The 10th of November, 2009 saw me spend the day in a village near Nawabganj, a bus ride away from Ayodhya and Faizabad. It was the thirteenth day ritual for Kalavati Singh, wife of an elderly Thakur farmer from the village, who had died the day before the annual Panch Kosi Parikrama, on her way to her daughter's house in Ayodhya.
I had met this lady but once in my life, when I had gone to her daughter's house for dinner, cooked partly by Kalavati herself. A sharp, wiry village woman who looked healthy enough to live to a hundred, she always thereafter enquired about our welfare, my husband's and mine, from her daughter and son-in-law. We were regularly sent pickle or slightly pink curds, made from thickened milk, from her house in the village. She asked us to visit again, but we never went back to her daughter's house, in the way that the closest of friends is forgotten in the daily whirl of meaningless preoccupations.
The next time we visited would be in the shocked hours following Kalavati's death in an accident on her way to take part in the Parikrama. A veteran of many similar journeys to her daughter's home in Ayodhya, Kalavati set off from her village, carrying bags of provisions and village goodies, accompanied by a teenaged boy. She got into a three wheeler, the rickety 'sharing-auto' that is the standard means of conveyance in these parts. The driver promised to drop them off at Naya Ghat, Ayodhya. However, when they reached Katra, still some km before Ayodhya, he said he couldn't go further. Kalavati remonstrated, but he said they had to get off. She and her companion did so. They had hardly gone some distance when he called them again, and said, "OK, come on, I'll take you."
The teenager ran ahead with the bags and got back into the auto. Other passengers scrambled. Kalavati hurried too, but a truck driver, just starting his vehicle from the side of the road, failed to spot her and drove right over her, then, responding to the screams of passers by, reversed back over her stomach. Kalavati lasted some hours. She was rushed to the Ayodhya hospital, but could not survive that afternoon.
The most horrific detail of this incident relates to the auto driver who called her back after expelling her from his vehicle. He drove away from the accident, after being its prime cause. He went on looking for passengers who would pay him Rs. 2, Rs. 3, Rs. 5 and so on to get short rides up to Ayodhya town. If any one thing proves the sheer negligence, the attitude of people here to the sanctity of human life, it is this.
At her village home in Nawabganj, I sat and looked around me at every evidence of Kalavati's vibrant life. Inconsolable neighbours and relatives. Women who lived all around for many km came to her for wise counsel and help. Children who ran into her home from many houses nearby, confident that she would wipe a nose, slap a wrong-doer, or offer some freshly cooked treats. Buffaloes who were used to her feeding and milking, her voice as she tended to them. Now they stared past me at the crowds in a puzzled way.
Her death had torn the fabric of life for dozens of people in a way that was very difficult to bear.
Yet, when people discussed the accident, they blamed the truck driver, jailed for his crime. They did not discuss the poor facilities for transportation of pilgrims during Parikrama. They did not blame the authorities for all the hurdles put up in the path of pilgrims reaching Ayodhya safely. They did not discuss how auto drivers and the pathetic way they conducted their business needed to be regulated, and wrong-doers penalized stringently.
They blamed fate. "Who can prevent death when it comes for you?" seemed to be the general sentiment.
When Rahul Gandhi introduced a rural woman and her predicament into parliament, a woman who went by the name of Kalavati, the media went into overdrive. Some admired his sincerity, others lampooned his championing of this particular cause.
I needed to come to this village in Nawabganj to finally understand how much the life of each Kalavati means to her family and loved ones, and how little to our society as a whole.
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