The Purpose of Deepa’s Life: Her Daughter

The Purpose of Deepa’s Life: Her Daughter

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Routine days often take the most unexpected turns for a person in the social development sector. A reflection of this was my conversation with Deepa, a resident of Melakottaiyur in Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu. Along with an intern from Sweden and the project team, we visited multiple project sites in and around Chennai and Kancheepuram. Of the beneficiaries we spoke to at these locales, the interaction with Deepa still stands out.

Deepa, an informal waste picker and mother to Sivasakthi, a primary school student, along with their extended family, as well as those living together in this commune near the Melakottaiyur panchayat office, were more than happy to talk to us about their transformative journey post Hand in Hand India’s interventions. The conversation with them - informal waste pickers, or ‘Recycle Guardians’ rather, a term we in the organisation believe they deserve - covered topics like the facilitation of identification documents such as Aadhaar, PAN, and Voter identity cards and ‘Pattas’ or documentation for land; enrolment in government schemes; financial and digital literacy; and material to facilitate waste collection, including Bora bags, vehicles, and fluorescent coloured T-shirts for safety in the dark.

Though projects like these, undertaken by our Sustainable Waste Management team, are no small feat, we often hear these stories of transformation on a routine basis. However, this routine conversation soon took a different turn with the enthusiastic Deepa taking the lead and steering our interaction thereafter.

With a sparkle in her eyes, she spoke to us about her daughter, Sivasakthi, a first-generation school-goer, who was in the middle of a school day when we visited that afternoon. She told us that her daughter wasn’t just stopping at gaining education but was teaching her to read too, and would playfully use a stick to hit her if she was not being a good student – a strict teacher indeed! She even pointed to a poster hanging nearby to show us the way her daughter would read and help her learn as well. Smiling, she then informed us that teachers and the management at the school would proudly exclaim that a girl from a socially and economically marginalised community was gaining education and doing so well.

It was also interesting that the topic of the English language often came up in this conversation, with Deepa mentioning her desire for her daughter to one day be able to speak with ease. Deepa again specifically pointed to a woman member of our project team to highlight her wish for her daughter to be able to speak the language with similar confidence in the future, making one think that she was truly trying to manifest her dreams, being able to connect aspects such as gender and language to those of her daughter.

Furthermore, she pointed out to the anklet worn by the same woman employee, mentioning that she and her daughter would save money using the ‘Undiyal’ (savings box) provided by our team alongside financial literacy, and buy educational material and colouring books, and possibly an anklet like the one worn by our team member too. She then reiterated at the end of the conversation her hope that her daughter would one day get a good job, and that she didn’t mind being a Recycle Guardian, with the hope that getting her hands dirty can at least provide Sivasakthi with a good job and stability.

Deepa’s husband left her when their daughter was merely two months old, something that we were informed about by her uncle later in this conversation, in passing. This life-changing moment was in no way the focus of our conversation. While we often tend to romanticise the underdog story, the interaction with Deepa felt raw in many ways. Though she lived with others in her family, she knew that her daughter was her sole responsibility. With no intentional effort, she guided the conversation in a manner that was anchored in her being proud and in awe of her daughter Sivasakthi, in many ways reflecting aspirations for social mobility, something that we often tend to overlook when covering projects that focus on providing basic amenities to communities that lack them.

Deepa’s life trajectory is not one of overnight transformation. It is a reminder for us to channel discomfort and suffering in our own lives towards a larger purpose and aspiration rather than fixating on it. A choice that is solely our own. Her life, as well as her daughter’s, is a reminder that projects such as these must place decision-making power in the hands of beneficiaries. By doing so, interventions will merely serve as a catalyst, with individuals using them to steer their lives in the direction of their choice. With time, Sivasakthi will also develop dreams of her own. Possibly an amalgamation of her and her mother’s. Irrespective of this, the education, exposure and confidence that come with it, powered by the belief that her mother has in her, will continue to guide her life.

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