Shobana Ramesh’s expressive eyes sparkle with love as she introduces us to Ponnudhuraichi, her adopted daughter. A native of Dhalivapuram near Rajapalayam in Tamil Nadu, Ponnudhuraichi lost her parents as an infant and was raised by her paati (grandmother) who worked as a domestic help to educate her.
“Battling odds and studying amid eight hours of power cut, if this gritty girl could score 95 per cent in her 12th board exams, isn’t it our responsibility to make the future of such children a shade brighter when we have the means and resources to do so?” says Shobana, a celebrated Bharatnatyam dancer who finds peace in helping out the less fortunate.
Ponnudhuraichi is just one of the many whose lives have been resurrected by Shobana and her organisation Bharati Foundation, an NGO based out of Tamil Nadu. Founded in 2010 by Shobana and Shanti Venkantesan, a social activist, the foundation works towards the betterment of unprivileged sections of society, their core operational area being the villages near Rajapalayam.
Shobana says the plight of the deprived bothered her even as a child and she always wanted to do something about it. The breakthrough came when she visited the town of Rajapalayam during a dance concert and witnessed the stark poverty in the nearby villages. “It was a moving sight to see people feeding on broth made of unpalatable underground tubers and mothers selling themselves off for a paltry `10 that would buy them ration for a month and subdue the cries of their hungry children,” she says. While Shobana had started helping the villagers in her own way well before Bharati Foundation came into being, the concerted efforts of the foundation have helped establish 250 self-help groups in the villages giving employment to nearly 2,500 women.
“Their strength is tailoring but they also make handicrafts, artificial jewellery and cakes, jams, jellies and juices,” says Shobana as she displays colourful jute bags hand-woven by the women.
Shobana’s company Spectra Services, which does back-office work for banks, also employs people who have served prison sentences as well as the relatives of prisoners who are ostracized and refused jobs.
Though she spends a major chunk of her salary on sponsoring education of orphaned children, Shobana believes “charity comes from surplus funds” and is always on the lookout for sponsors. “The responses may be quick, sometimes bleak, but I keep trying and do manage to get some to loosen their purse strings,” she says.
Part of her future plans is to garner more sponsors for the education of children who have lost their parents or are dropping out of school due to poverty. “There are also hundreds of children languishing because their parents cannot work out a marriage. I have cases where the father has killed the mother and in turn is in jail and the child has been left to the care of a poor grandmother, who cannot give him/her a square meal leave alone education,” says Shobana. She adds that there is a greater need to instill family values among youth and teach rural couples to work on their marriages.
Well known for her choreography based on the compositions of Mahakavi Bharathiyar, Shobana says her lifelong companion, dance, has been like a balm to her body and soul amid her chaotic life and has helped her grow as a communicator.
Her parents, she says are her best friends and deems the unconditional love and support of her late husband Ramesh and her in-laws as her greatest reward so far. One who believes in being vocal about her endeavours, Shobana says she doesn’t feel shy about blowing her own trumpet. “You should always let the world know what you do. Who knows someone out there may get inspired and set out to spread smiles on a million faces.”