Widows Essay

491 Words2 Pages
Thesis: And so today I am going to talkin about this place known as “The City of Widows” and how it came to be known as “The City of Widows” Body: The City of widows, in Vrindavan, one of the holiest of places in India where people go to "wash their sins" per say, is a hub for all the discarded women of society. Widows are shunned my society and mainly their children and family members once the spouse passes, this is more prominent in the rural areas where the old traditions still exist and women are not as independent and self sufficient or educated. Once a spouse dies she becomes a burden on the family and no one wants to take responsibility for them, she is hence either abused or treated badly or chased away from the house. It's believed that 15,000 widows live on the streets of Vrindavan, a city of about 55,000 in northern India.(CNN.com/World. "Shunned by Society, widows flock to city to die".July 5, 2007). Moving on to the religious aspect of the place. Vrindavan being a holy place, there is a lot of traffic and people trying to be close to God, there are big temples and a lot of these widows flock to these and try to get food and shelter. Some of them hang out at the temple doors and people donate food and money, some of them sing in the temple for meals provided by the temples. Hindus have long believed that death in Vrindavan will free them from the cycle of life and death. For widows, they hope death will save them from being condemned to such a life again. We now will look at the life they live in this holy place. They live in poverty and misery, there have been places called "Ashrams" built kind of like we call shelters here in the US. They live there, in very bad unhygienic conditions, with meager belongings and are also treated harshly. A lot of the young widows also have to resort to prostitution to get by everyday, some of them are

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