In a three-room house with asbestos sheet roofing on the second floor that opens to the terrace on Muthupillai Street on Mudaliarpet, 15-year old P. Amudhavalli sat on the stairs which leads to the hall from kitchen watching her mother boil milk on a hot Friday afternoon.
Her mother, Gomathi, who is a tea vendor, cuts small sachets of coffee powder and pours them into a cup. She plans to serve coffee to her customers on Friday instead of the usual tea. Amudhavalli walks down the stairs to help her mother prepare the special coffee. “This is our treat since my child has scored well in the SSLC examination,” she says.
Amudhavalli, a student of Savarayalu Nayagar Girls Government High School, has scored 482 marks in the SSLC examination in Puducherry. “Usually both my parents prepare tea for nearly 40 workers in Ashok Leyland while I help them in small errands. Today, my father is in the afternoon shift,” she said as she held the filter to the coffee can while her mother poured milk.
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Apart from supplying tea, Amudhavalli’s father Parasuraman works as a security personnel on contract in Jipmer. They cook lunch for 20 workers at a price of ₹40 each. “Money we earn from cooking alone is not enough. Hence, he has been taking up other jobs. His two-year contract in Jipmer ends this year. He has to look for another job again,” says Ms. Gomathi.
Prior to this, he worked in the house-keeping department in Ashok Leyland on contract.
It was then that he decided to sell tea when the regular tea vendor stopped delivering it.
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“It has been 10 years since we started selling tea. After a couple of years, the workers requested us to provide them lunch as well,” she says.
Focus helped her
Ms. Amudhavalli says that looking at their struggle and by helping them, she has moulded herself to be focus on her studies and help their parents when she grows up. “I love science and want to pursue medicine in Jipmer,” she says. She plans to study in Tiruvalluvar Government Girls Higher Secondary School.
She says that her two elder brothers have been an inspiration to her. “My elder brother is studying B.Sc in Jipmer and the other one has completed Class 12 scoring 1,080 marks. I want to do better than my brothers and study medicine in Jipmer,” she says.