This Neelambari a recluse for 22 years

Kadtal (Mahabubnagar): It is the story of how domestic violence could put you to shame for lifelong. It reminds one of mighty Neelambari, a dominating character in Rajanikant’s Tollywood blockbuster Narasimha.

However, this woman loves the confines of four walls of her dark room and steps out of it under the cover of darkness and, that too, on the sly for half an hour a day to answer the calls of nature.

A middle-aged woman – Bharatibai - is living under self-imposed solitary confinement in a dark room for the past 20 years in Salapur village in the district. Born to Bavoji and Rambai, who are no more, Bharatibai has a brother Ramchander who is elder to her.

She was married off to Venkatesh of Pahad-e-Sharif in Hyderabad 22 years ago. The couple lived happily for about a year prior to an ‘unsavoury’ incident.

She was beaten by her husband for reasons best known to the couple as she had not shared them with anyone. She returned to her parents’ place and never to come back to Hyderabad ever since, however hard she was persuaded to return to Hyderabad.

Since then, she has been living in the dark room, all alone. According to Swarupa, Bharati’s neighbour, the woman does not venture out of the room and maintains that she has never seen Bharati coming out of it all these years.

The locals recall how beautiful the woman was especially around the time of her marriage. Around 2 am, she steps out of the room and completes her chores in half an hour only to return to her ‘paradise’.

According to observations made by the locals, the moment she gets signs of males in the vicinity of her room, a sense of fear envelopes her.

Her brother who is a casual labourer is taking care of her. He attends household chores, cooks food and places a plateful of it near the room like serving food to prisoners. She places her hand out of the room and grabs the plate. That is all.

When her brother goes out of the village on some purpose for two or three days, she goes without food for the duration. She developed the capacity to go without food even up to four days at a stretch.

When neighbouring women enquire about her well-being, she would reply to them that she is alright but never shows her face to them. She accepts food given to her.

Issuing of an Aadhaar Card or a Voter identity card is ruled out since she never comes out of the room. When The Hans India went to the house to speak to her, her brother was away.

Neighbours told that she would prefer to remain hungry till her brother returned and cooked food for her. Ward member MD Babu appealed to the State government to come to her rescue and get her treated by psychiatrists.