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Sunday, February 22, 2004 |
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Sunday, February 22, 2004 |
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The Widow of Vrindavan
The very word widow confuses an image of a forlorn, destitute figure in white, shrinking from contact with the world, ploughing a lonely furrow. Along with her dead husband, her life is stilled, her future sealed. At best, she is pitied, and at worst, put on the pyre. The Widow of Vrindavan delves beyond the loneliness and apathy towards the widow. It highlights how organised systems and regulations have overtaken true religious sentiments and human relations.
Bengal, from where Tapasi hails, has a tradition of marrying young girls of poor families for monetary gains to old men of the zamindar class. For them, the girl is only an object, and in case the zamindar dies, the family scoops down like vultures on his property. The hapless widow, who is still to blossom from a girl to woman, is meted out treatment worse than that given to street dogs. For many of these widows, Vrindavan, the holy land of Krishna, becomes an abode. The town has become synonymous with the home for discarded, destitute widows, who are supposed to lead their lives devoted to Lord Krishna, Mere to Sirf Girdhar Gopal, being the eternal mantra. Tapasi, a young girl residing in Bengal, is betrayed by people who give "some meaning to her young life" by forcing her into marriage. Her matrimonial home is worse then hell; on her husband’s death, she is drugged and bundled to Vrindavan, where she wakes up in a widow ashram. Kusum Ansal pulls no punches, her writing is shorn of veils, it is stark, with all the ugliness of society bared. Even while describing the environs of Vrindavan, she exposes the underbelly of the sacred town, less than 100 km from Delhi. "The town is littered with garbage, uncollected trash, drains full of stagnant water". The maths and ashrams are havens for murderers and other criminals. A sinister network operates in these so-called religious places where drugs, arms peddling and flesh trade thrive. One of the most moving passages is about our superstitions and how rituals have overtaken religion—A helpless widow breaks down on seeing a priest washing an idol with milk, when her only child has died of hunger and starvation. The book also provides a deep insight into aspects of Hindu philosophy. "Each one of us possesses the truth. We all know about truth, but it is extremely difficult to survive with total commitment to truth." Tapassi questions herself: "Should I side with God or should I quit this enforced devotion to him? You wonder at the enforced devotion that pushes a person to reside in depravity only to let her attain paradise. Is this the truth? The paradoxes in Indian life are bared. On one hand you have women, even widows at the most powerful posts in the land, but for the vast majority, nothing changes. A maverick journalist becomes the mouthpiece of the writer, who poses inconvenient questions to society. For his labour, he is beaten and then the effect is not lost on anyone when his tongue is chopped off. The book has been translated by Masooma Ali from Hindi. The nuances that can only be understood in the native language are lost in translation. There are also some editing lapses. The characters are also either black or white; there are no grey areas. The depravation in society is so starkly portrayed that it leaves you shaken. There is no respite, no flicker of hope. Kusum Ansal also leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Why has no one taken up the cudgels for the widows of Vrindavan. Does the answer lie in economically empowering them or changing the mindset of the people? How come, in spite of so much being written about them, no one has done anything to tackle the problem? Questions with no answers. |
KUSUM Ansal’s story of a young widow traverses
through the landscapes of Bolepur, near Shantiniketan in Bengal to
Vrindavan, the land of Krishna, to end on a railway platform a no man’s
land, in a pool of blood. The novel has a vast canvas; it narrates the
life of an intelligent girl, Tapasi, with dreams and a vision for her
future and an urge to understand the various phenomena of life. It also
underweaves the plight of widows and how the patriarchal society
objectifies women to use end abuse them.
