Evicted by heartless sons, ostracised by village heads, Srikakulam aged couple cries for help

SRIKAKULAM: Heartless sons and ruthless village heads have combined in Srikakulam district to inflict the most heinous punishment on an aged couple in their twilight: They were driven out by their three sons soon after inheriting the property from them. And rubbing more salt on their humiliation, the all-powerful heads ostracised them from the village besides implementing a strict social boycott.

The ordeal of Isuru Chandrasekhar and Saralamma, in their seventies, smacks of nothing short of a primitive-age justice where there is little scope for humanity and a fair trial. The incident, which happened in Innesupet of Ichchapuram in Srikakulam district, partly vindicates why Karl Marx once famously said that “all human relations are economic relations.” On the flipside, it is also a stark reminder of how jungle rule still prevails in our midst even in the 21st Century and wreaks havoc with the lives of weak and vulnerable sections.

Chandrasekhar and Saralamma have three sons – Damodar, Jagga Rao and Mohana Rao. The couple were scrupulous in their family responsibility to build houses for their three sons before performing their marriages. They shared all their property equally among their three offspring and even obliged their elder son Damodar’s request to give him an additional 20-cent land. Everything looked hunky dory for some time post the distribution of their property.

The trouble for the aged couple started when two of their sons, especially the elder one, began showing their true colours, having received what they yearned for, the property. They started neglecting their parents so much so that there was no one to feed them two square meals a day. When Chandrasekhar questioned his elder son, he was badly beaten up on the road and in full public glare, as the anguished mother lamented later.

The village heads, who should have come to their rescue by reining in their sons, only proved to be the couple’s worst tormentors. They received a raw deal from the village heads when they approached them over their children’s atrocities. Instead of acting against their monstrous sons, the village heads only chose to victimise the victims further.

According to Chandrasekhar and Saralamma, the village heads imposed a fine on them as the latter felt offended and bypassed when the aged couple went to the police over their plight. The couple is too old and frail to eke out a living through hard labour and this obviously resulted in them defaulting on the payment of the fine. The village heads used this as a ruse to implement a strict social boycott against them in the village. They even ordered the traditional announcement (chaatimpu) in the village, warning the residents with a Rs 5,000 fine if any of the residents were found to have either spoken to the aged couple or interacted with them, let alone helping them in their worst crisis.

The couple’s youngest son, Mohana Rao came forward to take care of his parents. But, driven by their ego, the village heads punished him too. According to Chandrasekhar and Saralamma and Mohana Rao, the stone-hearted village heads slapped a Rs 11,000 fine on their younger son.

Back to square one and with no one to take care, the hassled couple came before the media and poured out with their woes, desperately looking for quick intervention from the government authorities.