Behind Chennai’s gleaming high-rises and bustling flyovers lies another city — a maze of narrow lanes, crumbling walls, and the smell of open drains. Here live thousands of elderly women who once held their families together through hunger, hardship, and heartache. Today, they are invisible.
In 2011, Chennai’s slums were home to 1.39 million people; in Greater Chennai, the number was closer to 6.75 million. Among them are countless women who are, in spirit, the ranees— not for their gold or wealth, but for the lifetimes they poured into nurturing others. It is said, “Yatra nāryastu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ” — “Where women are honoured, there the angels rejoice.” Yet, in today’s Chennai, too many of these women live in quiet desperation, forgotten by the children they raised and ignored by the state except for empty slogans.
They carried the weight of life on their backs: cooking, cleaning, raising children, earning for the household — often while enduring abuse from alcoholic or violent husbands. Some somehow found the strength to send children to school. But now, frail with age and illness, they can no longer work. Many are treated as burdens in the very homes they built.
Most of these women came to Chennai decades ago, pushed out of their villages by failed crops, dry wells, and debts they could not repay. In the 1960s and 70s, women like Lakshmi arrived with no education, no skills beyond farming, and no safety net. They took up work as domestic helpers, construction labourers, roadside vendors. Home was a rented room with leaky roofs and no security. A few clung to their ration cards for rice and sugar; many lost them. No matter how hard they worked, they never rose above survival.
Chennai’s slums exploded in number — from 306 in 2001 to 2,173 by 2014, many along railway tracks, garbage dumps, or open drains. Between 2014 and 2018, unsafe settlements increased by 92%. With them grew the constant fear of eviction.
Dhanalakshmi, a temple helper, lives this reality. Her “house” is an eight-by-ten-foot room shared with another destitute woman, perched next to a sewage treatment area. No toilet, no privacy — just a lock on the door at night. She eats at the “Amma Canteen” and uses an open field as her toilet. “It’s not life,” she says quietly. “It’s just staying alive.”
With no collateral for formal loans, these women fall prey to moneylenders charging up to 12% daily interest or 5% monthly, compounded. Illness, funerals, or emergencies force them into borrowing they can never repay. Vimala calls it “my lifeline and my noose.” One loan pays for her medicine; another pays the first loan’s interest. The debt never ends.
Widowhood often comes early here, claimed by alcoholism, untreated illness, or sheer overwork.
Bhuvana, widowed in her thirties, remarried a younger man who demanded she undo her sterilisation for his child. She agreed, but he soon abandoned her. Now she sells vegetables to feed him, while her own children go hungry.
Raji’s parents married her to a man with severe mental illness. He disappears for years at a time. She survives by selling flowers, still wearing the kumkum and mangalsutra to keep the fragile dignity of being “married” — though her marriage is only an empty title.
These women started working as teenagers — sweeping streets, cooking in others’ homes, selling flowers, hauling bricks. Every rupee they earned went to their children’s food, clothes, or marriages. Many paid dowries they could not afford. Now, in their twilight years, they find themselves alone. Illness keeps them indoors. Rent devours what little money they get. Some adult children live nearby but never visit. Saroja asks, “Am I not worth a meal, a helping hand, or a visit to the doctor at this stage of my life?”
As Tamil saint Thirumoolar said, “பெண்மையின் பெருமை அறிந்தார் பெருமான்” — “Those who understand the greatness of womanhood are truly great.” Yet that greatness is now overlooked.
Its time we opened our eyes, acted and advocated change These voices cannot remain hidden in the shadows. They must be seen, valued, supported — through affection, counsel, self-esteem building, and the joy of sisterhood in support groups. Old-age pensions, safe housing, and healthcare should not be luxuries — they are rights. Laws protecting the elderly must be enforced, not just written. Housing, healthcare, and access to government schemes are the urgent need of the hour.
The Lakshmis of Chennai have lived lives of courage, endurance, and love. They endured hunger, abuse, and hard labour, yet they kept families together. Now, they ask for so little: a safe corner to sleep, a warm meal, a gentle hand in sickness, and the dignity they should have had all along. This is not charity. This is justice. A city that has taken their labour and love owes them more than fading memories and empty praise. We must demand — and deliver — pensions that cover real needs, safe and affordable housing, accessible healthcare, and protection from abuse. We must create networks where no elderly woman feels invisible or alone.
Every visit, every meal, every small act of recognition is a thread in the net that can keep them from falling through the cracks. As Swami Vivekananda reminded us, “There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved.” Chennai cannot call itself a great city while its mothers die unheard in its slums. If we fail them in these years, we fail them forever
Daisy's blogs 