Manikanchan's Dream

Manikanchan was very angry. Once again she was shouting at her baby daughter who was just a year old. Her name was Malati. As Mani was very helpless and scared to argue with her drunken husband, she was showing her anger at her daughter. Malati was unable to understand the sudden change in her mother’s mood like that, she felt really horrible seeing her mother shouting like that, but slowly and slowly she got accustomed to the sudden mood swings of her mother.

Mani has been working in Mrs. Priya’s house for a very long time. Mrs. Priya stays in an apartment, as the people residing in her apartment are very rich, the demand and expectations of servant maids are very high. They expect a lot from the flat owners. They demand high salaries with less work for the quality of work did not matter to them. They needed one thing for certain that is money.

It was not long when they started harassing their masters by demanding more money, or else they would not work for them. This way they became independent to demand loans or advance anytime. Priya had two small kids who were being brought up with lots of difficulties. Since Priya had a job she had to leave for office early as she was very punctual in her work. She came very late at night. So she totally had to depend on her servants. She left her kids on the supervisions of her servants. Therefore the maid Mani had tried many times to blackmail Mrs. Priya. She charged her for the labor or price of her every work, such as feeding the children, cooking, sweeping, guarding the house, etc.

Since it was very tough for Mrs. Priya to handle her maid Mani, she tried to find her weakness. She realized that it was not just poverty that was making Mani work as a servant but also her husband who drinks. He was totally unable to feed Mani and Malati. They were homeless and were searching for a good shelter. But how could they possibly pay high rents for houses in a city like Chennai? Along with house rent, they had to pay charges for electricity and water which were hundred rupees.

So Mrs. Priya gave this golden opportunity to Mani by inviting her to stay in the servant quarters in their apartment. Naturally, Mani agreed for this invitation as she was in very urgent need for a shelter. Mrs. Priya agreed to fulfill all her requirements. A very pleased Mani was ready to negotiate with Priya without any doubt. She faithfully decided that she would not harass Mrs. Priya anymore.

Mrs. Priya was relieved indeed! Finally, she would be able to have control over Mani. She could control Mani’s expectations of extracting money from her. Mani had tried to disturb Mrs. Priya’s peaceful living by torturing and troubling her. She was now paying for her own wrong deeds. She had to follow every rule and regulation told by Mrs. Priya. Mani was at her mercy as she didn’t have anywhere else to go to find shelter. Her useless husband didn’t give her any money.

But there was still another thing that annoyed the apartment people very much. Mani and her husband used to fight every day over issues regarding money; it is Mani who starts scolding her husband, and then her drunken husband Krishnan, now mad with rage, shouts at her. This develops into a very noisy fight. Due to their furiousness, they shout, scream, throw things at each other, etc. They even hit if possible, because of Mrs. Priya, the whole resident and the other neighboring residents were badly disturbed through their tiresome quarrels. Many residents had given them warnings of sending a police complaint if they would shout the whole place down so much.

One day Mani was very angry as she didn’t get her chance to torture Mrs. Priya by grabbing all her money, the pity Mrs. Priya had shown her didn’t matter at all, but Mani was unhappy because she could not trouble her. She could not threaten her by raising her salaries. It was the first time she was defeated in what she called, a war, a war between the rich and the poor, a war of capturing money. The demand for high prices, any laborer had to be paid by the rich people. The poor will enjoy their labor work.

One day Mani was very furious because while fighting, her husband had beaten her out of frustration or poverty. She got very angry and locked herself in her room, even though her husband banged at the door, she didn’t open. And the next minute Krishnan guessed what she was about to do as she had locked herself in the kitchen! Mani took the bottle of kerosene, poured it on herself, lit her matchstick and burnt herself alive! While bearing the pain of the flames she said, “I want to free myself from poverty, stress and this never-ending war!” She burnt her daughter along with her but she never quit the fight against the rich people. Priya , the rich woman was embarrassed after the death of Manikanchhan, she could not help to save one poor woman's life along with her small daughter, she could not be able to make her freed from slavery, exploitation, poverty, Though Priya was herself struggling hard to earn money for her survival but, she could have helped Manikanchhan to earn or save her money for future giving her one faith or hope to be freed from poverty, health hazard and exploitation, It was not the revengeful success or survival of the fittest of her tragic story, Priya was defeated Manikanchhan could teach her a lesion at last, one never ending fight in between rich and poor, one tragic end of Manikanchhan, Priya had to run police station for solving the suicidal murder case for a long time, somehow she was able to settle the problem like the eradication of evil of the society,

Manikanchan’s dreams.