You are only as old as you feel

Tanibayi Sateppa Madar is a 76 year old single mother from Radaratti, a small village in the Belgaum district of Karnataka. She is a former devadasi. She was married off to the local deity Yallamma at the age of 7 and was given to any man who could pay her family and give them rations. She is a mother of 14 children. Being uneducated and not trained to do any work, she had to give away 3 of her daughters to the devadasi system to feed the rest of her children. There was hardly any money at home, so all her children started working as daily wage labourers at a very young age. She lives with her youngest daughter now. Even at this age, Tanibayi is hardworking and full of energy. She does back breaking daily wage labour all day. Meeting her is a true inspiration. Tanibayi wanted to help out her daughter and save for medical emergencies. She smiled at me and said “I am not getting any younger. It's high time I started saving up for my future medical bills”. So, she decided to start an animal husbandry. She took a loan of Rs. 20,000 from MASS (Mahila Abhivruddhi mattu Samrakshana Samsthe), a micro-financing field partner of Milaap to buy a buffalo. A grown-up buffalo costs at least Rs. 40,000 and she didn't have enough savings. So, Tanibayi had to settle to buying a calf. She has been rearing the calf but, there is no returns from it as of yet. It is too young. Tanibayi expects that the buffalo will be pregnant in the next few months and then she can start to earn from it by selling the milk. Though Tanibayi is not earning from the buffalo yet, she loves the animal with all her heart. This was the first loan she ever made and she is confident that this was the right decision. She is very grateful to all the lenders for the loan.