VILLUPURAM: "I will raise her. My grandchild is not going to go to any shelter home as long as I am alive.” Recalling the incident three decades down the lane fills Verammal’s eyes again with tears. The long wait to hear a cry from the other side of the door had worn Verammal to a frazzle. Though her relatives tried to calm her down, she just could not, as only a few years ago she was in the same place waiting for a cry that never came.
“This time, it will be different,” she reassured herself. The year was 1992, and complications during child deliveries were not few and far between. “This time, it will be different,” Verammal repeated to herself and decided to visit the Ulundurpet government hospital canteen for a coffee.
The oversized white door was open. But, no clatter of joy filled the corridor as all her relatives looked crestfallen. “No. This time, it should be different. I have to become a grandmother this time,” Verammal mumbled as she ran towards the operation theatre door. But her sprint stopped abruptly when a baby’s cry permeated the dingy corridor walls.
Inside the room, near her daughter lay a tiny bundle of joy. Verammal scooped up the baby in her arms with tears streaming down her cheeks. The little one had no hands. The medical staff joined the relatives in ruing the moment. “This happened because the marriage happened within the family,” the doctor said. Verammal’s daughter had married her mother’s younger brother, and her first baby had breathed its last during delivery itself.
All the relatives entered the room and told Verammal that after much deliberation they had decided it was best for the family to admit the child affected by Amelia syndrome to a shelter home. Verammal just wouldn’t have any of it as she would not let anyone else raise her grandchild.
As lakes pass through familiar pathways over centuries, the streams of tears pass through well-marked crevices on Verammal’s face. Not far from her, Vidhyashree kept chalking down lessons on a blackboard with her feet and over a dozen children sat in front of her, all ears.
Vidhyashree is nothing short of a superstar at Arcadu village near Mugaiyur. Only with pride and ardour, anyone in Arcadu would detail the route to her house. Holder of a postgraduate degree in English, she is the first graduate from her family. She now works as a temporary data entry operator of the Vaazhthu Kattuvom Thittam implemented by the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj in addition to taking tuition for children.She makes it a point to greet anyone reaching her house with folded feet – Vannakam.
Her mobile phone suddenly rings and Vidhyashree deftly handles the device with her feet and also sends a text message soon after. “I have no other go. Everything has to be done using my legs; now it comes naturally to me. I have also never used a scribe to write exams for me either at school or college,” Vidhyashree says stealing a glance at her grandmother, who was clearly gleaming with pride.The earlier years were however filled with despair for Verammal and her grandchild.
Admitting Vidhyashree to a school itself had seemed a forlorn cause once. The teachers at the government school in their village hesitated to accept her worrying about all the additional efforts needed to teach a child without arms. “I assured the teachers that I will take all the care needed to help my girl study and all they had to do was to allow her to sit for the classes. The same issues cropped up when we tried to enroll her in college too. But some villagers joined us and convinced the college authorities of her mettle. I never studied in a school, but my Vidhyashree is a postgraduate degree holder,” Verammal adds.
Vidhyashree, now 30, spends the money she earns from taking tuition to prepare for CTET and TET. “I wish to pursue a PhD degree and become a lecturer,” she says. Verammal sat not far away, sipping coffee and almost unable to believe the three-decade-long journey she began from the Ulundurpet government hospital with a bundle of joy in her arms.