Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu): If your destination in Village Thiyagavalli is Rasati's little hut, then be rest assured that the whole village will accompany you there. For it is not everyday that a Dalit woman in this little village puts up a fight and gets a lot of compensation from the government.

Rasati's rags to riches story has become the stuff that legends are made of. She is the only woman in Thiyagavalli who benefited by the tsunami that struck the coastal district of Cuddalore last December.

Rasati, who was a fisherwoman till the tsunami struck, used to go to the shore at the crack of dawn everyday and waited for the fishermen to come back with their catch.

She would then buy the fish from them and sell it in other villages. It was on one such day last year that a huge wave came and washed away her life's earnings.

"My daughter was pregnant out of wedlock, society had shunned us and my husband drinks and doesn't go to work. I had lost my money and livelihood when the tsunami struck," recounts Rasati.

Through this misery, Rasati decided that she would pursue the officials at the collectorate till she got what was due to her.

The government responded to her plea and gave her compensation. Her pregnant daughter was married off and the government provided the dowry - some utensils and a shop and bicycle for the groom - with which she would be able to begin her life.

But everything comes at a price or that's what the residents of Thiyagavalli believe.

The village is surrounded by the sea on one side and the river on the other. When the tsunami struck, there was huge loss of property in Thiyagavalli but very few human casualties and none in Rasati's house.

The government had spent nearly Rs 25,000 on setting up Rasati's home but the day she finally got her due, her eldest son and the only earning member of the family died in the recent floods that hit South India.

Villagers say it was God's way of balancing the act, for nothing can be gained without giving something up.