ALONE BY THE RIVER

This month, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury announced a plan to get the young widows of India remarried, starting with Vrindavan and moving on to Varanasi8212;the two temple towns where widows are often abandoned.The Sunday Express captures the lives of the women left alone at Varanasi, the Ganga their only companion.

WE were taking photographs of a funeral procession on the Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi when we saw her looking down from a balcony. She was staring blankly at the procession as it made its way through Manikarnika, the oldest ghat in Varanasi where the dead are cremated. Who was she and what was she doing there? Shakuntala Devi8217;s story could well be the story of the thousands of widows, abandoned by their families in Varanasi. Her husband died 21 years ago. A year later, her family brought here from Darbhanga in Bihar. Since then, she has lived in this crumbling house that she shares with another woman. She sleeps on the floor with a blanket for a bed in a room that has no roof and leads out to a balcony. The Manikarnika Ghat lies below.

She gets a visitor only once a year: her daughter who comes from Darbhanga. That annual visit is her only link with the past.

Shakuntala Devi was 50 when she came to Varanasi8212;she8217;s now almost 70. Her only window to the world is her balcony. She spends her day looking at people who stream in from all parts of the country to cremate their dead. She has spent the last 20 years of her life staring at death.

What flits through her mind every time she sees another death? Does someone else8217;s loss make her think of hers? Does the constant procession of death make her think of life? But Shankuntala Devi doesn8217;t speak out her thoughts aloud. Nor do the residents of another old age home for women run by the government in Durgakund, about 4 km from where Shakuntala Devi stays. The organisers are reluctant to let us talk to the women, but finally give in. Five minutes is the time they give us to talk to the residents and photograph them.

In those five minutes, we realised what perhaps the caretakers of the Home had forgotten. Sometimes it takes more than material comfort to make you comfortable. The women here were comfortable but they were also lonely and cut off from the outside world. A world that lies waiting on the steps of the ghats of Varanasi. The day for these women starts early8212;at 4.30 a.m.8212;and is spent in prayers. The routine of the other widows in Varanasi is similar.

According to the figures available with the Ministry for Women and Child Development, there are 33 million widows in India. The ministry now has a plan: to get the young widows remarried, starting from Vrindavan and then moving to Varanasi, the two towns which the ministry says have become 8216;8216;dumping grounds8217;8217; for widows.

According to a Vrindavan Municipal Corporation study of 2006, there are over 3,105 widows in Vrindavan town itself and about 2,000-2,500 in neighbouring areas. Their number in Varanasi is similiar.

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The oldest city in India, Varanasi is also called the city of lights. The diyas on the Ganges promise to carry your prayers to the Gods and the Ganga is said to grant devotees prosperity and longevity. But this is not the Varanasi the widows live in. Their Varanasi is a life spent waiting for death.

Varanasi is a town that promises deliverance. People from all over the country come to Varanasi in search of a 8216;8216;good death8217;8217;. But for these women, their quest for life ended in Varanasi.