Today she is the recipient of around 60 awards for social work including the Savitribai Phule award from the Maharashtra government, the Satpal Mittal Award and the Parivartan Award given by the Maharashtra-based non-governmental organization, Parivartan. And yet she continues to beg for others. Belonging to a family of cattle herders, poverty coupled with social convention prevented Sindhutai from having access to education. She would try to manage the herd and also attend school with great difficulty. But marriage at 10 put an end to the fourth standard student's education. The groom, Shrihari Sapkal, alias Harbaji, was over 30 years old.
Sindhutai created a sensation in Navargaon in 1972 when she demanded that the forest department pay the village women for the cow dung they collected. The department used to auction the dung to landlords and pocket the cash. "We won the fight," says Sindhutai. But she lost her family. She claims that an annoyed landlord, Damdaji Asatkar, spread the rumor that the child she was carrying was his. "My husband simply abandoned me," says Sindhutai. She was beaten up and dumped in a cow shed, where her daughter, Mamata, was born. "This was in 1973. I cut the umbilical cord with a sharp-edged stone lying nearby," she says.
Equipped with nothing but a determination to feed her child, Sindhutai decided to beg. "I begged for almost three years during which time I traveled to Delhi, Chandigarh and almost all over Maharashtra. I also started singing to get more money and having a considerably good voice, I would end up with more money which I would share with my fellow beggars. I would eat and sleep on the roads," says she. And then she started wandering from one town to another. "Those were the days of soul-searching. I began feeling I must do something for those suffering like me," she adds.
The idea was just taking root when she found herself in Chikhaldara in Maharashtra's Amravati district. A section of the Melghat jungles on the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh had been earmarked for a tiger project and she soon found herself fighting for the rights of the tribals. With food and shelter given by others, Sindhutai then started looking after orphaned and abandoned adivasi (tribal) children as a source of livelihood. It didn't take long for this to become the mission of her life.
Here goes some links for the same.
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=6497
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwOS8xMC8yMiNBcjAxMTAw
You Tube videos of Sindhutai Sapkal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGqYeNc1Mtw
Nagpur
07 May 2011
Sindhutai created a sensation in Navargaon in 1972 when she demanded that the forest department pay the village women for the cow dung they collected. The department used to auction the dung to landlords and pocket the cash. "We won the fight," says Sindhutai. But she lost her family. She claims that an annoyed landlord, Damdaji Asatkar, spread the rumor that the child she was carrying was his. "My husband simply abandoned me," says Sindhutai. She was beaten up and dumped in a cow shed, where her daughter, Mamata, was born. "This was in 1973. I cut the umbilical cord with a sharp-edged stone lying nearby," she says.
Equipped with nothing but a determination to feed her child, Sindhutai decided to beg. "I begged for almost three years during which time I traveled to Delhi, Chandigarh and almost all over Maharashtra. I also started singing to get more money and having a considerably good voice, I would end up with more money which I would share with my fellow beggars. I would eat and sleep on the roads," says she. And then she started wandering from one town to another. "Those were the days of soul-searching. I began feeling I must do something for those suffering like me," she adds.
The idea was just taking root when she found herself in Chikhaldara in Maharashtra's Amravati district. A section of the Melghat jungles on the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh had been earmarked for a tiger project and she soon found herself fighting for the rights of the tribals. With food and shelter given by others, Sindhutai then started looking after orphaned and abandoned adivasi (tribal) children as a source of livelihood. It didn't take long for this to become the mission of her life.
Here goes some links for the same.
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=6497
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwOS8xMC8yMiNBcjAxMTAw
You Tube videos of Sindhutai Sapkal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGqYeNc1Mtw
Nagpur
07 May 2011
