Those were heart-rending scenes. The condition of those women was so pathetic that I died a thousand deaths everyday. That was Vrindavan 30 years ago.

Close to where I stayed, around 10 widows lived together. The colour of their skeleton-like bodies was that of old earthen pots. Some did not even have the strength to walk, and crawled from one place to other. From time to time their shrill cries of pain rent the air.

But one incident is still fresh in my mind - as if I had seen it only yesterday.

One day, as I was on my daily aimless walk, my eyes fell on what appeared to be a heap of tattered clothes by the wayside. A woman - her body no more than a few bones - lay amidst the rags. Around her lay her earthly possessions - a few broken utensils, a worn out steel trunk, and a portion of a moth-eaten blanket.

I asked one of the Radheswamis - widows who earned their living by singing bhajans - about the woman on the street. “Why is she lying there? What happened?” I enquired.

Pat came the reply, “She has not paid the rent for her room for the past two months. So the owner threw her out today. That’s how it is here. Nobody cares about anybody”.

I saw the worst of humanity in Vrindavan, too. The place of God also has a dark side.