The Hindu Pilgrims of the Kumbh Mela – Part One

Pilgrim bathes in the cold water of the “sacred” river.

My trip to Hardiwar was in 2010 but I wanted to share my impressions with my STORIES FROM ASIA readers….

We started in the cold darkness to take a taxi from Dehra Dun in the northern state Uttarakhand to Haridwar, 35 miles away. The taxi delivered us to a staging area 5 miles from the actual bathing area. I never thought I’d be so cold in India. We took a man-powered rickshaw for the first segment. I could see the puffs of his labored breaths as he took us a couple of miles. I was amazed by the number of people who had already been to the Ganga (Ganges) River for the ritual bath that is supposed to take away their sins at the Kumbh Mela.. Most were shivering in the early morning air…

Meera’s Story

A young woman in Mumbai outside the Gateway of India.

Meera (now 35) was born a Hindu in a poor dysfunctional Indian family. Meera’s real father left her Mom pregnant and she was almost aborted. Life was tough for Meera and her family. Since the family was poor and there was no provider her mother stayed with a man whom Meera was forced to call father. But this man did not see Meera as a daughter and she was sent to a job in a small store at a very young age.

The owner of the store raped her and she was taken to the hospital that registered a case against the rapist.

The Farmer’s Dilemma

Mohan Lal and his wife Anju are impoverished farmers in this northwestern Indian state of Rajsathan. Mohan and Anju (not their real names) have four children and came to the conclusion that suicide was the only way out of the shame and poverty of their lives in rural Rajsathan. They had sacrificed and prayed to the small area of Hindu idols in their home. No answer, the cycle of poverty continued and they had no hope that anything would ever change. They decided to drink some of the insecticide and end it all. As they were preparing, the electrical power in the whole area went off and their house fell into darkness and their television flickered off….

A Fight to Save Baby Girls in India

The daughters of India

Posted in the NY Times March 7, 2013. By KAMALA THIAGARAJAN

USILAMPATTI, INDIA — Back in the 1980s, this rural patch of the southern state of Tamil Nadu had the dubious distinction of the worst reputation for “gendercide,” or murder of unwanted baby girls, in India.

There were no official statistics, of course. Just as no one keeps a tally of how middle-class Indians today use scans to determine a baby’s sex and whether to abort a female fetus, the child deaths in the Usilampatti region, home to about 85,000 people, were whispered about, not totaled.

Often, births were unregistered, conducted by a village midwife who would then also kill unwanted girls.

But there is a light shining in the darkness…

I’ve been here four times now” my new friend from Cuba tells me as we are walking away from the Delhi slum, dodging piles of cow refuse, trash and potholes in the dirt alleyways. We have just left one of 8 ministry centers for children that are situated  in the middle of a glorified garbage dump.  A dump that is home to hundreds of thousands of India’s poorest families in what is referred to as the Delhi slum.

Pastor in India Lured into Violent Trap

NEW DELHI, October 21 (CDN) — A group of Hindu extremists in Madhya Pradesh earlier this month beat a pastor unconscious and chewed off part of his ear, pelting him with stones after he fainted from the pain.