Med student turns farmhand to bail out family
Balajee.CR@timesgroup.com
Trichy: 11.09.2018
The hands that train with scalpels through the week pluck weeds on weekends. P Kanimozhi’s impoverished family to mortgaged or sold everything it had to fund her MBBS course at a private college and she is now making sure it doesn’t starve.
During weekends, Kanimozhi, who belongs to the Arunthathiyar community, works on a farm for a meagre ₹150 a day to supplement what her father P Pichaimani, 45, a farmer at Veppanthattai in Permabalur, makes.
The 21-year-old, who in 2014 managed to secure a government quota seat at Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Medical College at Siruvachur in Perambalur, fears she will have to discontinue her studies in the final year if she is not able to pay the fees.
The annual fee, Kanimozhi said, was around ₹5 lakh, of which around ₹3 lakh was provided by the state government as scholarship under the scheme for scheduled castes. But the scholarship is only for 4 years and 6 months.
Kanimozhi’s paltry earnings can only pay for her family’s daily expenses. “Along with my mother, I go to farms and do various types of work like removing weeds. My family has been struggling with poverty and meeting the medical expenses of my sister, who has a hearing impairment,” she said.
N Selvaraj, at whose farm Kanimozhi has been working from 7am to 1pm a day during the past few weekends, said: “In Veppanthattai, dailywagers go to farms wherever required. As far as I know, Kanimozhi has been doing this work for over two years and in recent weekends she has been working at my farm. Though I have advised her not to do such work as she’s an MBBS student, she said that she was doing it so that she could help her family.”
Her father said he had mortgaged all he could to pay ₹8,80,000 as fees so far and he had nothing left. “I was a daily-wage worker in Dubai for a few years, but after suffering an accident I returned home and have been farming on a one-acre plot of land. I sold my wife’s jewellery and mortgaged my farming land to pay Kanimozhi’s fees. My only dream is to make sure my daughter finishes her MBBS course,” he said.
College sources said the due date for Kanimozhi to pay the pending fee was in February. They said that knowing her situation, at no point did they compel her to pay the fee or ask her not to attend classes. “We always understand when a student is struggling financially. She’s regularly coming to college. If she had brought up the issue straight to us, we would’ve seen what could be done,” the source added.
SUPHILL BATTLE: P Kanimozhi works on a farm on weekends for just ₹150 a day so that her family does not starve
Balajee.CR@timesgroup.com
Trichy: 11.09.2018
The hands that train with scalpels through the week pluck weeds on weekends. P Kanimozhi’s impoverished family to mortgaged or sold everything it had to fund her MBBS course at a private college and she is now making sure it doesn’t starve.
During weekends, Kanimozhi, who belongs to the Arunthathiyar community, works on a farm for a meagre ₹150 a day to supplement what her father P Pichaimani, 45, a farmer at Veppanthattai in Permabalur, makes.
The 21-year-old, who in 2014 managed to secure a government quota seat at Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Medical College at Siruvachur in Perambalur, fears she will have to discontinue her studies in the final year if she is not able to pay the fees.
The annual fee, Kanimozhi said, was around ₹5 lakh, of which around ₹3 lakh was provided by the state government as scholarship under the scheme for scheduled castes. But the scholarship is only for 4 years and 6 months.
Kanimozhi’s paltry earnings can only pay for her family’s daily expenses. “Along with my mother, I go to farms and do various types of work like removing weeds. My family has been struggling with poverty and meeting the medical expenses of my sister, who has a hearing impairment,” she said.
N Selvaraj, at whose farm Kanimozhi has been working from 7am to 1pm a day during the past few weekends, said: “In Veppanthattai, dailywagers go to farms wherever required. As far as I know, Kanimozhi has been doing this work for over two years and in recent weekends she has been working at my farm. Though I have advised her not to do such work as she’s an MBBS student, she said that she was doing it so that she could help her family.”
Her father said he had mortgaged all he could to pay ₹8,80,000 as fees so far and he had nothing left. “I was a daily-wage worker in Dubai for a few years, but after suffering an accident I returned home and have been farming on a one-acre plot of land. I sold my wife’s jewellery and mortgaged my farming land to pay Kanimozhi’s fees. My only dream is to make sure my daughter finishes her MBBS course,” he said.
College sources said the due date for Kanimozhi to pay the pending fee was in February. They said that knowing her situation, at no point did they compel her to pay the fee or ask her not to attend classes. “We always understand when a student is struggling financially. She’s regularly coming to college. If she had brought up the issue straight to us, we would’ve seen what could be done,” the source added.
SUPHILL BATTLE: P Kanimozhi works on a farm on weekends for just ₹150 a day so that her family does not starve
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