Stray Dogs

 “Offenders can be reported to the local animal protection group and police station and a case filed under the above-referenced sections. Punishment is a fine of Rs 2000 and/or a jail term of up to five years. Stray animals may not be used for research.”

Like many who grew up in India, I am very afraid of dogs due to incidences during childhood. I look at the above statement on stray dogs with some indignance.

Even in a small hamlet like this, there are about 30 odd stray dogs. Assuming 25% of these are adult female dogs and will reproduce twice a year, each time with a litter of a minimum of 3 puppies – the yearly addition to this number is approximately 50 . The number literally doubles every year to say the least.

These dogs always roam around in groups of five or six , almost invariably with loud howling and  barking – walking around a group or near a group is very scary for the likes of me – which is a  high percentage of the population.

Sometimes during the night, they give out an eerie sound – which is manifested many times due to the facts it is a very very quiet then and the number of the dogs as always is not one, but many . Once this episode starts it goes on for hours some times.

They pee and poop everywhere – with no one to clean after them,  it leaves a strong stench all over the place. It gets worse during rainy season.

Once a group of six fighting dogs went under a running auto and toppled it. Thankfully there were no passengers. The driver was hurt badly and the auto was damaged

Several children cycling have been chased and have been hurt, falling down from the cycle in fear .

None of these dogs are vaccinated and that amplifies the fear.

Recently one dog with rabies bit seven people, a couple of cows and a couple of goats

The village panchayat says they have orders from court that they should not capture these dogs.

On an average the primary health care center reports seven dog bites every day in and around the village. In other areas of the state recently there were several stories of several stray dogs attacking people and causing severe injury to them

AND we all know a dog bite treatment is a pain to undergo

Some people love dogs, agreed. These people or the honourable court, or organizations like peta – who love these beings so much, should take the initiative to adopt these dogs and ensure they live in a healthy environment, are given the required timely vaccines , fed and cared properly . Doesn’t help the common man, if these people sit in places where these nuisances are not present and charade about loving and protecting dogs.

Requesting them to protect the fellow human beings from the stray dogs roaming freely. We also have the right to live peacefully.

Going Abroad

 

 

In this part of the world we very often happen to see local posters asking for “urgent requirement”  plumbers/masons/electricians/drivers to work abroad -  abroad meaning in general the various places of UAE, Malaysia and if the person is lucky Singapore . These posters are generally by agents who work with some entity on the other side , taking commission from both sides. Sometimes they are by someone posing as agents , taking a substantial amount of money from  the aspiring candidates and then the success of the endeavour or not is left to the fate of the candidate(s).

 

This dream to go and work abroad is watered by the lifestyle change of the families of someone who has managed to go abroad and stabilize there. Normally they borrow for interest to pay the agent, mostly by pledging the land they own. In a few years, the loan is repaid in full with the “foreign salary” ,  control of land taken back by the family here and agriculture resumes once again. The  next couple of years, a house of concrete often with ground floor and first floor (maadi veedu) is built. When many surrounding houses have tile roofs, a concrete cement house with maadi is definitely a status symbol. And when the person visits home once in a two or three years, they normally bring back 5-6 sovereigns in jewels, which immediately becomes the talk of the neighbours. In addition, there are several families ready to give their daughters in marriage to these boys and the boys family have the opportunity to make a choice among these .

(After the marriage, they come for a month once every two years for a long long time is a different story. They rarely get to touch and feel their children when the children grow up. Atleast they can now see the family thanks to technology)

No wonder all youngsters in these areas like to ‘go abroad’ to work

These above are the lucky ones. As in all cases there is another side to the coin – the unlucky set.

Some of these boys are sent back from the local airport due to some missing paperwork.  Now that the money is with the agent and the agent is not going to return it anyday – they have to keep visiting and asking for the money to be returned. The agents are more experienced in this and they keep telling some never ending story. In  worse cases, the boy reaches the foreign country – say Malaysia – with a tourist visa. This being the first of so many things – the flight, the airport, the security etc they are not savvy enough to answer the officer at the immigration and donot have the right paperwork with them .They are detained at the airport  for a couple of days, badly treated and are sent back from the airport. Same pattern with the agents – a story everytime .

In addition to avoid the humiliating looks of the neighbours, the boys in some cases stay holed up inside the house for a month or so , till they are ready to face the world.

In both cases , the toll on the psyche is very strong in addition to the  heavy financial burden . They start paying in small amounts , the interest accumulates with the principal and sometimes the loan term runs for even a decade or so.

