Women's Day special: Tulasamma, from maid to beacon of light for destitutes

Hubballi: It was her dream to change the lives of visually impaired and destitute children and 65- year- old Tulasamma Kelur, a former maid at a private school, has let neither poverty nor the travails of the drought get in her way.

Dipping into her meagre means she rented a building as there was no financial aid coming from the government and touring remote villages, offered her services to these children wherever she found them. Today she has transformed the lives of hundreds of visually impaired and destitute children through the Jnanasindhu Residential School she has established with the help of her sons in Hole Alur village, Gadag district. While her children and people at large have helped out with donations, it was her indomitable spirit that saw the project through .

Tulasamma’s own life has been far from easy. Not only did she work as a maid in a private school for decades, but also as a daily wager to pay the school fees of her children after the death of her husband. Two of her sons went on to join a private centre in Hubballi to teach yoga to thousands of blind and physically challenged individuals. But then Tulasamma decided they should start their own school for the blind and destitute children in 2010 and took on the entire responsibility of running it. Started with just five students, the school now has 75 children on its rolls studying in classes I to VII. Not forgetting her roots, Tulasamma washes the children’s clothes, makes their food and even bathes them when necessary.

Her services have not gone unrecognised as she received a Rajyotsava award in November. But rather than sit on her laurels the woman with hardly any education herself has a new dream - to start a college for blind and destitute students.