“I’m still thinking about what to do next.” It’s a sentence that M. Karpagam utters often as she recounts the story of how she and her husband worked hard to fulfil a dream of educating their children.
At first glance, Ms. Karpagam and her spouse Murugesan seem to have accomplished an impressive feat. The Woraiyur-based couple, who got married in 1990, worked long hours and at several jobs, to send their two sons to engineering college.
There is a pall on their achievement when a closer look reveals the mounting debts that have accompanied the sacrifices. “I dropped out of school after one year. My husband has studied up to Class 8. We thought education would be the only way for our children to lead a better life than us,” Ms. Karapagam told The Hindu . The couple’s elder son completed B.E. Mechanical Engineering 3 years ago, while the younger one graduated as a civil engineer this year.
But the degrees did not turn out to be their ticket to a better future. “My elder son is employed for Rs. 8,000 in a company in Ambattur, but I have to send him money every month for his living expenses,” said Ms. Karpagam. “My younger son got a placement letter, but the company has not contacted him about the job yet, even though several months have passed since he graduated.”
Ms. Karpagam, who works as a domestic servant in four households in Tiruchi and also sells eggs at the Uzhavar Sandhai, Anna Nagar, has become the sole breadwinner of her family through what appears to be a cruel twist of fate.
“Nobody forced me to become a maid,” she said. “I knew, as soon as we had two children, that I would have to work along with my husband to support my family.”
Murugesan started out as a mobile vegetable vendor, but stopped when business dried up. He joined a cooking gas agency as a delivery boy, but was forced to give that up when he was diagnosed with a weak heart and was advised against lifting heavy loads. So he joined his mother and started selling eggs.
“We get our supply of 150 eggs every second day from Thammampatti (Salem district), and sell them for a small profit here in Tiruchi. But it is not a steady income,” said Ms. Karpagam. She guesses her total monthly income to be around Rs. 6,000. “It would have been enough if we didn’t have so many other problems,” she said.
A recently diagnosed heart ailment has forced Murugesan to stay home-bound and on medication, while Ms. Karpagam keeps up her punishing schedule of jobs and egg selling 5 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“We spent over Rs. 5 lakhs for each son’s education, by taking out loans, that we have not been able to repay. My husband’s health problems may need expensive surgery. I’m still thinking about what to do next,” she said tearfully.
