Originally posted on - Humans of India 

“I was married to a merchant when I was very young. I was fourteen years old when my hands held the wheel of a family life. Initially, my husband did good in his business and the amount of money that came in the household was ample enough for both of us. Six years after marriage, I conceived my first child. It was a girl. My daughter and I were looked down upon by my in-laws, my husband, and the neighbourhood. My second child was a boy. It was tough for me to bring up two children, one who was over-pampered by everybody and the other one who was loathed by her own relatives. 

My husband had an accident. He fell down from a very lofty tree. He has been bed-ridden since then. His business came to a hault. My daughter and I started washing dishes and doing the household chores of people to earn money. My son grew vegetables in our kitchen garden and sold them. It was not enough.

We lost our home, our lands, everything. I worked at 10 houses to send my children to school. I worked hard and added pie to pie to shift from a master’s outhouse to our ” own” hut. Hard work never fails.

Today, my husband can sit, my son is a farmer and my daughter a tailor. I still work at houses. It has got me, somehow. If I had not worked and served people by helping them with their daily chores, God would not have helped me.”