Annie in India: "Radhe Radhe"-- Visiting the Widows in Vrindavan

This weekend, we had the opportunity to visit our first sight of one of Maitri’s projects. Project Jeevan works with a the high population of widows who have taken residence in Vrindavan. Vrindavan is home to around 15,000 destitute and abandoned widows. These women have been thrown from their homes by their own children and grandchildren, because widows are considered “bad omens” by some people here in India. Many people consider them to be “untouchable” so it is very difficult for these women to find housing or work. Most end up resorting to begging and living on the street.

So why do so many end up in Vrindavan? Vrindavan is adjacent to the holy city of Mathura, where Krishna is said to have been born. According to Hindu beliefs, these widows are blamed for the deaths of their husbands, due to sins made in their past lives. To make up for this, they travel to Vrindavan to devote the remainder of their lives to worshipping Krishna. They hope that this will ensure they don’t endure this fate, or worse, in the next life.

Maitri works to help preserve the dignity of the widows. They have taken in about 500 to live in shelter homes and to help provide them with midday meals. Maitri also makes sure they have Universal Identification Cards, necessary medical care, etc and are reaping the benefits of government schemes like Widow's Pension and Ration cards. The main goal is to ensure that they live the rest of their lives in dignity.

Our job yesterday was to get over 100 new widows registered for their ID cards. Our coworkers from Maitri gathered information about each one including age, hometown, deceased husband’s name, weight etc. Shantel was taking weights, and noted that the average weight of the widows was 99 lbs. The lightest widow weighed 66 lbs. I took ID photos for each, while managing to capture many other photos in the process.

Shantel and I had the humbling experience of serving the widows their midday meal (barefoot). They sat on the ground of the ashram in neat rows while we ladled their plates with curried vegetables and rice. They each thanked us with quick utterances of “radhe radhe” bringing their hands to “prayer” at their hearts.

I came away from the day with so many feelings. I felt compassion for these women who have lost so much. I felt anger at their families for abandoning them and frustration with the culture that would introduce such a practice. Most of all, I felt hope. I met many people, today, whose entire lives function around preserving the dignity of the widows. These people live with them, eat with them, and love them everyday. I met one woman who opened the top floor of her home to house 8 widows, when she could have rented out those rooms for more money to someone else.

I feel hope when I interact with the widows themselves and they serve as a constant reminder of how little we need to survive. They have lost everything, turned away by their own families. Many of them possess nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They live in shelters or on the streets, they have no way to make a living, and the are only guaranteed one meal per day (served from a pail). Despite all of this, I saw joy in their faces. They smiled at me and stroked my hair and face. Even without a shared language, we laughed and joked. They have found hope in the comfort of each other and their shared faith that they can have a better outcome in the next life.