A ‘mom-son’ bond that has blossomed on streets

TIRUNELVELI

When lorry cleaner Selvaraj, 65, of Kovilpatti met with an accident 30 years ago, he never thought that it would affect his vision and would be consequently driven out of the house by his family.

Having lost the family’s support and vision, an unmarried Mr. Selvaraj came to Tirunelveli where begging became his profession.

Starting his new life with other beggars, including now 95-year-old Lakshmi Ammal, an abandoned woman from Thoothukudi, Mr. Selvaraj narrated his story to the old woman.

Since she encouraged him to undergo a screening in an eye hospital here to confirm if his vision could be restored, Mr. Selvaraj obliged and underwent surgery in the hospital.

“When I was recuperating after the eye surgery, Lakshmi Ammal was with me in the hospital to take care of me like a mother. The treatment and the motherly affection of Lakshmi Ammal restored vision in one of the eyes,” a visually moved Mr. Selvaraj recalls.

After getting discharged from the hospital, the ‘mother and the son’ were on the road again to resume begging. When Mrs. Lakshmi Ammal crossed the road one day, a speeding vehicle hit the fragile woman to fracture her leg even as Mr. Selvaraj was witnessing the accident from a distance.

Though the ‘son’ rushed his ‘mother’, who was in excruciating pain, to hospital and took care of the woman until she recuperated from the surgery performed to correct the fracture, she could not walk owing to age and post-surgical impact.

“So I decided to buy an old wheelchair for my ‘mom’ and found it in a scrap shop after a lot of scouting. With my savings, I bought the wheelchair, on which she is sitting now. I would push the wheelchair to various spots and are living with what you people give us for the past 20 years,” says Mr. Selvaraj, who is the eye, ear and leg of Mrs. Lakshmi Ammal as age and ailment have crippled her now.

As the already discarded wheelchair has broken and cannot be used anymore, Mr. Selvaraj brought his ‘mother’ to the Collectorate on Monday on the old wheelchair to submit a petition to Collector Shilpa Prabhakar Satish seeking a new wheelchair for her.

When Mr. Selvaraj narrated their stories, Ms. Shilpa was seen patiently hearing their sufferings they underwent for the past three decades under rain and shine. She, after patiently listening to their ordeals for more than 15 minutes, immediately asked the officials to admit Mr. Selvaraj and Mrs. Lakshmi Ammal in a home here to take care of the ‘son and the mother’ at least during the rest of their lives.

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