“Gudumba tagi sachipoindu” (died of alcoholism), the two score widows from Indervelli mandal headquarters did not hide their anger as they talked of the circumstances leading to the death of their husbands and the resultant crumbling of their lives. These widows are not alone, there are thousands of others of their ilk and at least thrice that number of orphaned children in Adilabad who have good reason to demand curbs on the manufacture of gudumba or the deadly illicitly distilled liquor (IDL), which has destroyed their lives.
“Safe drinking water is an elusive commodity here but gudumba flows so freely that it has drowned my family in it,” observes a crestfallen Mesram Laxmibai, a Gond tribal from Vadgam village, as she draws the parallel to throw light on the issue. Her late husband Ambaji was an addict of the ‘phugga’ or balloon, a 300 ml sachet of gudumba and sold cheaper at Rs. 10 apiece.
“We are struggling to make both ends meet and raise our children,” say sisters-in-law Sumitra and Shobha Vidhate. Curiously, both are from the same family and were widowed following the death of their husbands Keshav and Nagnath.
“The ‘phugga’ is leaving homes of the poor shattered. I know at least 20 widows in Vadgam, a 160-house village and a dozen in Allikhori village of 35 houses in Adilabad mandal,” claims Deepak Singh Shekhawat, a social worker from Indervelli and president of the district unit of Bharatiya Kisan Morcha as he points towards the gravity of the problem.
Anil Rathod, a teacher at the Indervelli Mandal Parishad Primary School and vice-president of the district unit of the Progressive Recognised Teachers Union, says that students coming from families where the bread winner has died are too traumatised to be inclined towards learning. “Driven by poverty, they come to school for the mid-day meal,” he points out.
The seriousness of the issue can also be gauged from the fact that 20 per cent of the 1,000 outpatients treated at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Adilabad, every day, are alcoholics. “Yes, the number of deaths due to kidney failure, cirrhosis of liver and nutritional deficiency among males due to alcohol abuse is quite high,” reveals RIMS Resident Medical Officer Dr. Vinay Kumar Dawson.
