Muthumenika found lying inside firewood shed ... after a service of sixty eight years!

Muthumenika found lying inside firewood shed ...

after a service of sixty eight years!

The heartbreaking story of a woman who was engaged in servant duties for a lengthy period of sixty long years was reported last week when she was left in a corner of the house.

This woman had been lying on a bed in a corner of ward no. 9 in Mawanella government hospital, in a totally frail condition and anyone who cares to hear the real story of this fragile woman is indeed

shocking, to say the least.

She was someone who was carrying on domestic duties in a walauwa in Molligoda itself from the tender age of seven. Her age now happens to be 77 years. The only duty this helpless woman had done from that age has only been carrying out domestic duties for others. Initially it was for the person who is supposed to be the landed proprietor and to his wife. Subsequently for his three children. Our victim had cooked for them and attended to all menial jobs of these people and had spent her entire life engaged in those duties. It seems that the woman's delicate and gentle schoolgoing age had been robbed by meritorious beings of this walauwa.

Thus other than bestowing servant duties to one master and subsequently all his offspring thereafter in one and the same walauwa in both her youth and thereafter her middle age there actually was nothing else she had done for herself, so to say. In this way Muthu Menike has not had a right of her own which even an animal would have not been deprived of. But her masters have enjoyed the title of landed proprietors and were further fully fledged righteous humans living in Molligoda, Mawanella. To cap it all, these activities were taking place at the mansion situated behind a massive Buddha statue.

It is not known as to the manner in which most of the villagers in the location came to identify those in the walauwa. The villagers however were able to see with their own eyes daily as to how this woman kept on sticking to her task like a slave or else as a prisoner until her strength was no more. Whatever it is, the villagers have come to hear that her name was Muthu Menika and that she had been brought here by people of this walauwa at her tender age and that she has had a distant relationship to the crowd at the walauwa and that was after a promise that shw would be brought up and cared for as a child of their own. But it does not appear that the landed proprietors who took abode in that house had not stuck to their promise.

Whatever it is, it was the police who brought Muthu Menika to hospital. Police managed to get at her from a tip off they received from the villagers and that was when this helpless woman was lying feeble and wasted in the space which incidentally had been used as a kennel in the walauwa where she had been staying and this human life was found lying down there in a wasted manner. Incidentally it was where she had been staying, that had been used as the firewood shed of the walauwa.

In any case there is no end to incidents of heartrending instances attached to inquiries as far as the police are concerned. Both male and female police officers who understood and saw the life story of Muthu Menika's pathetic plight brought tears into their eyes, police said. When the police got news about Muthu Menika and stepped into the premises of the walauwa, what beset their eyes was a heap of broken down pieces of household items. Those were stored in a wet and damp shed made out of planks. Towards the rear of this walauwa by the side of this shed itself was seen the kennel of the dog in the walauwa. Apart from that in order to find shelter from torrential rains, dogs in the neighbourhood would come scampering to this firewood shed as a last resort. Muthu Menika in fact herself finding shelter at this very spot covered with dust until her few days there. Thus she found consolation there with this clan of dogs in a corner of this space cuddling herself up. To cover her nakedness she had made use of a silk cloth and a jacket. If there at all was something to call her own, it was nothing other than a rusted tin plate and a cup which stood beside her mat. Mawanella police say that no proper food had fallen into that plate for some days. Not even a replenishment of food and drink or medicines given so far had been effective enough so far to dispel Muthu Menika's frailty. After having rescued her from this hellish existence and found a bed in hospital by police with heir intervention, what she said actually surprised the doctors and everybody present there. She had been murmuring and had said that she had never ever got an opportunity to rest on a bed all her life at the walauwa where she was occupied as a domestic aide. In other words Muthu Menika has spent over seven decades as a child and young woman here and there and in corners within the walauwa. Other than that she had not been allotted a room as such in this mansion of a walauwa. Even when the police managed to get at her she was lying in a torn off piece of mat. She had made the police understand in that instance that the extent of unkindness she faced about two weeks previously and it was that the wife of her master who is called Loku Hamine had pulled her by her hair and assaulted her inhumanely.

That then is Muthu Menika's present situation. In the process, while this aged woman was remaining in a worn out shed, the mother in law of the master of the walauwa had been enjoying all facilities in a room inside. This is the information unravelled and exposed at present. Police are hovering around her bed with the intention of securing further statements from her. However, according to medical reports Muthu Menika has still not satisfactorily recovered as such.

Offspring of higher ups of this walauwa who were cared for and brought up by Muthu Menika have now become parents, it is understood. The fact that one of them presently holds a big position at a rupavahini channel which broadcasts dhamma to the whole island is a dialogue which has become a frequent topic of villagers in the locality. It is a question of most people that hasn't the time come for all who was cared for, looked after and brought up by this aged Muthu Menika who dedicated her life for them to carry out their duty in return. However if in case that does not happen, Muthu Menika would not be exonerated from social responsibilities owed to her by society. While the suspected party rejects these allegations of Muthu Menika, what they say is that they cared for her well.

Information: Nuwan Mahesh Jayawickrema / Saman Vijaya Bandara