Builidng Communities and Capabilties

Coming back from Delhi, we got to setting up house with full family once again, after living apart for nearly four years. Can you believe it - it was only now that we bought a gas stove! A makeshift table was made out of wooden crating for using the stove! Quite an event it was. Tatayya also bought a Bajaj scooter, for which there used to be a very long waiting list of years! I tried learning to ride the scooter with the help of a neighbourhood boy, but did not succeed as I could not balance. I joined MBA in Osmania, where, for the first time, the entrance exam system was introduced (probably first in the country after the IITs and Med Colleges). Osmania was active in student politics and that entrance exam was declared null and void after an agitation. We had to write another exam and by the time I got into MBA first semester, it was already December. I used to go round Hyderabad quite a lot with friends, with Ammamma always worrying about me, specially as there were no means of communication. Maapi joined Rosary Convent, our alma mater in the 9th standard, after several back and forth movement of her application. We were worried as to her schooling which had seen so many changes in nature and content, and were looking forward to her being settled in Rosary. When she got in, we were all thrilled and Maapi spent some of her happiest days of her life there.

Ammamma now had to reactivate her contacts in Hyderabad. She went to AP Mahila Samakhya, which is the NFIW state branch. She met Gujjula Sarala Devi, Secreatary and Brij Rani Gaur, the President. Both were active in Leftist movement and had married communist leaders in their days of leftist activism. Even at this time, Brij Rani undertook a very active role in public issues, notably, staging a sit in and occupying government land for distribution to the poor (this was in Chikkadpally). She started an organization for poor women and named it as Working Women's Association (a misnomer, as it was actually meant as a collective for poor women workers, maids, petty traders and the like). Sarala Devi gave the job of managing this organization to Ammamma, in addition to taking part in the activities of the Samakhya.

Her first job was to increase membership, seek funds for its continuance. She organized a cultural programme (an arrangement with a friend's daughter's debut dance performance - aarangetram on a sharing basis). They brought out a souvenir for which they collected ads and got some funds for the Association. (Actually girls, the girl who performed the aarangetram was Kantakka's niece Sangeetha). She then moved an application for funding of a vocational training programme and a condensed course for preparing school dropouts from weaker sections, villages and  including widows and other disadvantaged women for writing 10th class board exams. There were one or two girls from once well to do and forward caste families as well, who had fallen on bad times and financially weak. There was one girl who was a heart patient and used to keep telling Ammamma about the pain every now and then. Ammamma must have felt helpless. The girls were aged between 18-30 years. The girls used to get Rs 15 as stipend. The stay, food and teaching were free. Ammamma had to buy provisions for them for cooking their food.

Pending the sanction from the Social Welfare Board, they had to employ teachers, collect participants to the programme, run a hostel for their stay for at least 6 months (the girls used to cook food themselves and maintain the two rooms they were housed in). Then the sanction would come and Central funds would also be released for the same. An office had to be set up, care had to be taken for the welfare and safety of the girls, who were preyed upon by local eve teasers and gangsters and a host of such probelms. The girls were mainly from Telengana and a few from Coastal area and were usually poor communist families or sympathiser families. Slowly, other courses were also started for certificate programmes for which examinations were conducted by the AP Technical Education Board. This was a tailoring programme for women and a Balwadi for children was also started by Brij Rani Gaur under the Urban Community Development Project (MCH Project). Ammamma's arrival was a shot in the arm for these programmes, which were not running too well. Ammamma's organization skills and her interest and commitment to work went beyond her normal duties. She used to even take the children out for picnics and sightseeing.

Ammamma approached a friend of Tatayya, then famous as Dr N V Ramakrishna of the Ramakrishna Homeo Stores to open a free clinic for the poor in the community in Chikkadpally (Suryanagar Basti), under the aegis of the Lion's Club, which he complied with.

The Annual Day of the Bridge School programme for Dropouts was conducted in Ambedkar College at Chikkadpally, with thier permission and courtesy. The girls perfomed lambada dance and other cultural programmes. In other words, it was as normal as a paid school would be. Katragadda Prasuna, a lecturer of the College was thoroughly impressed with the entire effort and expressed a keen desire to also pariticipate in  social welfare activities on a regular basis. It is another matter that she left her job and became an active politician when N T Rama Rao gave a call to the young and the educated to participate in the elections actively and build a new Telugu Desam.

Ammamma did not stop at this. She coordinated with a friend in a Junior College in Marredpally (this was your Peda Mamayya's maternal uncle's wife as we came to know later), and took the girls on an excursion to Ajanta and Ellora. The costs were lesser as they joined up in the same bus and MCH gave funds for covering this. Ammamma is reporting with glee that they had a great time, and on their return journey, they even plundered a sugarcane field! Bad!

While what I am recording sounds impressive enough, it actually was far more tough in practice. Ammamma had to shift multiple locations for the girls of different batches, and duirng this time, she was also shifting houses, first to Nallakunta and then to our house in Banjara Hills, which was finally vacated by a tenant with great difficulty (Nanna and me also contributed by hounding the tenant! Can you believe it?). Here Ammamma had to change two buses to go to Amberpet where the girls were now housed. The first location interestingly, was near Rajyam Sinha's house in Erra Manzil. (Rajyam Sinha was the Director of Information and Public Relations, an earlier activist and had married Bijoy Sinha. Their daughter in law is Shantha Sinha of the Child Labour fame). There was a problem of eve teasing and a police complaint had to be lodged. A second location was in the ground floor of the rented portion where we were staying in Nallakunta (not me though, I was already married by then). This place was cramped and in any case, Ammamma and Tatayya had to shift to Banjara Hills to their own house as they could not afford to pay rent anymore due to Tatayya's erratic earning. They chose a location in Amberpet near a Communist sympathiser's house. The sister of the landlady was not happy with this and she tried to create trouble by getting a ruffian to sleep in the same premises. The next day Ammamma and Sarala Devi lodged a complaint and police summoned the lady in question and warned her severely and threatened action if she did not comply.

One day, the girls had an altercation and one girl just left the hostel nd ran away. Ammamma and the the rest of the offcie bearers searched high and low and were worried sick as to the whereabouts of the girl. Finally, her father brought her back from the village and handed her over with a severe admonishing. After that all doors and windows were to be secured shut by girls on this specific duty. I really wonder how they must have suffered in Hyderabad weather because of this.

All these events described above took place over a period of 10 years and to keep the school programme in one place, I did not litter the narrative with the family side of the chronology and other activities. I will continue these in future posts.