ONGOLE: It took Jean Valjean 19 long years to return to normal life after he was jailed for stealing bread to feed his sister’s hungry daughters. Unlike Jean, the protagonist in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, a five-year-old boy, who also resorted to stealing to feed his sisters, was lucky to have SK Khasim and P Rajyalakshmi to take him under their wings.
Over the past decade, the Ongole couple’s philanthropic activities have not just rescued orphans, but also pulled them out of the society’s underbelly, where they would have otherwise dabbled in crime. The boy, mentioned earlier, had lost both his parents to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). He reportedly stole a bicycle to feed his younger sisters, and landed in police custody. The couple took him in and he is now a State Under-15 carroms champion. In another case, Khasim and Rajyalakshmi rescued a beggar, who won a bronze in the tabletop game.
Having faced the society’s wrath for their inter-religious marriage, the couple decided to help all those who chose to marry outside their caste or religion, and their children as well. In 2001, they established an NGO, ‘Manalo Manam’, and later set up three homes: Bomarillu for boys, Jabilli for girls and Podarillu for the elderly.
They also run another centre, Harivillu, where they impart various self-employment lessons to children aged above 15. Bommarillu, started with just two boys, is now sheltering 50 children of different ages. ‘Jabilli’ shelters 28 orphan girls while ‘Podarillu’ is home to six elder people.
No donations for philanthropic acts
Students pursuing law and engineering are residents of the orphanage; so are four other NEET aspirants. “The expenditure to run the homes is around Rs 2.5 lakh. Of the total, nearly Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh is spent on food, while Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 for monthly power bill. We have never taken any government support. Some philanthropists donate food grains,” Khasim said.
Khasim from Yerragondapalem and Rajyalakshmi from Ongole fell in love when they were studying Bachelors in Science at CSR Sarma College in Ongole. They left home as their parents did not accept their relationship, and the young couple started a private school in Mangamuru village near Ongole in 1984. After a year, Rajyalakshmi secured a job as sericulture technical officer in Prakasam district. Khasim, too, got the same job in 1986, but was posted in Kurnool. Later with the support of their friends, they tied the knot in 1991.
Khasim and Rajyalakshmi are now retired employees.
“People would not even rent us their house because of our inter-religious marriage. Finally, a communist leader helped us. Neither our families nor our friends wanted to keep contact with us,” Khasim recalled. The couple initially decided against having children, but later had a son, Dr Shaik Sameer Sarma, who is now planning to pursue his post graduation in the UK.
“We established all the orphanages and skill centre with our own money,” Khasim said, adding that they never wanted to take donations for their philanthropic programmes. They had decided to contribute half of their salaries to run the homes and do so even now.