A relief to floating workforce

KOCHI: While the hostel inmates and paying guests  have been traditionally associated with a floating workforce and students seeking accommodation, the picture is fast changing, thanks to the lack of social support systems.Malini Nair, 54, (name changed) has been living in a hostel since 1983. In her mid-20s, both of her legs got fractured owing to a fall. Using her legs without support has been an impossibility ever since. “I made sure that I will stick to my job, I could be economically dependent on others. But this meant I have to stay in Kochi away from my home. But a single woman cannot stay alone in this city. Moreover, when you are disabled, a medical emergency is a constant fear. A hostel means you have someone or the other around you.”After 28 years, Malini will retire in a couple of months. This would mean a working women’s hostel too is now a closed option for her. Lack of relatives or friends or a disability might have driven  Malini to a hostel. But even those with all these facilities too find themselves in the list of inmates in many of the hostels here. Zeenath Abdul (name changed) is a native of Kochi with a house in Chellanam. She has husband and three children. But today she too is a hostel inmate. “My husband and sons are abroad. When my youngest daughter went to college outside the state, I ended up being alone at home. One day there was an attempted robbery at the house. After that it was impossible to continue alone,” says Zeenath.A number of women who visit the cities for short periods for various examinations, short-term programmes or for medical check-ups too have no option but to depend on hostels since hotels are not only expensive but unsafe too.