Geetanjali Krishna: The silent women in white

Ninety-year-old Manu Ghosh walks from Pagal Baba Ashram to the Krishna temple, one painful step at a time, stick in hand. The lines etched on her face speak of a hard life, a life thrust upon her when over decades ago, her husband died and her in-laws deserted her. “I was nine months pregnant at that time, and lost my newborn soon after. My in-laws threw my two daughters and me out of the house saying that I’d brought ill-luck to the family. When life became too difficult for me, where else could I go but to the birthplace of my lord — Vrindavan?” In Vrindavan about 20 years ago, she found that the “city of widows” didn’t do much to look after them. She would sing devotional songs with hordes of other white-shrouded figures for two hours every morning and evening in temples. The richer temples would give each woman Rs 10 with some food for their efforts. The not-so-rich temples would hand out as little as Rs 3. “We somehow survived on the alms received outside the temple,” she says. “It was slow hell...”

This year, as we celebrate the myriad colours of womanhood on Women’s Day, all I can think about is the face of Manu Maa and those of the other widows I met in the ashrams of Vrindavan. Destitute and waiting for the miserly widow pension of Rs 500 a month from the government, it seems incredible to me that in even these modern times, in the impoverished hinterlands of West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other states, widows are seen as harbingers of ill luck and misfortune. So they were bundled off to Vrindavan to live out the remainder of their lives, waiting for salvation. “Widows used to lead such rudderless lives in Vrindavan,” said a social worker from Sulabh International, an NGO that is working to improve the conditions of the widows of Vrindavan. “They’d live and die, unseen and unheard. Often we’d find their dead bodies by the roadside. We’ve conducted countless last rites of unclaimed bodies of widows here...”

Recognising their desperate need for help, Sulabh International has taken over the upkeep of 10 ashrams in Vrindavan, supporting 1,000 widows with free accommodation, medical facilities and a monthly stipend of Rs 2,000. But it’s a tiny drop in a large ocean. Statistics show that widows constitute three per cent of India’s population, of which half are old/infirm and incapable of earning a living. That’s why Sulabh founder, Bindeshwar Pathak, has called upon politicians across party lines to support a draft bill that aims at providing measures to support the nearly 36 million widows in India. The bill proposes relief measures for indigent widows such as a monthly pension of Rs 2,000; free accommodation; education to the dependent children of the widows; employment and vocational training as well as medical facilities as available to government servants.

The benefits of such a bill are visible to all who visit Vrindavan’s Pagal Baba Ashram, home to 210 widows and managed by Sulabh. “I used to beg outside temples when I came to Vrindavan 40 years ago,” says 107-year-old Lalita Adhikari, the oldest member of the ashram. “We couldn’t go to any doctors, buy medicines or even get a good night’s sleep. I’m at peace now that all my needs are being met.” The women laugh and sing as they make agarbattis with trembling, geriatric hands — part of the vocational training the organisation provides. Seventy-year-old Kusum Mandaloi sums it up: “I feel like I’m finally home...”

I carry home agarbattis they’ve made, and plan to light one on Women’s Day with the prayer that India’s silent women in white have a brighter future.