Chennai: Neela was thrilled like a kid. The 72-year-old tribal woman from Annai Sathya Nagar barely two km from the famous pilgrim town of Thirukazhukundram in Kancheepuram district had not seen a train, much less ride on one, until then.
The ‘excursion’ to Chennai for Neela and 31 other women from her hamlet, organised by the MSW (Masters in Social Work) students of Madras Christian College as a gift in celebration of the International Women’s Day on Tuesday had included a train ride from Chengalpet to Tambaram and a daylong exposure to ‘civilisation’ that had eluded the 100-odd tribal families living in the Nagar barely 70 km from Chennai.
“I have never come out of my hamlet till now. Most of us in this group have not seen life in towns and cities. This is very exciting”, cackled Neela. The MCC students picked up the group of 32 from their Nagar, walked two km to catch the bus to Chingleput and took a train there to reach Potheri for a session on mushroom cultivation, pisiculture and vermi composting at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) of the Indian Council for Agriculture Research.
“We learnt a lot in that class that lasted almost two hours. The teacher was very kind and understanding. He was so patient because he knew that we were not only zero-literate but also very new to outside world”, said Neela’s daughter Bhavani.
“We will put this knowledge to practice. We have been promised that our produce will be marketed and we will earn some money”. The KVK-ICAR complex holds a weekly shandy on Saturdays, where the trainees’ produce is shown, and sold.
The tribal women were taken by train from Potheri to Tambaram, where they spent over two hours interacting with the faculty and students at the MCC. “If the tribal people were awe-struck seeing our urban life and the train rides, we were equally shocked at their ignorance and innocence. We have seen such people only in the movies and read in the travelogues of archeologists.
We taught them how to buy tickets for the train travel at Chegalpet railway station and after the interact at MCC, we put them on the train to reach their hamlet on their own. Those women were smart, brave”, Ms Anupriya, postgraduate MSW student, told DC.
“I am finishing my PG degree in April but will continue in the course just to work among these tribal people. We want to give them some basic education and soft skills. Now many of them do not even know how to count money”, she said.
Her classmate Shilpa, who is also part of the Project Tribal, said it was “pathetic to see people live in such abysmally unhygienic and poor conditions, that too so close to the state capital city”.
Even newborn babies suffered from scabies and other ailments and the Public Health Centre, more than a kilometre away, does not help. There are no roads, no electricity and no schools in Neela’s Nagar.
With the elections round the corner, will there be some hope for these tribal people? “Nobody has come to us for votes all these years. It appears none knew our existence, until the floods (November,2015) marooned us and some relief teams heard us screaming”, said Selvi, who is now all excited at not just the train ride but also the new ‘job’ she has secured through the MCC-MSW efforts to launch women’s self-groups to bring in some socio-economic activity into her hamlet.
