Destitute Indian Widows Sing Hymns For A Living

July 12, 2003

VRINDAVAN (Reuters) - Bokul Mala was married at five and widowed just three days after her wedding.

Today, the 75-year-old lives alone and abandoned in a dingy room in the north Indian town of Vrindavan, chanting Hindu hymns in a temple to earn five rupees (10 cents) a day and an occasional handful of uncooked rice.

"I was of no use to anybody. I couldn't get married again as my caste doesn't allow it," whispered Bokul Mala as she sat curled on the steps of a temple where priests and pilgrims jostle for space with cows and rickshaws.

"So I came here and became a servant of Lord Krishna," she sighed, as she pulled a dirty white sari over her head, shaven to mark her widowhood.

Bokul Mala is one of about 15,000 desperately poor Hindu widows who spend their lives as Dasis, or servants of God, in the dusty pilgrimage town of Vrindavan because they have nowhere else to go.

Shunned by their families and socially ostracized because they are considered unlucky, the women come to Vrindavan because they believe they can achieve moksha, or freedom, from the cycle of birth and rebirth if they devote their lives to prayer in the Hindu god Krishna's hometown.

Bokul Mala lived with her father during the remainder of her childhood. After he died, when she was in her early 20s, she moved to Vrindavan because her brothers and uncles did not want to look after her.

The temple-studded town's streets teem with old widows, many shriveled and bent over walking sticks with a simple white sari draped around them and a huge ash-smear on their foreheads.

It's a tough and tragic life. The women, many of whom have lived in Vrindavan for decades, chant bhajans, or hymns, eight hours a day at ashrams for their five-rupee pittance.

SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION

"Today, I'm talking to you, but I can't sit at your wedding. People think I will bring bad luck to them," said Sarojini Das, a 75-year-old widow who came to Vrindavan nearly 40 years ago.

"So, it's better for me to pray here for a better life next time," said the frail woman as she walked into a cavernous hall to join some 200 women chanting "Hare Rama, Hare Krishna" amid the sound of clashing cymbals.

This form of devotion to the Lord Krishna was begun by a 16th-century sage, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who encouraged followers to sing devotional songs together in a trance-like fashion with the ringing of cymbals and bells.

In many ways, the status of the widows of Vrindavan, most from the eastern state of West Bengal, reflects the overall attitude toward widows in traditional Indian society.

In some parts of the country, Hindu widows are treated like outcasts who forfeit all rights of a married woman such as wearing bright colored clothes and a vermilion mark on the forehead.

Today, India has some 33 million widows, census figures show, many of whom live on the fringes of society because of the stigma attached to them and caste rules forbidding them from remarrying.

"In India, a woman is only revered as a mother, daughter and a wife," said Mohini Giri, a New Delhi-based women's activist who has been working for the cause of widows for years.

"Once widows, they're no longer considered auspicious. They're thrown into the garbage can," Giri told Reuters.

LUCKY FEW

There are a few widows in Vrindavan lucky to find refuge in special homes such as Aamar Bari, Bengali for My Home, where they are fed, clothed and trained to stitch and read and write.

About 110 widows cope with the trauma of loneliness by living together in an almost collegiate atmosphere at the home with verses from the Bhagwad Gita inscribed on the walls.

"I was unhappy when my husband died and I didn't want to live with my daughter," said Kiran Dasi, who came to Vrindavan after being widowed 40 years ago.

"So, I prefer to live here in God's home," she said, sitting in the arched verandah of Aamar Bari with half a dozen other widows doing writing lessons on slates.

Satyawati, another resident, is 105 and completely bent over but she tries to live as independent a life as she did when she first came to Vrindavan 50 years ago.

"I wear my own clothes and make my own bed," she said.

Kiran and Satyawati are among the fortunate few in Vrindavan.

For most widows in the tiny town 100 miles from Delhi, life is a dead end.

The women say they often can't even find people to help cremate a widow because of the stigma attached to them.

Do they ever want to return to their homes?

"What's the point? Nobody wants us there," shrugged Bhagwati, an 80-year-old woman with her rosary beads in her hand.

"This is our karma. We can't fight it."