Free The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple Page B

activist, ‘and tell you the sadness of the widows of Vrindavan, the leaves of that tree would fall like tears.’

    ‘My husband died when I was seventeen years old,’ said Kanaklatha. ‘He had some sort of stomach disorder. I took him to lots of hospitals in Calcutta but he did not recover. He suffered for a month. Then he died.’
    The old lady looked past me, her clouded eyes focused towards the
ghats
and the course of the holy river Jumna.
    ‘I still remember his face when they brought him to me,’ she said. ‘He was very fair, with fine, sharp features. When he was alive his eyes were unusually large, but now they were closed: he looked as if he was sleeping. Then they took him away. He was a landlord in our village, and greatly respected. But we had no children, and when he died his land was usurped by the village strongmen. I was left with nothing.
    ‘For two years I stayed where I was. Then I was forced to go to Calcutta to work as a maid. I wasn’t used to working as a servant, and every day I cried. I asked Govinda [Krishna], “What have I done to deserve this?” How can I describe to anyone how great my pain was? After three years Krishna appeared to me in a dream and said that I should come here. That was 1955. I’ve been here forty years now.’
    ‘Do you never feel like going back?’
    ‘Never! After my husband died and they took away everything I owned, I vowed never to look at my village again. I will never go back.’
    We were standing in the main bazaar of Vrindavan. Rickshaws were rattling past us along the rutted roads, past the tethered buffaloes and the clouds of bees swarming outside the sweet shops. Behind us rose the portico of the Shri Bhagwan Bhajan
ashram
. Through its door came the sound of bells and clashing cymbals and the constant rising, falling eddy of the widows’ incessant chant:
‘Hare Ram, Hare Krishna, Hare Ram, Hare Krishna
 …’ Occasionally, above the chant of two thousand women, you could hear snatches of the soaring Bengali verses of the lead singer:
    Mare Keshto rakhe ke?
    Rakhe Keshto mare ke?
    Whom Krishna destroys, who can save?
    Whom he saves, who can destroy?
    It was ten in the morning and Kanaklatha had just finished her four-hour shift. In her hand she held her reward: a knotted cloth containing a single cupful of rice and her two rupees. ‘We try to remember what we are chanting,’ said Kanaklatha, following my gaze, ‘but mostly we carry on so that we can eat. When we fall ill and cannot chant, the
ashram
doesn’t help: we just go hungry.’
    Kanaklatha said she had got up at four thirty, as she did every day. She had bathed and dressed her Krishna idol, spent an hour in prayer before it, then performed her ablutions at the
ghat
. Then from six until ten she chanted her mantras at the
ashram
. After that, a day of begging in the bazaars of Vrindavan stretched ahead.
    ‘I stay with my mother,’ said Kanaklatha. ‘She is ninety-five. My father died when I was sixteen and she came here then. We have to pay a hundred rupees [£2] rent a month. It is my main worry in life. Now I’m two months in arrears. Every day I askGovinda to help us make ends meet. I know he will look after us.’
    ‘How can you believe that after all you’ve been through?’
    ‘If Govinda doesn’t look after us who will?’ said Kanaklatha. ‘If I didn’t believe in him how could I stay alive?’
    The widow looked straight at me: ‘All I want is to serve him,’ she insisted. ‘Whatever we eat and drink is his gift. Without him we would have nothing. The way he wants things to be, that is how they are.’
    ‘Come,’ she said, her face lighting up. ‘Come and see my image of Govinda. He is so beautiful.’
    Without waiting to see if I would follow, the old lady hobbled away along the street at a surprising pace. She led me through a labyrinth of lanes and alleys, past roadside shrines and brightly-lit temples, until eventually we reached a small courtyard house near