Vrindavan, Kashi widows to present 1,500 rakhis to PM

LUCKNOW: Widows from Varanasi and Vrindavan will present 1,500 rakhis to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

These special rakhis, bearing colourful photos of the PM, have been crafted by a group of old widows. Five of them will go to Delhi and present baskets containing sweets and rakhis to Modi on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.

On Sunday, a colourful Raksha Bandhan programme was organised in Vrindavan’s Gopinath temple where these women prepared and decorated all such rakhis in baskets. They also tied rakhis to Sulabh International founder Bindeshwar Pathak who looks after nearly 1,000 widows in Vrindavan.

Pathak said these widows have accepted him as a brother and he honours them by fulfilling their wishes by organising such events from time to time.

Vinita Verma, vice-president of Sulabh International, said: “It will be a big opportunity for the widows usually deprived of family and relatives.”

Manu Ghosh, a 94-year-old widow from Vrindavan, was very excited about going to New Delhi to tie rakhi to Modi. “I have made a special rakhi for the PM,” she said.

“Celebrating festivals is the right of every human being but some wrong believers of society deprive a section including the widows. It’s time society changed its opinion,” said Pathak.