India: Hidden Losses - Thayammal

"How can I, in my old age, trouble my sons?"

She meets us at the street, smiling warmly and waving as we pull up. We follow her down the narrow gap between buildings, stepping over the streams of frothy water coming down the drain. A woman slaps her laundry against the concrete before squeezing out another soapy gush.

We slip off our sandals, enter her home and sit on the floor in a circle. Her name is Thayammal and she's 58 years old. She wears her mostly grey hair pulled back in a braid. Her ears and nose are dazzled with gold. Another gold necklace hangs around her neck. We learned that jewellery isn't just about personal adornment; gold is to Indians what RRSPs are to Westerners. Her home is very simple: she and two of her sons share the one-bedroom space. Two more married sons and their wives live upstairs.

Without any prompting, Thayammal launches into a litany of her accomplishments - she has worked her way up in the kalanjiam (a women's self-help microfinance group) becoming a leader in the federation. She heads up a program to help poor families purchase homes rather than throw away rent to shady landlords who keep them in an impoverished state. "My vision is a house for every poor family," she tells us.

I'm impressed. "With all your amazing accomplishments, I see what the kalanjiam has brought you outside," I say to her. "What has it brought you inside, in your heart?"

She tells me that before kalanjiams were formed, her family, like many others in Sellur, was crippled by debt. She and her husband owed the bank 150,000 rupees ($3,350 CDN) for their home and the burden was staggering. She joined the kalanjiam and began saving. Leaders from the kalanjiam federation and the DHAN Foundation met with the bank, convincing them to cut her mortgage in half. She borrowed the other half from a neighbour and tasted the bliss of financial freedom.

Realizing the power of collective action, she has volunteered tirelessly for the federation since then.

But soon a deeper story begins pouring out of this proud and elegant woman. "Two years ago, my husband had a heart attack. We took him to the hospital and he had another attack, then a third. Then, he died." She cries as she speaks, her voice rising in pitch as her painful words come out in a torrent of Tamil. "In India, your daughters care for you after your husband passes away. They bring saris and food. I have no daughters - there was no one to honour me in this way. But, members of the kalanjiam came. They honoured me. They were there."

Facing massive bills for her husband's medical treatment, the kalanjiam supported her with a loan. The alternatives in slums like Sellur are the shady money lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates and set impossible-to-meet repayment demands, trapping borrowers interminably.

"I will work for the kalanjiam until I break," she says, wiping her eyes. "That is the debt of gratitude I owe."

I am holding her hand and we are both weeping as she tells me the neighbour she borrowed money from is charging her R1,200 ($27 CDN) in interest per month, almost half of the pension she's been living on since her husband's death. Until she repays the kalanjiam loan for her husband's medical bills, she's not eligible for another. The money she gives her neighbour doesn't even touch the principal. Even Thayammal couldn't avoid the trap. As so often happens to the poor, where choices are few and support systems absent, emergencies and unexpected events can send families spiralling into debt and panic.

Her four sons live in her house - two of them are married and working - but contribute nothing to the bills. She bears the burden alone, cornered by the greed of her neighbour and the cultural edict that a parent cannot ask her child for financial help. "It's our way," our translator explains. "Unless they are moved to help her, she cannot ask."

Thayammal turns to the kitchen to prepare coffee. While she works, Cate and I brainstorm ways to fix things - as though we have any right or means to change things. By the time Thayammal brings the drinks, our opinions fill the room.

"The biosand filter is working well," Thayammal says with a sad smile, tactfully changing the subject. "The water is good for drinking and cooking." Thayammal is a reminder of how vulnerable the world's poor are - NGOs like CAWST and DHAN help create systems of support, but change is incremental and slow. It's subject to culture and attitudes that can't be fixed in a day.