A Woman With Fortitude

She only raises her both half-folded arms with closed fists, saying with utter confidence ‘I have done it with hard work and honesty.’ For anyone who either asks her how you have done it or who pays her any complement. Her husband had been working with a cigarette manufacturing company in Hyderabad for a long time. She had been staying in his village with her mother-in-law and children. She was not able to stay with her husband in Hyderabad because of the insufficient income of her husband and her mother-in-law who was an old and needed someone to take care of. And her mother-in-law had been living in the village since she had been married off so she didn’t like to be out of the village as well. 

Her husband used to come to the village twice in a year-once during the Diwali festival and another in Holi. Shivaji’s coming to the village twice in a year left her in solitude and deprived of her physical needs. She had two kids- Raju was of seven and Sangeeta of four. When Raju was put in a school, Sangeeta started toddling off. Being a single son, Raju was obstinate. He ate what was of his taste and never thought of how it came. Sangeeta was lean and thin and had a modest lifestyle. 

Shivaji was not weak in health but he inherited tuberculosis from his father as well as his forefathers. And having with a cigarette company for long had deteriorated his health like fuel added to the fire. Having been treated and constant taking of medicine made him well but the announcement of the closure of his company made him poorer both physically and mentally. In between his mother died due to old age. With no income or only on subsidized money he was neither able to take care of himself nor of his family members. With the hope of the company might re-open or announce of pension scheme he continued his stay in Hyderabad. Later the company was fully closed without providing any pension to its employees. Having no sufficient money he was not able to take care of him properly let alone his family members. He fell ill once again. 

 Seeing no other option, Ratna went to Hyderabad to take care of him. Facing problems, she decided to take a job in a school but Shivaji was reluctant to send her for any job. Despite being warned by Shivaji, she took a house-keeping job in a nearby school. Whatever she earned in a week or month, she spent on Shivaji. But the medicines had stopped working on him. His health deteriorated day by day. The day came when he bid off the world shouldering the whole responsibility to Ratna.

She was an audacious woman. Obliterating off the vermillion from her head she determined to do something. Seeing her plight, her colleagues from the school came forward to help her. They collected some money and approached the principal with a way forward. The school building was taken on rent so there was a medium-size kitchen and a verandah way behind. One could use everything in the school in the evenings and on Sundays. So the principal allowed her to stay free of cost in the kitchen after removing the broken chairs and tables and showed her children the way forward for education. Determined, she moved ahead with a patient and without thinking over the past. The first thing she did was to learn how to speak Telugu which was as much distance from her native as her mother-tongue Hindi in understanding and speaking. 

Being laborious she took care of all students very well. She was loved by everyone for being a kind woman. She became Ratnamma from Ratna for everyone- students, neighborhoods or teachers. Raju cleared the matriculation exam and got into the college. After being graduated he decided to do an MBA without having any concrete source of income. Sangeeta also cleared her intermediate exam and proceeded to engineer college. They both got the way forward to complete their education by a loan from a money-lender nearby putting the principal as a guarantor. Having completed their study, Raju got a job in a software firm and Sangeeta in a company as a call- attendee. They paid off the loans and purchased a house. They asked her mother to shift to the house. Ratnamma replied, “Where you want me to go leaving this heaven.”