Kamal was forced to set aside her dream for survival

Kamal K Dodamani is a 62-year-old devadasi from Chikkodi, a small town in the Belgaum district of Karnataka. Being a former devadasi, she lost the better part of her childhood and youth to the demeaning system. She was never given a chance to go to school or an opportunity to work. She has always been outcasted and mistreated by the society. To make her living and get out of this all consuming system, Kamal applied for a loan to start her own buffalo husbandry. She had a plan in place to buy a buffalo and expected an increase of Rs 7,000 in her monthly income. 

Kamal lives in a small house with two rooms - a kitchen/bedroom and a living room. The site for the house is given by government and she has to pay a rent of Rs 1,000 every year. The house was built, at least, 50 years ago and was in a pretty bad shape. One day, due to rain, the entire house just caved in. The roof broke down and the plastering was a mess. The house was turned into a pile of rubble and all her stuff was lost in it. When the loan amount for the buffalo rearing business came in, Kamal had been living with her friends and was desperately trying to find any money to repair her house. Though she knew the loan was supposed to be used for buying the buffalo, Kamal had no other choice except using it for rebuilding her house. 

With the loan money, Kamal rebuilt her house and painted it herself. Though, now her financial condition was worse than before, it did not dampen her spirits. She took up another loan and started her vegetable selling business. She buys vegetables in bulk quantities from the farmers and sells them in the local market at a profit. Although life threw unimaginable troubles at her, Kamal has come out of it triumphantly and leads a comfortable life with her son in her newly constructed home.