Tamil Nadu: 80-year-old woman saves Rs 71,500 for own funeral in demonetised Rs 500 notes

VILLUPURAM: Unless when banning a book, movie, or raking controversy over political speeches, the phrase ‘hurt to religious sentiments’ is seldom used in commonplace incidents. Just weeks after the nation saw the first anniversary of demonetisation, the move has, in essence, hurt religious sentiments, not of a community, but of a 80-year-old Tamil woman who passed away on Thursday.

From what the sources narrated, Lakhsmi, at Periyamampattu village near Kallakurichi,  was no stranger to fending for oneself. Her husband had passed away in her youth and her only son had died within months of his birth. The child reportedly had an immunity condition. The woman lived with her brother Muthu’s family ever since. After Muthu died in 2006 at the age of 85, his son Velmurugan (38) had been supporting her.

Velmurugan, who had three girls and a son, was struggling to make both ends meet and Lakshmi was aware of her nephew’s hardships. Lakshmi used to work as a daily wage labourer at farms and broom-making factories, until a year ago. The woman always feared that Velmurugan may not be able to incur the expenses of a decent funeral when she dies.

Fearing she may get an impersonal funeral from the panchayat officials, the woman had saved money for her own funeral. In the Tamil culture, a dignified death is considered important than one’s actual living conditions.

As this were, demonetisation happened. Velmurugan, while rounding up the scrapped notes, asked Lakshmi if she had notes to be changed. The woman had answered in the negative, and when told that the government was scrapping notes, she had refused to believe Velmurugan. “When I asked her what she had done with the money she had earned, she laughingly replied that was for her funeral and that the family would get the money after her death,” said Velmurugan.

Lakshmi, who was bedridden for the past few months, passed away on Thursday morning. When the women where readying the body for last rites, they found a drawstring purse tied to her waist. The opened it and found scrapped Rs 500 currency notes which, before November 8, 2016, had been valued at Rs 71,500. This amount would have been more than enough for a decent funeral.

The woman must have stopped working when she reached that conclusion. Pointing out to the irony of how demonetisation was yet to trouble a rich man in the district, Advocate Luciya Mary, who had several accounts of how the poor in the district had lost lives’ dreams due to the move, made an appeal on behalf of the family, for the woman’s savings to be counted as valid.