help to run the group. The SHG members work with Rakesh who is the RCO responsible for the centres to identify elderly in most need.

All three elders explained how sad they felt before they joined the centre and every one of them expressed how happy they were to have at least one good meal a day and to spend time with the children and their peers. They all said they were now much happier because of the Pachaikili Centre. 

Subramani, who is 63 years old, enjoys doing exercises with the children and playing Dhayam (a game they play with dice and stones) with his friends. He also does ‘folk art sticks’ which seems to be some sort of martial art with canes and has promised to demonstrate. He would like to teach the children but tells me they are too small.

Rajeshwhara, about 60 years old, used to be an Ayah in a private convent school and loved working with the children. She missed them very much and now she joins in enthusiastically with all the activities and particularly enjoys interacting with the little ones, sometimes telling them stories and teaching them rhymes. Although she suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes she is one of the youngest in the group and is quite lively. She wishes she could come on Saturdays too.

Saradha has been coming to the centre since it opened in 2010 and she thinks she is about 75 years old.

Here is her story:

 Saradha

Born in the village of Kavanur, Saradha lived with her parents and one sister. Her father cultivated his own land and they were very poor. She and her sister never attended school as her parents didn’t think it was worth educating girls and in time she was married to an agricultural worker from KV Kuppam and gave birth to three daughters.

Saradha is a very gentle lady who always smiles. It was, therefore, very humbling to watch her very quietly telling Sekar the story of her life. Tears did not fall but at times I struggled to hold them back. She is a widow and all three of her daughters died fairly young. She explained that her first daughter was happily married but her mother in law, who also had 4 daughters she was unable to arrange marriages for, became jealous and began to ‘torture’ her daughter in law until finally she forced her to leave and return home to Saradha. She then arranged another marriage for her son. This daughter later died. 

Her second daughter’s husband was injured due to a train accident and then he died. Due to her worries this daughter also died. Saradha did not explain how these daughters died but it’s possible they may have committed suicide?

Her third daughter went for Coolie work (labouring) and she had a fall. 10 days later she died. Finally Saradha’s+ husband also died suddenly from a fever and she sold the land they owned, giving the money to her granddaughter who was looking after her. Sadly that granddaughter moved away leaving Saradha destitute. Her grandson gave her a room with an asbestos roof to stay in but he was so angry that she’d given the money to his sister that he does not speak to her and does not support her. Before coming to the Pachaikili centre she relied on neighbours to give her food as she had no way to cook for herself and even now she sometimes does not have food in the evenings. She now has a pension of 1000rps per month and 4kg of rice which she can sometimes manage to cook and she is able to heat water every two days to wash.  Her eyesight was very bad but she has now had cataracts removed and wears glasses. She wears a hearing aid and along with the other elderly she receives health check-ups and free treatment at RUHSAa.

Saradha loves being with the children and they seem to love her too. She enjoys action songs on TV which she watches with the little ones and the quality of the food she is offered.

Finally she smiled gently and told me that she is ‘happy here but sad at home’.

Postscript 

I discovered today that Subramani brings his goat with him (as he cycles to the centre). The goat enjoys the weedy patch under our coconut trees. for which no one has yet managed to come up with a useful plan.