Some have even paid the agent again and tried again immediately , ignorant of the fact their passport has the last visit’s information and they will be scrutinized more in the second time .  Most of the time they are deported the second time too and are burdened with the second loan also now

There are others who have gone to a few of the UAE countries, being assigned work like rearing camels in the middle of the desert or some such work . Not being to tolerate the harsh treatment , new environment,  different inadequate food etc have managed somehow to get back home .

This “going abroad” has such a wide spectrum and when one gets into that , no amount of reasoning can get them out of it – until they experience the success or failure by themselves .

 

Sending all positive vibes to all these aspirants ……

Cashier in a Nationalised Bank

 

 

The lady is around 75 years of age , living alone nearby. She owns a small house. She does odds and ends job to make ends meet. Her daughter-in-law and grandson live in a nearby town.

The grandson is a school drop out , in his mid thirties , without any stable job or rather without any job. One day he came to visit his grand mother with a request – that he got a job as a cashier in a nationalised bank and had to pay a deposit of five lakhs.

When the lady mentioned this,  no amount of explanation about the process of recruitment in banks would convince her – she so believed her grandson. She brushed aside the educational qualification of her grandson . He had once before taken money from her on the pretext of going to Chennai to write some test. So that test , according to her was to get this job . So straightaway , her grandson has been offered a job in this bank to handle cash, according to her . And the posting she was told was in another town and her grandson would commute from his home everyday. The salary was fixed at Rs.18,000 per month.

The happiness of the lady knew no bounds. She started dreaming about the marriage of her grandson , now that he had a stable job in a bank.

Overpowering that was , how to arrange for the five lakhs deposit ? She sold the few sovereigns of gold. That was not enough. She pledged her small house to add to the amount. That also did not add up. Then she borrowed heavily around her on interest for the balance – after all, her grandson was going to work as a cashier in a bank – and she will payback the loans, will redeem her house and maybe buy back the few sovereigns with his stable salary.

Not heeding to the repeated words of caution, she managed to gather the amount and gave the entire sum in cash to her grandson who said he will join duty from the start of the next month .

The Big day came and he started ‘working’. The lady was told, he would pack lunch and take the bus to go the place of work. Work was hard and was for long hours and by the time he came back home it was nearly dark. The story continued for the week. First week of next month, the lady was eagerly waiting for the grandson or her daughter in law , to tell her something , anything about the ‘salary’ and was eagerly waiting on Sundays (since he was working on all other days) for them to visit her with a token of some monetary gift.

Nothing like that happened . Spent a miserable month , after having decided from next month onwards she was going to ask him to take care of the repayment.

It was only during the middle of the third month, when the calls from her daughter in law and grandson reduced and her calls were not answered, she decided to visit and find out what was happening.

Well , she was not very well received and she found out that he was not working anywhere and they had taken the money because they had to pay some overdue loan and things were going rough in that transaction. Their logic now being, anyway, all the money she had belonged to her grandson – what was the difference, at what point in time  they took it .

After a month of grief, the lady then decided to and sold off her house – the only roof over her head , paid off all the loans and has desposited the small remaining amount in the bank.

Now the would is too raw she says she will not give any more money to her grandson. If he  comes back in a year or two with another cock and bull story , I am sure she is going to hand over the money she has and may even take more loans to pay for his next ‘job’.

Young Widows

 Something which deeply and intensely disturbed me ….

Have noticed several young girls who come as house helps. Also have had conversations with several ladies who come home selling different stuff from their gardens, or those who we come across while waiting for the occasional bus.

With so many initiatives by the government of Tamil Nadu, the education of girl children is pretty high. Invariably, the girls finish their ten years or sometimes even twelve years of schooling. After this major milestone, very few move onto entering a college. Mainly because of financial reasons and probably unaware of the opportunities for them

These girls goto nearby town to work in grocery stores, any shop, petrol bunks and the like on 7 day , 10 hour work weeks . The girls are preferred over the boys because they are docile, punctual, regular and minimal maintenance. The girls prefer these jobs because they are generally given a small amount for their marriage when it happens. So thus life goes on for a year or two. When they near around nineteen or twenty years of age – it is marriage time.

The groom is generally known to the girls family – sometimes the uncle, or the uncle’s son or the aunt’s son or somewhat related. Fast forward five years. Several, several of these girls have two children and are widowed. They either come back to the parent’s house or in some cases left to fend for themselves . They again start going to the shops where they worked pre-marriage or start going as house helps, if they do not have someone at home to take care of their children.

