The Indian widows of Vrindavan

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  Hasidev Nat, 66. Nath has lived at the ashram for 26 years and says, 'The ashram is better than home. Lal Baba, the head of the Sulabh International NGO, takes care us of all.'

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  Shaifali Devnath, 70. Devnath has lived at the ashram for a year and says, 'It’s so comfortable here. It’s such a nice place to be.'

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  Urmila Tiwari, 65. Tiwari has lived at the ashram for over a year and says, 'I love to live here, among good people.'

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  Saraswati Golda, 80. Goldar has lived at the ashram for 17 years and says, 'It’s so beautiful here.'

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  Lakhi Dasi, 76. Dasi has lived at the ashram for ten years and says, 'The prayers here help me to live. They bring me joy.'

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  Savitri Dasi, 71. Dasi has lived at the ashram for almost 30 years and says, 'I have loved living here.'

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  Subhashi Sarkar, 83. Sarkar has lived at the ashram for 17 years.

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  Anita Sarkar, 70. Sarkar has lived at the ashram for 35 years and says, 'I like our prayers here together. That’s what I like most about living here.'

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  Mayarani Dasi, 80. Dasi has lived at the ashram for seven years and says, 'I would never leave this ashram. It’s my home.'

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  Shankari Dasi, 67. Dasi says, 'I have travelled everywhere in India but there is no better place than Vrindavan.'

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  Shobha Dasi, 69. Dasi says, 'I’ve been here many years. It’s good that I can be here, because I don't have any children to take care of me.'

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  Mira Dasi, 62. Dasi has lived in the ashram for eight years and says, 'A person who is good can find every place good. God keeps me always happy. I can only live here in Vrindavan, not anywhere else, not even in my town in Bengal because Vrindavan is where I find God.'

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  Radha Rani, 50. Rani has lived at the ashram for three years.

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Banished by families who see them as a financial drain, or believe they bring bad fortune, desperately poor widows have for centuries travelled to the northern city of Vrindavan, where the Hindu god Krishna is said to have grown up, to pray and wait to die.

Traditionally, Vrindavan’s widows sung hymns and begged in the pilgrimage city on the banks of the Yamuna River, living in seclusion and shame and expected to dress in white, signifying the loss of colour from their lives.

The Meerasahabhagini Ashram run by the Sulabh International NGO offers a place where some of Vrindavan’s estimated 15,000 widows can live together, providing support and friendship that bind them into a community.

* AFP