Stirring life story of a woman

As they say truth is stranger than fiction, here is the stirring life story of a simple woman who married a partially blind man, completely aware of the consequences she had to face because of her decision that nobody forced upon on her.

Rukmini married a blind man knowing fully well that the history of blindness was running in their family for generations. Almost every member in her husband's family is afflicted with blindness in some form or the other. In spite of this fact she chose to marry him. After marriage, she had four children, of which two were born completely blind while the other two were partially blind. Undeterred by any of this, she became the yoke of the family doing everything possible for its survival and maintaining it for 38 years since her marriage.

Of the four children, the only son named Manjunath was completely blind and had to depend on her entirely. Without losing hope at any moment, she raised him in every step. After his ITI, he went to Bangalore and stayed there for a year to attend a training course where he learnt to weave chairs using plastic wire. He got married to a girl named Kamala who too had partial blindness. The couple had two children named Shreyas and Likitha who have normal vision.



Backed by his mother's constant support and encouragement he took up repairing broken chairs to earn his livelihood. He began to receive orders from companies and industries to get their broken chairs repaired. He could skillfully weave names and abbreviations of the company's name by keeping a mental count of the number of knots he had weaved. He could even weave motifs like Swastik and other insignia using two colours.

His mothers help him by giving the type of plastic rope he asks. So proficient was he in his work that quickly he had a steady stream of clients knocking at his door that had big industry houses like RMP, TVS, Infosys, BEML among others. In spite of this, his earnings were meager and not sufficient enough to make ends meet. He got Rs.100 to 150 per chair and could repair two chairs in a day.

When there is an order the mother and son together leave the house in the morning at around 8AM. His mother assists him to climb the bus and reach the place of work. Till the repair job is finished the mother says beside his son helping in fetching the things he asks for. They have their lunch together which they had carried from the home. They get back to their homes in the evening. This has become a routine life for them.

"Try until you succeed. Don't expect only good things to happen to you, but rather accept whatever you get in life" is the motto of Manjunath in life, who is immensely indebted to his mother as she stood by him all these 33 years from the moment he was born.