Here we find another very poor and totally unschooled woman whose widowhood plunges her into the tasks of raising a family and managing their resources. Her case shows how such a background need not stop someone emerging as a shrewd and careful user of money-management services.
Diarist 32's husband died in 2008 after a life as a casual labourer. By then they had had two sons and two daughters and by the time we started the diary one daughter was married, the other was in grade 6 at school, the elder son was running a barber's shop (see picture) and the younger one was a carpenter's assistant.
She herself is illiterate and has done a variety of casual labouring jobs, such as repairing mud roads or farm work. She has had conflicts with the younger children. In 2018 the younger daughter met a boy, ran off with him and married him. Diarist 32 then found he was already married and tried to get a local shalish (informal community court) to annul the marriage (they are Hindus), but the request was refused. Meanwhile she was resisting the plans of her younger son to marry a girl he had met, though in the end the marriage went ahead. She was unhappy. In 2019 she relented and paid a dowry to the daughter's husband's family. She had to pay a 'fine' to the local community leaders for not marrying her son 'properly'.
The elder son's barber's shop was in trouble during the Covid lockdown but survived until he decided to try to go abroad and got a passport. He contributed income to his mother until he and his wife and child started living separately in July 2024. For a while in 2022-23 Diarist 32 took a garments factory job, boosting their income as chart 01 shows. They bought an e-rickshaw for the younger son to drive, then sold it when he got a steady job installing aluminium windows. They have managed to buy land as well as make major repairs to their home in the centre of the Hrishipara settlement. Currently the household consists of Diarist 32, her younger son and his wife and child: but she remains close to the elder son.
She long planned to get at least one son employed overseas and in 2025 she borrows and withdraws savings to pay a migration agent 200,000 to this end. However towards the end of 2025 things started to unravel. An advance they had made to buy more land was returned to them because the deal fell through. Then, the fee they paid a migration agent was returned to them as the agent said he couldn't manage the work. On both counts they want to persevere, and in the case of migration they have succeeded: they paid a second agent and at the end of December the son went to Cambodia as a pipe-fitter.
