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VIJAYALAKSHMI OF THE KERALA UNIVERSITY OFFICE
Lila conveyed to me a very sad news when she came home from office one evening Ms.Vijayalakshmi had succumbed to grievous injuries she had sustained when the scooter she was riding was hit by a bus. The unfortunate accident had occured at the Kumaranasan Roundabout in front of the Kerala University Office at Palayam, Thiruvananthapuram.
It had been a surprise to me when I observed Vijayalakshmi arriving at the Kerala University Office riding her Lampy Scooter in the early 1980s.She wore Kurti and pant as a saree clad woman could not ride that scooter. Of course, Sarees were the fashion for women across Kerala and Kurti and pant were considered alien and obscene at that time.
The Kinetic Honda revolution that launched the female population on to the roads of Trivandrum was yet to take off. Vijayalakshmi was more or less the single woman on a two wheeler those days.
Vijayalakshmi was an employee of the Kerala University at its office. She was a spinster. She was pretty happy that way. She was conscientious. She never compromised on her work.
The Lunch recess was the time when the women employees got together in a hall. Vijayalakshmi was the livewire in that assembly. They would play carroms, cards or chit chat at that hour.
It was retirement for her when she attained 55 years in age. But as she was single, she would reach the office at the lunch hour to meet her friends and participate in the games. It was contentment for her.
When she had been working at the Kerala University Office, the entire traffic at Palayam was routed straight to the LMS Junction. Later recurring traffic snarls had made the planners reroute the traffic from the VJT Hall to proceed past the University Library and take the Kumaranasan round about towards the fly over that skirted the Chandrasekhran Nair Stadium and reach the main thoroughfare in front of the Mascot Hotel. The arrangement had been brought about to relieve the pressure of traffic at the Palayam Junction.
Vijayalakshmi, perhaps, could have been unfamiliar with the revised traffic arrangement that had not been there while she had been working at the Kerala University Office. As everyone knows, human mind finds it extremely difficult to absorb changes that occur out of the blue. Poor Vijayalakshmi was a victim of the traffic reforms that were instituted to benefit the public.
Vijayalakshmi had been a trend setter while she had been alive. Riding her scooter to reach her office, she had revolutionized the thinking of the women and the society. She showed that women could accomplish whatever men did. She had proved women were a force that could not be written off as weak and meek. While women driving vehicles or riding scooters are not a novelty today, it had been unbelievable those days. No one believed that women could accomplish such a feat. What Vijayalakshmi had done was, she had dismantled the traditional and restrictive age old gender barriers that had imprisoned the women of her time. She had successfully unlocked the potential of unfettered freedom for the women in this part of the world.
A walk around the Kerala University Office, today would tell us through the neat rows of two wheelers and cars driven by the women employees, that it was Vijayalakshmi who had energised them to reach for the stars.
It is Carte blanche for them today.
