The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Entrenched customs make deep holes in pocket

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Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Entrenched customs make deep holes in pocket

J.B.S.Umanadh

Appeasement of Ramavath Chakria’s soul to cost Rs. 10,000 for his poverty-stricken family

Image of strife: Family members of Ramavath Chakria in Tukya Tanda in Medak district on Tuesday.

Variguntam (Medak Dt.): The house of Ramavath Chakria who committed suicide on Monday in Tukya Tanda is full of relatives. Lachmi, wife of Chakria, and her five children whose eyes are still wet and throats sore from crying for Chakria who hung himself to a tree in the nearby shrub are busy arranging for the customary feast. Few friends of 22-year-old Mohan, eldest son of the deceased, have gone to the nearby town to buy a lamb for the feast. “It is going to cost at least Rs 10,000 for all the formalities,” said Srinivas one of their relatives.

He told this reporter that Chakria recently spent huge amounts that he borrowed from private moneylenders for the marriage of his son and also on the construction of an additional room for the growing family. He was unable to repay the loans and committed suicide.

Tough life

Chakria migrated to Tukya Tanda here from Chitkul to pursue farming and make money. However, farming became expensive and none of the borewells he tried to sink in the six acres of land yielded water. Life became tougher as he was unable to pay for the education of his two daughters, Kavitha and Anitha, and even they started working as farm labourers. “Feeding five growing children in a barren tanda like this was tough and Chakria was depressed from the last one week about the future,” Lachmi said.

When asked about the money she is planning to spend on the feast, she said that she can’t leave the soul of her husband ‘unsatisfied’ even though it would drown her in financial crisis. “I know that a feast now means many more hungry nights for the family.”

Mohan and a few other boys in the village who purchased three-wheeler autos to eke a living have already skipped six instalments as the money they earn on the Narsapur-Medak road is insufficient to run the families. Tukaram, another resident, pointed out that most of the families in the small tanda of 15 houses started borrowing from the grocery shop here as the incomes they earn would not give them a decent meal. “Unlike our ancestors who lived on raagi and jowar, we are used to fine rice that is killing us now,” Ramavat’s aunt Maloth Lali observed.

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