Standing Tall

The story of Prema is truly awe inspiring. A self-made entrepreneur, she runs an embroidery workshop in Mullaikulathur all on her own. She has trained the women of the village to help her in the activity and has in-turn provided livelihood to many such young women. 

The story is inspiring because of the circumstances under which she started handling the business. Coming from a family of traditional weavers, she learnt the art from her husband and father-in-law. Her husband ran the business successfully after the death of her father-in-law until fate claimed his life too. In dire-straits not knowing what to do, Prema turned back to the only occupation she knew- embroidery.

She talks of tough times. Learning the ropes of business has been tough, knowing a skill and using it to run a business are not the same.Prema struggled to keep the business running.With nobody to meet regular customers and take orders, the orders drastically reduced. Prema syas that it was also partially due to the emergence of machine embroidery- being faster and cheaper, it ate into Prema’s customer base. With depleting incoming work, she had to cut down on the workforce.

Currently she works from a makeshift workshop situated in a hut in Mullaikulathur, lent by relatives. From an initial workforce of 20 they are now down to 7. The women working for Prema are also from marginalized families – many of them from the backward class. This income forms a part of their livelihood.

But Prema has not given up. She says that the past 7-8 years has made her strong and resilient. What kind of hand embroidery can she do? Thread work, chamki work, jhardoshi…she rattles off. She is now confident of handling any kind of handmade embroidery work.

She plays multiple roles – getting orders, designing the patterns, buying the raw materials and delivering the finished products. She travels all the way to Chennai to get orders to keep the workshop going. Now she survives on orders from the nearby Anupuram settlement and Kalpakkam although it is not of much quantity.

So how does she price her work? Her math is simple –its purely based on the labour required for each piece. She no longer gets work from the wholesale dealers in Chennai due to their demand for extremely low rates. She is confident of scaling up if more work emerges.Even in the midst of all this Prema is willing to teach the art to the women in nearby villages.When adversity strikes you have only two choices- get bogged down by it or stand tall and fight it out. Prema obviously chooses well.

Entrepreneurship anyone?

The word entrepreneurship frightens even the best brains in B-schools -they find secure corporate jobs better than to take the entrepreneurship gamble. What makes this story truly remarkable is the fact that this lady took to entrepreneurship with little or no basic knowledge but with a lot of confidence.

Meet Kala, the ward councillor of the SC ward in Mullaikulathur and an entrepreneur who runs the only shop in that part of the village.Kala received some money from Hand-in-Hand, an NGO providing microfinance and used that to set up her petty shop. 

She sells essential items and sweet-meats and makes a living out of it.Kala being a ward councellor also talk about the state of her ward.She points out to the state of the roads and rues at the lack of sanitation.During the rainy season the place floods and people can hardly commute.

Nearly around 50-75 families reside in the SC colony. Kala also points out the need for a doctor. The men work as coolie workers and daily labourers who do not have any fixed income. If they need money then they go to work .Alcoholism also seems to be rampant with everyone spending most of their earnings on it.

Why has no one else taken the entrepreneurship route when finance is available? Kala says that people borrow money and spend it on their household expenses. There have been instances of a woman starting an idly shop and some have also bought cows from the money. Kala points out to Prema who runs an embroidery workshop in the colony and says that many women from the SC colony are employed there.

We call it a land of men, but clearly in Mullaikulathur, the women seem to be ruling the roost.

Agent of Change

Sumathi heads the women’s self-help group in Mullaikulathur. The group consists of nearly 30 women from different sections of the village. 

Sumathi coordinates with Hand in Hand, an NGO in microfinance and helps provide funding for women who want to start their own enterprise. Many women in the self-help group have used the money to buy cows. They sell the milk to the local milkman. Sumathi worries that many who borrow end up spending the money on household expenses.

She is an opinion leader in the village and commands a lot of respect from her self help group. Sumathi has also brought a number of NGO initiatives to the village. She talks about a health camp that she conducted with an NGO. She has also helped in disbursing the funding available for building toilets and has built a number of toilets in the village.

Sumathi actively participates in all village activities and takes special interest in ensuring that all children are sent to school .She is looking for trainings in agriculture-based activities that can be managed from within the home. She aims to empower the women to contribute to the household income, thus elevating their standard of living.

They call him "Thalaivar"!

Everybody in Mullikkulathur calls him “Thalaivar” meaning headman in Tamil. 

He controls the entire political circus in and around the village. Ethiraj is very well known and respected. He is the deputy headman of the Mullikkulathur and is totally the one in control. He does not stay in Mullikkulathur, but in another village close by. A simple man dressed in the trademark white shirt and dhoti, his political clout and power can be gauged from his well built house and the array of vehicles in his parking lot.

