KASARGOD: The last time Beefathima, 32, left her home at Edneer in Chengala grama panchayat was three weeks ago. That was to take her 77-year-old father Aboobacker N A to the hospital after he suffered a paralysing brain stroke. Her relatives pawned their gold jewellery to raise Rs 1.25 lakh for meeting the hospital charges. Now, he lies on his bed, needing Beefathima’s assistance and care for everything. Beefathima’s plate was full even before her father was paralysed.
She had shelved her life to take care of her four adult brothers born with intellectual disabilities and identified as victims of endosulfan. Abdul Hameed, 45, is the eldest and can manage to utter a few words. Abdul Rahman, 34, the next, hovers around Beefathima with his gummy smile. He cannot speak.
Ahmed Kabeer, 30, and Abdul Khader, 28, go to the BUDS School in Bovikkam every day and return by 3.30 pm. A recent rule prohibits BUDS schools from admitting persons above 18 years. “But Kabeer and Khader were going to the school earlier so they allowed them,” says Beefathima.
When asked how she takes care of her brothers, she smiles. “It’s easy. I don’t have to tell them anything. They say and do what they want. I just have to pick up after them,” she says.
The monthly pension given to the four brothers is the family’s only source of income. They get Rs 1,600 per month each as disability pension and Rs 1,700 each as endosulfan pension. Though endosulfan victims with intellectual disability should get Rs 2,200 as monthly pension, the government has cut Rs 500 from each of the four brothers in this family, said activist Ambalathara Kunhikrishnan. But endosulfan pension has not come for the past four months, said Beefathima.
“We manage with the pension not because we don’t have other needs but because we don’t have extra money,” Beefathima says. Marriage is the last thing on her mind.
“My parents are aged and not well. My brothers need me. What wish will I have for myself?!” she says.
“I only hope the government adopts them after we are gone,” Beefathima says. For now, she hopes the government will help her start a cottage business.
Maimoona’s small unplastered house precariously sits on the edge of a hillock at Panjikkal, 3.5km from Badiadka, on Soolapadavu road. The slushy approach road is too steep and treacherous for cars. Inside, the small living room is almost fully occupied by a six-seater dining table. The showcase above the table is decked with small trophies and mementoes. “They all belong to Ibrahim Badusha,” says Maimoona, 35, even before asking.
Badusha, 14, Maimoona’s youngest son, is in class 10. “He is a bright boy and too good at lip reading,” she says. He was born deaf and mute. His right eye is blue and his left eye black. Bright light blinds him. The government has identified him as an endosulfan victim. But Badusha is the least of Maimoona’s worries.
Maimoona was only 13 when her mother Mariyamma, a daily wage labourer, married her to a traveller in 2000. She became a mother the next year. “I did not have a choice. I had to go to work and did not feel my three daughters will be safe at home,” says a wrinkle-faced Mariyamma. Now, Maimoona has five children, three of them endosulfan victims, and her husband has walked out on her and is living with another woman in Pariyaram. The eldest son Mohammed Rasheed, 21, now frequently experiences epileptic seizures. He is not an endosulfan victim.
Her second son Abdul Razak is 20 but has the growth of a 14-year-old. There was a leak in his heart valve which was corrected with surgery at Kannur Government Medical College Hospital in Pariyaram. But he is dependent on his mother and his sister Fathimath Rihana, 18, the only healthy child in the family. Mariyamath Rahila, 16, was born with two heart defects. A valve in one of the two pumping chambers was missing. It was corrected with surgery when she was at the age of 10 years when she was in Class 4.
She also had a defect in the partition separating the two chambers causing high pressure in the blood vessels in the lungs. The higher pressure led to lower oxygen levels in the body and kept her exhausted. “She could not play or walk. She would turn blue,” says Maimoona. But the young mother, who dropped out in Class 2, did not give up on her. She used to carry the girl to school, sit with her through the day and bring her back.
She spent around Rs 80,000 at a private medical college hospital in Mangaluru to identify Rahila’s defects. But she did not have money for Rahila’s second surgery, which would cost Rs 3 lakh. After frequent visits to the collectorate, the officials agreed to foot the surgery bill. The operation was done when she was 13 at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) in Kochi.
“Rahila is a fun girl now, talkative and always playing,” says Maimoona. But doctors said her heart is weak and she cannot become a mother.
Maimoona is worried about her children and their future but is not ready to sink into despair. She learnt to use the grass cutter and works every day in an estate to make a living. When there is no grass to cut, she volunteers to cook food for the workers of the estate. She saved Rs 90,000 and bought a used Tata Nano car so that she can take her children to hospitals. “I have to live... live for my children,” says Maimoona.