What happens? why do we have such a high number of young widows  ?

If the girls are immensely lucky, the men go abroad  - Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, Saudi or some such country and support the family . For the others, a very very miniscule percentage of men take care of the family and give a stable life to them. The majority spend a very small amount on the family and the major part of the wages goto drinking. The drinking knows no time of day. The shop opens in the morning and stays open till late in the night.  At any place in the village or even under roadside trees, at any time of the day there are quiet a few drinking.

Most unfortunately , they become sick with such heavy drinking and least attention to health and die. Some , in their inebriated state drown into some water bodies , some fall off from some construction sites, meet with road accidents and die ….. with no life insurance  and leaving nothing for the surviving family to fall back on.

The girls after a few years of miserable, physically abusive married life are now with the burden of raising the children, running the family for mostly as long as they live.

Who has to take a different step to change this vicious cycle ?

 

 

 

Alternative Medicine

 

The world of medical treatment  is a little different in this part of the world I should say

 

When a person falls sick, the first steps are to drink very hot water and chew a handful of neem leaves. The logic behind this is, a person falls sick because of some foreign body in the body. And , it will die because of the heat of the hot water or by the bitterness of the neem leaves . Of course none of these are expensive and do not harm the body

If it is some minor ailment , with a couple of days of the above treatment, the body heals itself and there ends the matter. If it so happens that the person is still sick , the next step is a visit to the god-man (samiyadi) of the local ayyanar temple. Ayyanar is a village based God – considered protector of the people crops and cattle.  He normally throws a handful of holy ash on the face of the patient with a ferocious sound and then gives some more to apply on the forehead for the next  two days . If the patient fell sick because he/she been  threatened by some evil forces , the visit to the god-man will cure the illness. This is also not very expensive and does not do any harm to the person , just a tip to the god-man.

If the person is still sick , the next step is to call the person who says he is a doctor , but absconds from the village when there is a search for the quack doctors . May be he was a helper with a medical doctor some time in his life. In most cases, his treatment will be a b-complex injection and a bottle of glucose via drips  in the patients house itself -  for a couple of days . This is slightly more expensive than the previous step – as it includes charges by the “doctor”,  cost of the medicine . The “doctor” gives this treatment in the patients’ house as obviously he has no clinic

If the patient does not get well by now, it is time to go in for some expensive treatments . The first visit in this segment is to visit the witchcraft practitioner. What if the patient fell sick because of some black magic done on him/her  by someone jealous of something about him/her ? Only the witchcraft practitioner can get rid of it.

Most of the time they come back and say that the witchcraft practitioner took a handful of small round balls (must have been added by the person who did black-magic on him/her) via a small pvc pipe the practitioner has - from the stomach of the patient. One end of the pipe is  inserted into the patients mouth and he sucks out from the  other end. Of course he takes the round evil balls through the pipe . This is pretty expensive , often meaning a whole months salary of any house help around here and sometimes even more

If this also does not give the desired result, then it is time to consult the astrologer. Some planet must be unhappy and is causing the sickness and he has to be appeased , so he retracts the illness . This is also reasonably expensive as it involves not only the visit but also remedial poojas done by the astrologer to appease the angry planet(s).

If even by now, nothing has helped, then think of the ‘alternative medicine’ – also in two steps. First step is to visit the medical shop, describe the symptoms and ask for medicine and most of the time they do get something. A week or so of taking these medicines.

It is a couple of months by now . If  the illness still persists , now is the time to plan a visit to the medical doctor for diagnosis and treatment

 

Wishing a speedy recovery !!!

 

Getting Ready for the Welfare Schemes

 

Any information about the Tamil Nadu Govt welfare schemes arrives and travels like lightning in this part of the world. I am sure it is the same in most other parts of the state.  And every time it travels, it gets added some information with every link – as expected

Recently two schemes raging are:

•     The Pongal 2023 gift by the government in cash and kind
•     The monthly Rs.1000 to the female heads of family, belonging to the lower income group

To my knowledge, the ration card is in no way linked to the aadhar or the bank account yet.

There is no information from the state government on either of the welfare schemes. Still the rumour is that, the cash from the state government will be given only if the aadhar is linked to the bank account - and that they need to take all the three – aadhar, ration card and the bank passbook to the ration shop to avail the cash gift.

A recent visit to the lone nationalised bank, catering to about 15 surrounding hamlets, left me flabbergasted at the sight of the crowd overflowing the bank premises. The bank staff were totally overwhelmed, catering to the requests to link the aadhar to the bank account.