On questioning him about the political scene, Ethiraj says that though there are people supporting different parties, there have never been clashes between party cadres. He goes on to explain the political setup in the villages .The five nearby villages together come under a gram sabha, which meets twice a year, headed by the headman. The village panchayats handle all the individual civic problems. Bigger villages are further broken down into wards with each ward electing a ward councillor.

When asked about the village governance Ethiraj at once talks about how the entire village is well maintained - there is no caste based issues he says, no water problem, He assures that all government schemes have been implemented without much delay including NAREGA, TV, and gas stove distribution.

He concedes that alcoholism is an issue that needs to be addressed. He says that the healthcare system is a little poor though there is a nurse to look after the emergency needs. Ethiraj promises help for all social activities and pledges his support for any such event. Is this another political promise? We will soon find out.

Two different worlds

Farmers here grow two crops every year. The second  set of crops will be sown now .With the rain gods being benevolent this year with heavy rainfall over the last few weeks, everyone in Mullaikulathur is gearing up for the busiest part of the agriculture cycle.

 The fields are being readied to sow the crops. Large fields are usually segregated into smaller areas where the sowing is done, segment by segment. The crop to be sown is first grown in a separate plot. On the day of sowing, the two week-old crops are uprooted in bunches and carried to the fields to be sown.

The field is readied by ploughing and water logging. Bigger farms use tractors and the smaller farms use motor-driven ploughs which need to be guided by hand. The old world oxen-driven ploughs is no longer used and finds a place only in Indian movies.

The well to do farmers and the other smaller farmers seem to exist in different worlds altogether. While the richer agriculturist use more sophisticated tools to minimize labour and maximize productions, the others still depend on manual labour to do the bulk of the farm work. The sowing season makes this contrast very evident. Thandavamurthy has a sowing machine which he uses to plant the rice saplings. The machine can be operated by even a child and it helps him drastically reduce on labour.

He procured the sowing machine because of the government subsidy reducing its cost to Rs.75000.The rice saplings are fed to the machine which then plants the saplings with exact spacing with almost no labour cost.

In the adjacent farm one can see the traditional way of sowing the paddy. The men prepare the field and stack up bunches of rice saplings.It is the women who sow the saplings. A small field employs around  10-15 women to plant the saplings.This is also the only means of income for most of these women.

One wonders whether there is any merit in using farm equipment meant for countries like America and Australia - where there is a serious dearth of labour – in India. On one hand we are trying to reduce unemployment through various government schemes and on the other we encourage use of farm equipment to reduce labour. It is in the midst of such ironies that we in India live.

The modern Farmer

Farming is at the heart of the Indian villages. This is evident in Mullaikulathur. What is more interesting is that the farmer of today has learnt to cope with the modern day demands without giving up on farming. Kamalakannan is one such farmer. 

You could easily mistake him to be a farm hand. He was toiling hard alone in his farm with the sun harshly beating down on him. Quiz him and he reveals that he owns this farm and the small piece of land adjacent to it. 

Most farmers in Mullaikulathur are not the landlords who own the land and contract it out to farmers to grow crops in it. They own the land and work in the farms themselves along with the other farm hands.

There is a lot of talk going on about the fact that farming as such is not a viable occupation, especially for farmers with just a small piece of land. With the rising prices of commodities there is a need to supplement your earnings from agriculture with some alternative income. Surprisingly many farmers instead of just cribbing about their fate have earnestly taken up jobs in the nearby Kalpakkam research centre on a shift basis.

Kamalakannam says that once the seeds are sown, all that needs to be done is to water the fields and take care of them by adding the requisite fertilizers. So he works as a maintenance help in Kalpakkan during the day. He gets up early to tend to this field before leaving for work. Once he is back, he again spends some time in the field. This has helped him secure a regular monthly salary.

He says that it is during the months of sowing and harvesting that it really gets hectic. He then takes some time off work and hires field hands to help him plough the field, sow the seeds and harvest the crop. Modern machines like the tractor, which he borrows from his father-in-law helps speedup the process. He also has a well on this farm fitted with a motor for irrigation purposes.

He children go to school, one of them is studying in 11^th standard and has to travel all the way to Vengampakkam to study. Will he ensure that they study further? He is very supportive and acknowledges the value of education. 

