A woman’s journey of courage and resilience

By Saloni Singh

It was a freak accident which changed the life of 32-year-old Mrs. Chandra Devi forever. The accident, which happened in the quiet village of Shahadra, situated in Noida, caused grievous injuries to Mr. Vijay Singh, her husband who was about 40 years old at that time.

Mr Singh lost vision in one eye when the stick he was using to guide the ox flew into his eye.  His cranial nerve was crushed, an injury that impaired his cognitive skills.  After that, he became delusional and started hallucinating.

Even today, Mrs Chandra Devi, who is now 75, cannot forget what happened on that fateful day. “My first thought was the realization that now I have to look after my kids and my family, because if I don’t then who will.”

Her husband’s injuries catapulted Mrs. Chandra Devi into the role of the bread winner of the family of 11 members.

The challenges which she faced ranged from handling household work such as cooking, cleaning, fetching water, to managing her sick husband, who now required constant vigilance to tending to the field and taking care of livestock. She even had to make long trips to Meerut for her husband’s treatment.

Her fellow villagers admired her fierce independence. “No one could meet her gaze when she stepped out of her house or went to the market. Her presence commanded such respect that people instinctively lowered their eyes,” says Sukhpali, one of her neighbours.

Mrs Chandra Devi was fiercely protective of her children. Mr. Ajab Singh Bhati, her eldest son, narrates this story with pride. “I was 12 years old when some neighbours, seeing my father’s condition, decided to play a trick on me. They placed a stick on my neck and acted as if they were about to kill me. When my mother learnt about this, she went straight to the neighbour’s house, seized the stick from their hand, and declared, ‘As long as I am here, no one can lay a hand on my children. No matter what has happened to their father, I stand for them now.’ ”

She would get up by 3 a.m. and toil till 11 in the night. When asked, what kept her going, Mrs. Chandra Devi says, “Honesty, perseverance, optimism and faith.”

Mr. Satbeer Singh Bhati, her third son, states, “We were not only amazed but also inspired by the fact that our mother worked tirelessly just for the family.”

This sentiment is shared by Mrs. Manjula Singh, her third daughter. “Whether it was summer, winter or rainy season, she always slept in the open and stayed awake most of the night, looking after the farm and the farm animals.”

Like other women in her village, Mrs Chandra Devi had studied till Class V only.  But this did not stop her from managing 35 bighas of family land with efficiency and wisdom. She toiled tirelessly, year-round, cultivating essential crops like Jowar( sorghum), Gehun ( wheat ), masoor ( lentils ), Matar ( peas ), and Munji ( small green legume ).

She used cow dung as a fertilizer and saved the seed for the next season. Along with the field work, she also looked after the 16 buffaloes the family owned. She learnt to milk them, prepare their feed and even sell the milk.

She became a symbol of strength for her children, earning their love and respect. They started taking part in household work and joined their mother in the fields after coming back from school.

With passage of time, she started passing some of her responsibilities to her children. Her eldest son, Mr. Ajab Singh, started representing the family in social gatherings. Her daughter, Mrs. Manjula Singh started taking care of the 16 buffaloes at age 12.

Thanks to her determination, hard work and fierce spirit, the family is well settled today. She has one word of advice for today’s women, “Don’t let difficulties break your spirit, as you have more power than you think.”

(The writer is a first-year student of media at KCC Institutes in Greater Noida.)