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Pichcha mal her only hope to battle poverty
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Thamilchelvi's daughter helps to string the flowers
It’s nearly a decade since the war ended. But for this family in Pulliyankulam in the north, little has changed and life is hard.
Sivarasa Thamilchelvi (54) said that her husband who was unable to engage in farming for three seasons due to the drought in the past, has now taken up fishing to feed their four children.
Thamilchelvi, too, has been picking pichcha mal for the past four years, to keep the home fires burning. “Politicians only come when they want our votes, nobody helps us. They only work for their betterment,” she lamented. She said they were forced to leave all their hard-earned life’s savings in Wellamulli Waikkal.
Each time they built a home it was destroyed during the war years. “This is the fifth house we are building, it too needs to be completed,” she said, pointing to the temporary shack that is their current home, till their house is completed.“We have taken loans up to Rs. 500,000 from four micro loan institutions to build our house and to survive. We have repaid around Rs 300,000 so far,” she said.
Highlighting their desperate situation, she said they are paying an interest of Rs. 11,000 a year for a Rs. 40,000 loan they took from one micro loan company. “The Pichcha flowers are my only saviour. My only hope is that these flowers will help me overcome our poverty one day,” she said.
War remnants
Pretty white buds: Thamilchelvi's only hope
Sivarasa Thamilchelvi has been picking pichcha mal to be sold for the past four years
Their temporary abode