Strong Women-2 : We salute you

Dhanam

Iam 39 years old. I was born at Ambalapattu. Mine is basically an agricultural family. I did schooling at Ambalapattu till 10th standard and then I did 11th and 12th at St.Joseph’s school. After that I went on to study B.Sc. Physics My parents reside at Ambalapattu. I got married when I was 18 years old. My daughter has done B.E., she is married and has a son. My son is studying in the 10th standard. My younger sister is married to the richest person in our village. I had wanted to apply for the VO exam but my husband said that I shouldn’t do it. Myy husband is the village VAO. So I didn’t apply
Then I was forced to marry my elder sister’s brother in law. My father and my second brother only liked the marriage. There is a 17 years difference between my husband and I. My mother didn’t like the alliance due to the age difference. But I was forced into the marriage and I stopped my studied due to that. I had a daughter in the year 1987 and my son in the year 1993.
And in 1994, my husband fell ill. The first time his leg was swollen, we thought that it was an insect bite and used some traditional medicine but there was no cure. We took him to Pattukkottai , then we went to Tanjore, Pondicherry and Chennai. He has been unwell for 15 years. In The doctor has said that he would live on only for 4 or five years as his kidneys will function only for another 4 or 5 years. My husband gets tense very easily.
The turning point in my life was my husband’s illness. I feel that God will take care of everything. In my mother’s house I did not know any problems. Only now I know the family troubles. But I feel more confident now.

My eldest brother was very worried because my family forced me into this marriage. I accepted everything as fate and didn’t blame everyone. My husband doesn’t feel sad or worried. My daughter and son worry a lot. My daughter has married one of my relatives. She had a love marriage. My son in law works in Chennai. My husband’s dream is that my daughter should become an IAS officer. My daughter got an MBBS seat in Russia but my husband was not keen to allow her to go. The entire cost would have been 7 lakhs. My son is studying very well.
We bought a land for 3½ acres in my son’s name. The person who gets the documents done was very helpful. We already have 5 acres of land and another 1 acre of land in my husband’s name. I have not bought any land in my name. We have put a bore well of 420ft depth with great difficulty. We had already spent 5-6 lakhs in the hospital. My eldest brother gave 50,000, my father gave 50,000 and my sister gave 25,000. For the bore well, we got the society bank loan with a lot of difficulty. Many people in the village put petitions because they were jealous that we would have more profits once the bore well was done, whereas they had only wells. But we finally got the sanction after the officers came and measured the distance between the other bore wells and ours twice. The society bank people were helpful in getting the bore done. We had lots of water at 50 ft depth itself. Mainly, my husband’s younger brother was jealous because we had bought the land which he was supposed to get. We have sugarcane in our land and it gives large profits. We also have paddy. Right now getting people to cut the crop is very difficult because there are not enough people who come to harvest sugarcane. I managed to get few people through my friend who also has sugarcane in her farm. We give our sugarcane to the EID Parry Company at Pattukkottai. For the cutters we pay 150 per day for the men and 100 per day for the women. In February the prices increase to 200 and in March it becomes 250 per day. For the harvesting the Bank gives us 12,000 rupees cash of which 4000 is given to the company. We also have sesame seeds. We grow 5636 variety paddy crop. We usually harvest paddy using harvester machine. We sold paddy for INR 68,000 last year.
My son is in the hostel since 4th standard because according to our horoscope we were supposed to be separate. He misses me a lot .I want my son to become a doctor but he wants to become an engineer. He wants to go abroad. I want my daughter to become an IAS officer as her father wishes. I worry most only about my husband because I don’t know when he would pass away. I feel scared that something might happen to him.