Who does HELM help

 

Vichitra Sarkar came to Vrindavan 20 years ago, four years after the death of her husband. Sheltered by another sympathetic widow,Vichitra is now 100 years old, barely mobile in her last days. Medicine is too costly a luxury for her and so is the kind of minimum nutrition one requires in old age. There are thousands of Vichitras in the temple town of Vrindavan, though not all are centurions. There is Leelavati Khandelwal(62) from Rajasthan, Chandrabhaga(75) from Maharashtra and there are hundreds of others in their fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties. Some reside in ashrams or sing bhajans for hours day after day weaving their own memories of good old days.

 

Many dream of a normal cremation, the safest guarantee of an untroubled after-life, the door to a life free from the inevitable miseries of widowhood in Hindu society. Maybe, this dream too will remain unrealised. What have these Vichitras got from society? Hundreds survive by the occasional piety of a touring devotee, the small charities of pilgrims or some periodic donations from select trusts.

 

We, at HELM, have made a small beginning here. We pay a monthly pension to a few very old widows all above 60. They stay in rented rooms and abstain from begging. But, we depend on one-time or otherwise short-term donations. So, we are not sure for how long we can continue to support how many...