Peter’s family struggles to make ends meet

V Narayan Swamy

BANGALORE: He is credited to have been the backbone of the Madras Engineers Group hockey team; a stadium at MEG’s sprawling unit here is named after him. But for VJ Peter’s family these are just footnotes of a glorious past. Life for them is more about making ends meet.

Thirteen years after the triple Olympian’s death, Peter’s family – comprising his widow Shanti Mary, 69, and five children – is struggling to keep its head above water. With the meagre pension that Peter paved the way for, thanks to his stint with MEG, and the money that her two daughters earn, Shanti Mary’s story is not so much about poverty and indigence. It is about managing the family, getting her two daughters married and ensuring that her needs are met.

Years of deprivation have led two of Mary’s three daughters – Gerry (40) and Jacqueline Maria (38) – to think of little else other than supporting their mother. They continue to stay with her in their dilapidated home at St Thomas Mount in Chennai.