It was late in the evening and, as I was about to go out for a walk, the telephone rang. It was Pappamma. "Amma, I can't take it any more. I am tired. One of these days, I am going to pour kerosene all over my body and set myself ablaze. I will do it in front of the secretariat. I will call you before I do it. Please come with a photographer and take pictures of my last moments. After my death, please tell my story to the whole world." There was panic, frustration and distress in her voice. I tried to calm her by saying, "Please, Pappamma, don't do any such irrational thing. You have always been so brave." "I can't take it any longer. I am tired. There is no justice in this world. These goondas are making my life miserable. No policeman is ready to accept my complaint. Do you know why? Because these goondas have political connections. I can't fight this battle anymore. I want to tell the world that this is the way a government gives justice to a poor widow; this is the way society is driving a poor woman mad. You tell me, Amma, what can I do now except teach them a lesson by killing myself?" She was angry, sad and disillusioned. I had to use all my skills to calm her down. "We will do something. Let's wait till the elections are over. Let's wait for the new government to come. Please don't lose heart." Finally, she agreed to wait. Pappamma may be around 40 years old, but her thin frame belies her age. She is always neatly dressed and has a wonderful smile on her face. Married at a very young age and widowed soon after, life has always been a struggle for her. But she survived every single hurdle with tenacity and determination. Till now, that is. She had been assisting her mother in her idli (steamed rice cakes) business from a very young age, so she began doing the same thing now. Selling idlis and living an independent and respectful life was her way of challenging an unappreciative society and a cruel fate. She would get up early in the morning and, much before the first rays of the sun reached her small 'tea and idli' stall, she would clean the place with water. Then, she would draw a very beautiful kolam at the entrance to her stall and switch on her radio. That was her way of announcing to the world that Pappamma's tea and idli stall was ready to receive its customers. If it was the aroma of sambar and soft idlis that attracted large numbers of people to her stall in the mornings, it was the tempting smell of vadas that dragged the young and the old alike there in the evenings. Pappamma had a good business and she lived a decent life. "It is not very easy to live alone in this society, Amma, especially for a widow. You need a lot of courage and strength. Men look at a widow as someone who is available," she once told me. For every high point, there is a low point too. Pappamma was going through a very bad phase when I first met her. Her business had fallen to precipitously low levels. She came to work at my house as a replacement for her sick sister-in-law. She was to work for me till her sister-in-law was better but, somehow, there developed such a strong bond between us in the short space of a month that she continued to work at my house even after her sister-in-law recovered from her illness. Till then, she was only involved only in the tea and idli business and had never worked as a maid. I could sense her yearning to start her business once again. In a small way, I helped her re-establish her teashop. I still feel emotional when I think of how she insisted on giving me the first cup of tea from her new stall. From then on, I saw a very determined Pappamma struggle hard to expand her business. She borrowed money from a bank and some moneylenders, personally went and purchased cement, brick and sand and stood in the hot sun to supervise the new construction. In the place of a thatched tea stall, there soon arose a concrete structure which housed a tea stall, two garages and three rooms. Reserving one room for herself, she rented out all the others. I wish I could end Pappamma's story here, on a happy note. Unfortunately, in real life, stories do not have happy endings. If that poor woman expected that, after her years of struggle, she would now be able to live peacefully, it was not to happen. Pappamma's problems began the day she started collecting rent from her tenants. Till then, neither her small thatched roof nor the slums in that area had attracted the attention of any goonda. But, once she made use of the space which was by the side of a main road, thugs with political connections began eyeing her land. Nights became dreadful, with men constantly banging at her fragile wooden door or pelting stones at the roof. Days became even more unpleasant and awful; threatening ruffians following her everywhere with the aim of making her sell her land to them. She tried lodging a complaint against them at the police station, but no policeman was ready to accept her complaint. She even hired a lawyer. He moved around in big cars and collected large amounts of money from her, merely to wash his hands off the case in the end. "I thought my struggle would be over if I worked hard. Sometimes, I feel like leaving everything and running away. Then, I feel I will be a coward if I do that. I want to fight and I will fight," she would call and tell me whenever she felt disillusioned. I admired her fighting spirit, her courage in the face of adversity. Sometimes, I wondered sadly why life had been so harsh to such a nice human being. Now, she has no energy left to fight the unjust, corrupt and cruel system. Otherwise, she would not have said, 'I will kill myself'. Once the elections are over, she will call me. I do not know whether I will be able to help her. It makes me feel very small. Shobha Warrier hopes to find some way of helping Pappamma in the coming weeks. Illustration: Dominic Xavier Do tell us what you think of this diary
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