Athletics winner Ussilampatti

Rajalakshmi Athletics

It was an unexpected set of events that led to D. Rajalakshmi and her daughter Shivaranjani receiving the Kalpana Chawla Award for courage and daring enterprise. They received the award from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha.

When burglars broke into their house on the night of February 28, Rajalakshmi was fast asleep. So were her daughters Shivaranjani, who is a college student, and Jayapriya, who was five-months pregnant then. Rajalakshmi’s husband Damodaran was away at Chennai.

With masked faces and oil applied all over their bodies, the burglars first targeted the shop run by the family in front of the house, at Poovudaiyur in Cuddalore District. After they had burgled the shop, one of the burglars entered the house and tried to remove Rajalakshmi’s gold chain and mangal sutra.

“It was then that I realised that burglars had entered the house. I woke up my daughters.” recalled Rajalakshmi.

The mother–daughter duo caught hold of the burglar and attacked him with a shovel. “But he pulled it away from me and I was terrified that he would retaliate. I then asked my daughter to get a knife and attacked him all over his body and head,” said Rajalakshmi.

The attack was so severe, that the burglar Murugan, a native of Manalmedu, suffered severe bleeding and required blood transfusion. Subsequently the two other burglars were also arrested.

The family too paid a heavy price as the elder daughter Jayapriya found it difficult to recover from this nightmare. When her pregnancy advanced to seven months, she experienced quite a lot of problems and doctors had to abort her pregnancy.

The award was given to Rajalakshmi and Shivaranjani, both, and included a gold medal and a cash price of Rs five lakh.