Two kerala universities to teach slum-dweller Dhanuja’s book in colleges
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Thiruvananthapuram: A book penned by Dhanuja Kumari, a slum dweller in Kerala’s capital city Thiruvananthapuram, has been picked by the Calicut and Kannur Universities for curricula, drawing academic attention to the backstreet lives, The News Minute reported.
The book: Chengalchoolayile Ente Jeevitham (My Life in Chengalchoola), published a decade ago, brought to fore the marginalsed lives in Chengalchoola where Dhanuja Kumari lives eking out as a worker of the Haritha Karma Sena.
It is her duty to go about the neighourbood along with other members of the group, a government initiative for waste management, collecting plastic waste to make ends meet.
She set out to write the book to change the misconceptions about her place and people living there alongside revealing the prejudices that kept its residents from education and getting into the mainstream.
Since her book came out a decade ago, things have changed a lot for good in Chengalchoola alongside bringing her recognition and awards.
Compared to situations where children found it hard to secure school admission, the place has now produced a doctor, artists, a football player for Kerala Blasters team, and civil servant, among others.
Dhanuja can reel off number of achievers that Chengalchoola can boast off, expressing her love for the place.
She said her son Nidheesh, who once aspired to add to his name ‘Kalamandalam’, Kerala’s prestigious institute for performing arts, was happy to be known as hailing from Chengalchoola.
The book narrates how her son Nidheesh endured taunts, humiliations, beating from a teacher and fellow students after he joined Kalamandalam at age 13 to learn percussion instrument, Chenda, before giving up education in six months.
Later joining AR Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory in Chennai, Nidheesh completed a course in Music Direction and composed a promo song for the movie ‘Y’.
Dhanuja, however, points at the seamy side as well, saying that bank loans are still hard to come by, among other issues.
Her books expands on the lives in the colony where people of different caste and religion live in harmony and there are examples of several inter-caste and inter-religious marriages.