This Tambaram woman is single and a mother to hundreds

Kasthuri S, a resident of Tambaram is in her late forties and a mother of over a hundred children. She even married off about ten of them.

But, this modern-day Gandhari comes with a twist — she is single, does not use a blindfold and has not given birth to any of her children.

Kasthuri has been working as a “mother” at the SOS Chatnath Homes-Tambaram for 24 years, taking care of homeless and orphan children. “But that never has been a reason for me to see them any differently from my own, if I ever had one,” she says with a smile.

The SOS Movement was founded by Dr Hermann Gmeiner in 1949, initially to take care of the homeless and ‘parentless’ children who were lost and helpless after World War. A widely prevalent model of foster care across the world, there are about 32 such villages in 22 states in the country. One such village is the one in Tambaram, which will be entering its 40th year in January. At present the village in Chennai has 172 children with mothers like Kasthuri to guide and nurture them, provide them the warmth and compassion. The children include those from broken homes and those who have been abandoned by their parents. They are sent to the village by the child welfare committee to grow up in a stable environment. The mothers chosen for the villages are mostly single women and they are the fulcrum of the system, as they bring up a group of children, offering them a happy childhood. The children who reside in one home with a mother are raised as siblings and are also educated at nearby schools that exposes them to the outside world, helping them to integrate with it.

Kasthuri, who hails from Karaikal, daughter of a freedom fighter and homemaker, has raised infants and toddlers. “I wanted to serve society and contacted SOS after I saw an advertisement for mothers. Though it used to be a challenge, it got easier as I spent more time with the children. Today, the children I have raised visit my parents and siblings, spend time with them, and my parents are equally affectionate and loving towards them. They call them ‘thatha and paati’,” she says. Some of them who have later reunited with their families have stayed in touch with her. “They make me cut a cake and celebrate my birthday. Seeing them come up and grown up as fine individuals makes me immensely happy. My children are engineers, hard-working students and warm human beings,” she says beaming with pride.