A marriage proposal for a girl in Enmakaje grama panchayat from the parents of a groom in Mangalore was aborted as the bride’s party was not prepared to oblige the bridegroom’s suggestion to subject the bride to a blood test before the marriage.
This was to pre-empt the possibility of mentally-challenged children being born to the couple. For, Enmakaje grama panchayat was the worst hit by the pesticide.
A couple in Mulleria decided not to have any more children since the first child was born with hydrocephalus (large head now typical of the endosulfan effect).
After the death of the first child, the second one was also born with the same disease.
Narayanan Periya, chairman of the Endosulfan Action Committee, said rich couples in the affected villages have been frequenting multi-specialty hospitals in Mangalore to undergo prenatal tests. The foetus would be aborted if there was any symptom of mental retardation to the baby.
Some parents from outside the district make anxious enquiries to know whether the prospective grooms belonged to the affected villages. There are those who do not respond if marriage proposals come from the district.
College students in Rajapuram, a settler village, had conducted a study on the social impact of the endosulfan issue. The students said in their report that marriage proposals from south Kerala to the settler villages in the endosulfan sprayed grama panchayats had come down after the endosulfan issue started hogging the limelight.
The study by the students highlighted the fact that in some cases men and women had even abandoned their partners working in the estates of the plantation corporation thinking that their spouses would develop diseases later and they would be a burden to them.
Narayanan Periya said a group of youths opposed to the anti-endosulfan agitation in Periya had pulled down the pandal of the protesters before the PCK because they feared that nobody would come to their villages with marriage proposals.