How A Sanitation Worker Became A Celebrity

S Padma, a street cleaner in Chennai, found a box full of gold worth more than Rs 45 lakh and returned it.

'I have been sweeping the streets of Chennai for 21 years. Nobody in the street knew me. I was just a faceless, nameless sanitation worker in an orange and blue uniform.'

For the last 21 years, S Padma was a faceless, nameless sanitation worker in an orange and blue uniform working for the Greater Chennai Corporation.

But a simple act of hers on a lazy Sunday changed her life completely.

She found a box with 45 sovereigns of gold jewellery left on a cart in her zone.

Without second thoughts, she went to her office and showed what she had found to her superiors. All of them went to the police station immediately to return the jewellery.

Padma's act of honesty and integrity has been hailed by everyone including the chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

A Simple Act of Honesty Changed Chennai Sanitation Worker's Life

My day starts at 4 in the morning. Only if I get up at 4, I can finish cooking food for my son and husband before getting ready for work.

Though I cook rice in the morning, I have only a cup of coffee before I leave for work.

I had been the only earning member in my family till recently.

My 26-year-old son is a BCom graduate but could get a proper job in a BPO only a couple of months ago.

In fact, he was without a job for one whole year. Life had been very difficult after Covid.

We had to run the household with my salary of Rs 19,000 till now.

We have many loan instalments to pay, all the household expenses and on top of that is the lease amount for the house.

It is a tough life. It is tough for people like us. It has never been easy.

My daughter lives separately as she is married and has two children.

By 5 in the morning, I start for work. As there is only one bus from here to my workplace, my husband drops me in an auto.

By 5.30, I am in the office as our duty starts at 6, which is cleaning the streets.

We are 33 of us working in the ward, and all of us have been allotted a street which we clean every day.

From 6 to 10, we work, and then we have a half an hour break for breakfast. After that, we have another 4-hour shift, that is from 10.30 to 2.30. Our total working hours are 8 hours.

By 3.30-4, I am back home.

This has been my life for the last 21 years.

Sunday, the 11th of January

It was like any other Sunday till 2 in the afternoon. I was about to finish my duty.

That was when I noticed a box on top of a stationary cart. I thought it was a lunch box with food inside which somebody might have left behind.

And I thought I would go to office, sign before leaving, and then eat on my way back home.

As I sat in the auto, I decided to eat leisurely.

When I opened the box, I had the shock of my life. Instead of food, it was full of glittering gold.

I have not seen so much gold in my life. My hands started trembling. I was not in a state of mind to even think. I didn't know what to do.

I showed the open box to my husband, and he said, let us go back to your office and hand this over to them.

It doesn't belong to us, it belongs to some person who must be frantically searching for it.

Our office also tells us every day that whatever we find while we work, we should return.

We went back to the office and showed my superiors what I found. Without wasting any time, all of us went to the nearest police station.

The police told us that a person had already lodged a complaint, and that he had gone back to the area to search for the box again.

They called him and he came rushing back. When he saw the box with all the gold intact, he broke down.

He did not say anything initially. Then, with tears in his eyes, he thanked me profusely.

45 sovereigns of gold that Padma handed over to the police cost more than Rs 45 lakhs

I felt really sorry for him. He must have been panicking all the time; it was not 1 or 2 sovereigns of gold; it was 45 sovereigns of gold worth more than 45 lakhs.

Poor man must have been suffering in those two hours.

He said again and again that I gave his life back to him.

The police officers also praised me for my honesty and integrity.

I don't think I did anything great. What I did was expected of any human being. I believe that we should never have greed for what is not ours.

At night, all of us only spoke about the incident, and the panic the owner of the gold might have had till he got it back.

In my entire life, I have not seen more than one or two sovereigns of gold!

Meeting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin

The next day dawned with a pleasant surprise. We were called to meet the chief minister in his office.

I didn't know what was happening to me.

I was just a woman sweeping the streets of Chennai the previous day and there I was getting an invitation to meet the chief minister!

It was a surreal experience seeing him in person. Till then I had only seen him on TV.

I just couldn't believe my good fortune.

When he felicitated us with a ponnada and appreciated what I had done. He said it was praiseworthy and that I was a model citizen.

I had tears in my eyes and didn't have any words to reply.

He also gifted us Rs 1 lakh rupees which we spent during Pongal.

Getting to see him at close quarters itself was like a dream for me.

After that, newspapers and TV channels started talking to me and writing about me.

S Padma: From an unknown sweeper to a celebrity

I have been sweeping the streets of Chennai for the last 21 years. Nobody in the street knew me, or my name.

I was just a faceless, nameless sanitation worker in an orange and blue uniform.

After I appeared on TV channels, many women in my street started coming out of their homes to see me.

They asked me whether I was Padma. All of them told me what I had done was commendable.

Suddenly the nameless sanitation worker had a name: Padma! Now, they call me by my name.

I still cannot believe how my life changed overnight!

Nobody knew me till Sunday night and on Monday, I was meeting the chief minister and was talking to TV channels!

It is all due to God's grace and blessings.

We are just ordinary citizens who somehow scraped through every single day of our life.

I have never received this kind of attention and praise.

I am an illiterate woman who doesn't even know how to use a phone but here I am, attending functions every day.

It is a bit overwhelming. Sometimes I wonder whether it was really happening to me.

Everything feels like a dream.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff