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A silent crusader
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A haven for distressed women, Dr V.S. Rishi's `Abhaya Nilayam' has been rendering yeoman service for the past 50 years.
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HE IS an imposing man with a powerful face and strong shoulders, yet there is nothing in his quiet life at No.1 Sannadhi Street, Triplicane, that betrays that Dr V.S Rishi has been a social worker for the past 60 years.
"I prefer to be a silent worker," says this nonagenarian who will celebrate his 91st birthday on July 15. " If I had gone after publicity I would not have been able to do my work. And since I did my work I didn't get any publicity," he explains.
His Abhaya Nilayam, a short stay protective home located on 187, Kutchery Road, Mylapore, provides shelter for distressed women at any time of the day or night, irrespective of caste or creed.
Says Rishi, "Abhaya Nilayam was founded as an offshoot of the Madras Vigilance Association, whose formation in 1925 by leading personalities such as Archdeacon Loasby, Hume Stanford, Foreman Cox and R. Suryanarayana Rao was aimed at the suppression of commercialised vice in the city."
It was the Madras Vigilance Association, which drafted the bill for the suppression of brothels and immoral traffic passed by the Madras Legislative Council in 1930.
However, in 1948, the Government took over the association as part of its nationalisation drive after Independence. Thereafter, the association was asked to function as an advisory committee and confine itself to propaganda work. "For a brief period, it was implementing only preventive programmes as we were not able to continue our activities due to paucity of funds." Then in 1953, Rishi decided to revive the association by starting a protective home with the objective of giving shelter and counselling for distressed women and girls.
"Armed with a cheque for Rs. 200 sent by the Governor as his contribution, I went about approaching my friends for the wherewithal to start," says Rishi.
Finally in 1955, the institution was inaugurated in a rented building by the then chief minister, Kamaraj Nadar. Abhaya Nilayam was later relocated in its present premises on Kutchery Road in 1977. "The building was purchased by paying an advance of Rs. 500 and a promise to pay the remaining Rs. 1 lakh in instalments," says Rishi. Till date, the institution has provided shelter to more than 9,000 women. " We have also successfully married off more than 250 inmates and reunited 80 per cent of them with their families."
"We have women coming from Mumbai, Kolkata and Bihar. Most of them have been left stranded after being deserted by husbands or lovers," says Rishi. He narrated a case about a 22-year-old woman who was harassed by her father due to her refusal to enter films. "She ran away from home and came here seeking asylum. Though later her father challenged us in court by moving a habeas corpus writ, the girl stood by us and we won the case."
Abhaya Nilayam's rehabilitation measures include equipping the women with self-employment skills under various training programmes or transferring them to various long stay institutions for vocational training or education.
The institution, which depends mostly on charity, gets an annual grant of Rs. 30,000 from the Government. To create a reserve fund the institution also launched a project where a meal will be provided to the inmates from the interest accrued from fixed deposits of its donors. "When I started Abhaya Nilayam, I had no idea about the project or how to go about raising funds, but now looking back, I feel I have done my job pretty well," says Rishi with a sense of satisfaction.
SANGEETH KURIAN
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