Birth and childhood

Sindhutai was born on 14th November 1947 in at Pimpri Meghe village in Wardha district Maharashtra to Abhimanji Sathe, a cowherd by profession. she was nicknamed as a chindhi because she was a unwanted child. Sindhutai’s father Abhiman used to work as a cattle herder. The village is small and lacks facilities. Her father was keen on educating Sindhutai, much against the wishes of her mother. Abhimanji used to send her to school under the pretext of cattle grazing. Although she was originally intelligent, she was able to learn till 4th standard.

Marriage

Sindhutai got married at the age of 12 to Shrihari Sapkal, who is almost 26 years older than her. There is no educational environment in her new family. sindhutai used to bring home the pieces of paper found in the forest while collecting wood and dung and hide them in rat burrows. Rarely did she try to study when she was alone at home. By the age of twenty, sindhutai had three children. when she was pregnant for the fourth time, the first struggle of her life started.

Back then, turning cattle was the business. There used to be hundreds of cattle. Collecting dry cow dung for fertilizer is very hard and exhausting job. And the poor people in the village were not getting any wages for this work. Forest department used to auction this dung and sell it, without paying anything to the villagers. Here Sindhutai revolted and started fighting. Her agitation brought the district collector to her village and on realizing she was right. district collector passed an order in favour of sindhutai and villager, which the jamindar did not like beacuase The income from the forest department was cut off. Stung by the insult at the hands of a poor woman, Jamindar managed to convince Sindhutai’s husband to abandon Sindhutai when she was beyond 9 months of her pregnancy.

The struggling and changing period

Sindhutai’s husband became suspicious of her character and beat her to death all day long. He then thrashed her and kicked her on her full term belly and threw her in a cowshed. Tormented and tortured, Sindhutai with her world falling apart, and in great pain, gave birth to a baby girl. Sindhutai cut her umbilical cord with the stone which was lying there and then she passed out.

After being evicted by her husband, the villagers also evicted her from village. After she came back to her senses she went to her maternal village but everyone shunned her and rejected her. Even her mother closed the doors to her. Sindhutai was alone in the world with her little daughter to look after. She was hungry and the baby was hungry two. Pangs of hunger were intolerable. Later sindhutai wander town to town singing and begging in railway stations, temples. Sindhutai used to beg all day. But she never ate there alone.She call beggars at the station and then all the beggars would sit together and eat And the same beggars were protecting Sindhutai. Because she feared being picked up by men at night, she often spent the night at cemeteries. Such was her condition that people called her a ghost since she was seen at night in the cemeteries.

This was a period of soul searching for sindhutai and she found the purpose of her life, and that was to be maai (Mother) of orphaned and abandoned Tribal Kids. It’s become a mission of her life.