The simple story of a village woman with no schooling and no money, who knew how to care for her step-daughters and the others around her, with a cheerful smile and no complaints. There will be many thousands of such strong and loving women all around us.
I first met Padmavathi at the national office of Xavier Board of Higher Education in India (XB) a couple of years ago. A simple, hardworking woman, she served me tea and disappeared into her one-room dwelling in the XB office complex. Several months later I met her again and had the opportunity to interview her and her husband and son.
Padma, as she is fondly called, hails from Andhra Pradesh. She was married at the age of eighteen to a widower called Krishna Reddy, who had two daughters from his first marriage. His marriage to Padma ensured that she would bring up the little girls Soujenya and Yasoda, who were then five and two years old. Being young herself, it was a daunting task for Padma to bring up the two girls. Even after the birth of her son, Amar, she made sure that the three children grew up together without any differences, loving and caring towards each other.
After Soujenya’s marriage, the rest of the family moved to Bangalore at the request of Sr. Marietta Pudota, the then Secretary of XB. While Krishna Reddy worked in the office doing both outdoor and indoor jobs, Padma was the domestic help, taking care of cleaning the office cum residence, washing and cooking, the proverbial homemaker who has rustled up fantastic food for the Xavier Board residents and her family for the last sixteen years.
Like many other women in her situation, Padma is gifted, kind-hearted and compassionate. She has learnt the various tasks assigned to her—setting the table for a meal with cutlery and crockery, executing her jobs with the dexterity of a professional. Over the years she has learnt to use gadgets and instruments by either watching the TV or others. I asked her where she had learned to make the Kerala style ‘Appam’ and pat came the reply, “Sr. Theresa Cherian.” Her culinary skills are excellent, with no recipe books, just memory, executed with the finesse of a chef! Fresh, traditionally hand-pounded ingredients for the masalas, brought together in a gentle, slow cooking process, tickle the taste buds. At the end of the meal she loves to hear the words chala bagundi (“Very good”)!
With no schooling to speak of, Padma learnt all that she knows using her native intelligence and observing people or watching TV.
Although she converses only in Telugu irrespective of the language of the speaker, she is adept at making use of a smattering of English words at the right time and place, all of which has the suffix hu.
Padma has been the backbone of her family, and faced the ups and downs of life with strength of mind and determination. When Yashoda got married against her parents’ wishes, Padma ensured that she was not estranged from the family, and continues to maintain an extremely cordial relationship with her daughter and son-in-law, and loves her two grandchildren. She made sure that Amar had a good education and completed his degree. Today, he works for an IT firm in Bangalore and supports his parents.
Both Krishna Reddy and Padma always dreamed of owning a house in their native village. With some help from their son, they have made this dream come true. She was so very excited when they finally had the house warming ceremony last year. She is proud of the family’s achievements and is looking forward to going back to the village and spending the rest of her life with her mother-in-law, who is ninety-five years old, her three sisters, brother and extended family. She is also keen on saving some money to buy herself some gold jewelry, which she hopes will be her surety for the future. This, too, as we know, is typical of Indian women.
Many families are held together in harmony, with the children growing up with emotional security and much joy, not through sophisticated theories picked up from books, but by the wisdom, inner strength and hard work of wives and mothers like Padma.
Ordetta Mendoza
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