CHENNAI: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s voice rang through the ramparts of the Red Fort on Friday, a 74-year-old woman watching his speech live in a house in Chennai broke into a smile. The PM was talking about adopting one village in every district of the country and converting them into a model village that can inspire all other villages around it and thus transform it. At the age of 68, this is exactly what Radha Parthasarathy began doing.
It all began with her decision to renovate a 700-year-old temple at her husband’s village in Thandalam. She laughs heartily when asked where she got this idea from, “It was under the advise of an astrologer.”
But, as she got involved with the construction work and began visiting the village she had one difficulty - toilets. “ There was no toilet anywhere, in no village house. If I had to go to a toilet I had to go back to my home.”
This discovery led her not only to build toilets at the temple, but in the village school, community hall and a few homes.
Before long, a trust she had set up built over 260 toilets in the households in the village. The village is today an awardee of the Nirmal Puraskar Award for total sanitation given by the President.
The work that started there soon took Radha who till then was only involved with helping out her husband and working for the Crafts Council into unknown realms.
Today the trust, Annapoorani Public Charitable Trust (APCT), has women’s groups employed in everything from masala making to instant millet dosas to organic agriculture, organic manure making, paper bags, vadam and vathal making and a wide range of instant foods.
The food products are supplied to cities through upmarket stores like Nilgiris and outlets like Sri Krishna Sweets.
Meanwhile, on the infrastructure side, she has set up everything from cement roads, school and health centres and even appointed doctors and teachers, besides starting special coaching classes for students.
“It is not easy but its not difficult either. When we started it here people used to tell us that there was nothing, no crafts that can be developed. But today, look at what all they have been doing. The thing is our women are intrinsically very smart. You teach them one thing and they will grasp it perfectly, you won’t have to explain it again. You just have to teach them once and they will take over.” she says.
The trust is now on its way to sign an MOU with the TNAU for organic farming. Meanwhile there is a whole host of new schemes and organic products that the septuagenarian is excited about.