Two women who tried to starve themselves to death in their room at an ashram in Srikalahasti have been rescued and referred to psychological counselling by the district administration.
The case of the sisters, known as Praturi Sailaja (65) and Praturi Varalakshmi (54) as their Aadhaar cards suggest, has mystified the authorities of the Sri Sukhabrahma Ashram at Srikalahasti and the district administration. While their place of origin is not definitively known – the Aadhaar cards given to them in Srikalahasti states their residential address as the ashram itself – inmates of the ashram say they seem to hail from Vijayawada.
The siblings came to the ashram 11 months ago and immersed themselves in devotional activities and hardly spoke to the fellow inmates. Gradually, they started confining themselves to their room, coming out rarely. Some of the swamijis at the ashram soon noticed that the two women were taking no food and were deliberately starving themselves to death, perhaps seeking ‘sajeeva samadhi’. On April 10, ashram inmates found that they had locked themselves in their room.
The door was broken open and the two women were found in an unconscious state, and emaciated.
Alarmed, the ashram authorities handed over the siblings to the Women and Child Welfare Department. Fellow inmates said they had learnt that the sisters were spinsters from an orthodox family. The duo was taken to an old age home in Chittoor and put on emergency medicare. For a few weeks, they behaved hysterically, throwing objects at other inmates and refusing to take food. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Chittoor Project Officer Lakshmi brought the issue to the notice of Collector Siddarth Jain, who immediately referred them for psychiatric treatment. Under treatment, the siblings’ behaviour returned to normal, but they have remained inseparably attached to each other. The younger sibling Varalakshmi speaks rarely while to the old age home staff, but Sailaja never utters a word. Going by the younger sister’s dialect and her repeated references to ‘Kanaka Durga’ and ‘Krishna river’, some officials think they probably hail from Vijayawada or its surroundings. The sisters are therefore referred to as “Vijayawada sisters” by fellow inmates.
Varalakshmi says their brother was a retired government employee living in Vijayawada, but cannot recall his name. The sisters were in possession of gold ornaments, Rs. 7,000 cash and some fixed deposit bonds with a bank at Moula Ali in Hyderabad. Though officials tried to trace their origins in Hyderabad, it did not give any results.
The younger sister’s dialect and her repeated references to ‘Kanaka Durga’ and ‘Krishna river’ point to their association with Vijayawada