What are the problems with farming in Mullaikulathur? Kamalakannan says that they are at the mercy of the rice mill owners. They come to the farms during the harvest season, weigh out the harvest and fix a price. The farmers end up selling the harvest to these rice mill owners at whatever price they quote.The farmers also have some rudimentary knowledge about the fertilizers and pest control, any expert advice on increasing the yield would be useful. 

Cast(e) Away? Not Really

Mullaikulathur has its share of Caste politics and policies. What is not apparent when you casually visit a village becomes clear when you start regularly interacting with people and understanding the social setup. 

The Village as such does not seem to have any caste based tensions, but the social demarcations are pretty stark, a legacy that continues in this age and time. This is also not unique to a single village but pretty prevalent all through the country.

The main streets are occupied by the upper caste. They are the well to do farmers who own land and property. The houses are well built concrete structures with all modern amenities. The poorer families have smaller houses in the same street.

The schedule castes have their own colony, a little removed from the main village. The social discord is apparent as you enter the area. The roads are not well laid. The houses have thatched roofs. 

Few houses have proper sanitation facilities. Thanks to the Tamil Nadu CM, even if houses don’t have toilets, they definitely do have TVs. There are nearly 50-75 families living in the SC colony. 

They work as daily wage labourers with no fixed incomes. The typical problems of irregular income, alcoholism and lack of development exist here. While some work in the farms, the rest work as construction workers –masons, plumbers, electricians etc.

        The Irula tribe members have their own settlement on the other side of the village. The settlement consists of about 10-15 families. Traditionally the Irulas have been snake charmers, but now have turned to labour for their livelihood. The members of this tribe normally work as woodcutters or as helpers in rice mills.They are one of the most backward groups in the village. Some families apparently do not even send their children to school.

What is heartening is that most of the other families send their children to school. The villagers are aware of the need for literacy. Some students go on to pursue their higher studies while others get to working after their 10 standard.

Of fields and lakes

Though from outside, the village looks sleepy and boring with rows and rows of houses, the actual beauty of Mullaikulathur is hidden deep within it. When you get past the houses and the school and the temple, you encounter the essence of the village. 

The school and the temple are situated at the boundaries of the village. There is a small lake near the temple which apparently gets filled up during the monsoons.

There is a small winding path besides the school which leads into the woods. 

The path itself is extremely beautiful with huge trees and wild flowers. 

A small diversion leads to the first set of farms. The lush greenery of the newly planted paddy fields contrasts well with the dark brown of the irrigated fields waiting to be planted with seeds. As you would have already guessed, the main crop that is grown here is paddy. 

The fields are interspersed with old stone-walled wells, which seem to be the primary source of irrigation.

If you stick to the main path it leads you through the wilderness. A trained eye and ear can spot a number of beautiful birds and butterflies, some of which have just vanished from our cities. 

The path leads you around the biggest lake in the village. The lake contains water throughout the year and during monsoons it is known to swell up to its boundaries. 

There are huge banyan trees giving one the feeling of being in a nature trek. 

The path abruptly ends in miles and miles of paddy fields. Apparently this part of the village consists of the biggest chunk of farms.

As it was the ploughing and sowing season, lots of people were engaged in the farming activities. The sunset at the lake is particularly beautiful when the water turns golden in color and the sky is a resplendent orange. 

On the downside, the place near the lake has a distinct stench which again emphasises the need for basic sanitation. Though most village houses have toilets, some definitely don’t, leading to the desecration of such a beautiful place.

And we give you - Mullikkolathur

MullaiKulathur is a sleepy village on the road connecting Kalpakkam and the holy town of Thirukazhikundram. 

It is very much possible that you would miss the village unless you are on the lookout for the only English board of the village announcing its name. Villages in Tamilnadu are surprisingly well maintained and Mullaikulathur was no different. The village extended on both sides of the main road. The entire village consists of about 1000 residents most of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

If you come with the expectation of houses with thatched roofs with quaint old looks, you are bound to be disappointed.

MullaiKulathur has most of the essential facilities –a school upto the 8^th standard, an Anganwadi nursery for smaller children and a nurse who looked after the emergency medical needs. The village temple is the meeting place for any village event. The only shops to be found here are two small multipurpose stores that sell some essential stuff. Of-course you will encounter a number of poultry –hens and goats and cows.

 The residents are very friendly and helpful. The simplicity of the villagers is evident from their lifestyle. The village itself consists of two main roads, both sides of which are flanked by houses. Tamil is the only language spoke in the village, although you may want to try some English with the school children and the teachers.

So what can be different about the village, is it not just another Village? Each of the further posts highlights some unique features of Mullaikulathur and some powerful stories of extraordinary individuals. Read On to know more