your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“We haven’t cooked today. There is nothing to cook with and the whole family is sick.”
Pushpawathi lives in Ammankulam, in the Vellavalli region, with her husband Shanmugaraja and their two sons, Kiruthikan and Daras. The eldest is nine years old and the youngest is in first grade.
Before things fell apart, the family had built up a reasonable situation. Shanmugaraja took a machine on a leasing arrangement to bring in work, but when he could no longer keep up the payments, the machine was taken back. Everything the family had put up as collateral went with it. From that point on, they had very little left to work with.
Shanmugaraja also has a permanent leg injury from being hit by a shell, which stops him from doing heavy labour. His stone-breaking licence has also lapsed, so right now there is no work coming in at all.
Pushpawathi had been making and selling vadai to bring in some extra money, but she has been sick with asthma and fever for 15 days and has not been able to work. The day of our visit, neither she nor the children had eaten since morning. Both boys had fevers.
When the rain comes in, the house leaks badly. Pushpavathi takes the children to a nearby place for a while until it passes. Her brother helps when he can, usually giving around 500 rupees toward medicine, but he has his own family to look after and cannot always come through.
Right now, Pushpavathi is managing a sick household while being sick herself, with no income coming in from either her or her husband. But they still keep trying.
She wants to get back to making vadai as soon as she is well enough, and she is clear about what she is working towards. Food on the table each day and enough support to keep Kiruthikan and Daras in school.
This is her hope for the future.
