The days when they sold lottery tickets, Chandrashekar and Siddagangamma used to return home with Rs 80 a day. The income was quite handsome and, in Siddagangamma's case, was even sufficient to run the family given the fact that her husband was earning Rs 2000 a month.

Though blind, the lottery sellers had a tremendous sense of foresight, which prompted them to be ready for the ‘rainy day’. “We learnt that the government was preparing to ban the lottery tickets and so, a year and a half ago, made plans to pursue the only other thing we know well — music,” Chandrashekar says, recalling the music lessons they learnt at school.

Joining hands with 15 other blind lottery ticket sellers in the City, Chandrashekar and Siddagangamma formed a music troop that played at public request and brought additional income to all of them. Then came the inevitable — the government banned the lottery tickets earlier this year and with it went the substantial income that came from selling them.

As time went by, opportunities to perform became fewer and fewer for Chandrashekar's troop, which only meant plummeting incomes and difficult days. “Very difficult indeed,” admits Siddagangamma. “Now, the only income in my family is the Rs 2000 my husband brings, with which we try and help our fellow blind lottery ticket sellers, but it is only making things extremely difficult.”

Even ‘Margajyothi Kshemabhivrudhi Trust for the Blind’, an NGO that functions in Lakshmidevi Nagar (where Chandrashekar and Siddagangamma, with her husband, live in the KSCB flats), couldn't do much to improve things for Chandrashekar and his troop. Given the situation, the troop members have no choice but ask for help.
“Any kind of help will do,” says Chandrashekar. “People can give us a chance to perform — we can perform anything from devotional to film and folk — or, they can at least help us get instruments. All that we need is a slight improvement in our situation so that we can earn our livelihood with dignity and lead our life with our honour intact.”

There is, of course, a slight regret that the government, who were unrelenting in their resolve in banning lottery tickets, had completely failed to help Chandrashekar's tribes to find alternative means of earning. “Yes, they could have done something,” he says with a palpable sense of resignation. “But now, we need to carry on with our struggle to survive and we are determined to succeed.”

Help can reach Chandrashekar, Siddagangamma and other members of the troop at: Margajyothi Kshemabhivrudhi Trust for the Blind, No 755 D4, Thyaginagara, KSCB Quarters, Lakshmidevi Nagar, Nandini Layout. Contact person: P Balamurugan, 9342321212.