This had been advised by the banks for some time now, not necessarily for the welfare gift – but as a directive from the central government. Some had already done it,  but why this sudden surge ?

The process goes like this :

•  The people bring the aadhar car and the bank passbook with the request.
•        The staff advise them to get a photo and a colour xerox of the aadhar.
•        The queue moves to these two shops.
•        After getting these two, get back to the bank
•        At this point some find out they have already completed this process and the aadhar is linked to the account
•        For the rest the linking process is done using bio-metric method of authentication.
•        If the person is too old and fingerprints have faded, the OTP is sent to the mobile attached to the aadhar.
•        If the person has the mobile in hand, the bank staff  get the phone and find out the OTP as most of them do not know how to retrieve or read the OTP.
•        If by any chance, the phone is not available in hand and is somewhere else, the bank staff try to contact the person who currently has the phone to get the OTP
•        If the mobile number is surrendered because due to age, the person is not able to hear AND the finger print is feeble – then God save him or her. Bank says , nothing can be done.  Cannot totally believe this though.
•        Then the people come to the bank everyday for the next week till they confirm the process is complete

The bank predicts this is going to continue till Pongal .

The more worrying thing seems to be, many seem to believe that they will not get the cash gift or the monthly amount if they have a balance in the bank. So they are drawing the money from the bank leaving the minimum balance in their account. Praying to God that the hard earned cash is safe with them, and is used for the purpose it was saved in the first place.

And hope the money coming from abroad is not impacted due to this

The taluka office some twenty kilometers from here is also swamped with women – women of all ages - all with a request to make them the “head of family” in the ration card . The information circulating round here being, the monthly amount of Rs.1000 is given to the women, only if they are the “head of family”. 

Rumour mill is strong and not wanting to be left behind is  equally strong

 

 

A True Love Story in the Neighbourhood

 

The boy is the son of a house help around here , a single parent. He completed  the basic school education and after a few years of not being sure of what to do, he attended a monthlong training on construction in the nearby town.

The girl is  from a tiny hamlet in Thanjavur district, which is pretty far away from here. Her mother is also a single parent and she has a younger brother who at the time was unsure of what to do in life

The girl also happened to attend some training in the same location this boy was attending . Looks like it was love at first sight for both of them

The mother everyday meticulously packed lunch for the boy, paid for the transportation  hoping against hope , the boy will settle down in some work soon

Training completed, the boy was back in the village started working in now and then masonry work . The girl took up a job in a factory in Coimbatore and moved to the city , which is also pretty far away from here  

The boy and the girl were strongly committed and the advancement in technology helped them be in total regular communication .

Now that the boy was making some money, the mother started conversations about marriage. The boy for reasons known to us, rejected all the proposals she brought and at some point, the cat came out of the bag .

It was pandemonium from the boys side – the caste , the financial situation and several other things kicked in and the mother tried in vain every gimmick under the sun  to dissuade the boy.  The boy did not budge  and the mother had no other choice but to give in.

Knowing fully well, the girls side also will throw all tantrums for the same reasons , the mother son duo started thinking about how to perform the marriage.

One day, they brought the girl from the city to a relatives house in one of the surrounding hamlets to avoid the prying eyes of their neighbours . There in a totally new place, with totally new people the girl stayed for a little over a month – till the auspicious date for the marriage. Her family had no clue of this turn of events as she was maintaining the regular conversations with them and even continued to send the monthly amount to her family, now given by the boy’s mother .

The marriage was a grand affair with the loud speakers blaring for two days, sumptuous feast for the neighbours , all expenses born by the boy’s mother -  with the girls family not knowing about any of the happenings here . The boy’s mother would have spent a substantial amount on the marriage , probably she would have received some or most of the amount through the ‘moi virundhu’ (cash gifts to the marriage)

In a few months , the girl became  pregnant. All along she had been sending the regular amount for her family maintenance , given by her now mother-in-law and also was having regular conversations with them so as not to raise any suspicions. At this juncture, the mother-in-law decided this was the time to break the news to the girl’s family. And they did and as expected , all hell broke loose. A bunch of people from the girl’s side came here from Thanjavur with seething anger, but the mother-in-law was ready to face it and she had organised a big gathering of people to talk on her behalf.

Well – to cut the long story short, after much argument, everyone settled down and agreed to participate in the valaikappu aka baby shower.

 

It has been three years now. The boy and the girl  have a bubbly two year old  daughter and have settled into the rhythm of a routine normal life

Wishing them both a “happily ever after “