Relief flooded with warmth

Sarva Sakthi Mahalir Narpani Mandram, established by a Chennai-based social activist to assist rural women facing financial distress, brings together nearly 4,000 women under as many as 100 self-help groups

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RELENTLESS rain turned Jalladianpet, on the fringes of south Chennai, into a vast stretch of floodwater in 2004.

Streets vanished overnight, homes were engulfed, and an entire neighbourhood was pushed into paralysis as daily life collapsed under the force of the deluge. Families were stranded, possessions lost, and survival became the only priority.

Amid the devastation, JL Lakshmi, a young social activist, plunged into the crisis, guided by an uncompromising sense of duty. Pregnant at the time, she moved through the submerged locality, coordinating relief and helping residents escape the flood-prone zones. The effort came at an unbearable personal cost. Exhaustion and trauma took its toll, and during the course of the relief work, she suffered a miscarriage. The foetus did not survive, a loss confirmed after she underwent an emergency caesarean procedure, an irreversible personal loss borne in the midst of public service.

Now 45, Lakshmi's story stands as a powerful testament to sacrifice, one in which compassion outweighed even the deepest personal grief.

Lakshmi, who received the Best Woman Award in 2004 and the Best Achiever Award in 2006 from the union government's Nehru Yuvakendra, traces her journey of social work to an even earlier period. In 2002, she noticed that most women in Jalladianpet were grappling with severe financial distress. Many were trapped in debt to private moneylenders, burdened by exorbitant interest rates.