Devoted Indian son touches Nepal's heart
http://www.ndtv.
Indo-Asian News Service
Sunday, February 08, 2009, (Kathmandu) A devoted Indian son, who hit
the headlines in his own country for embarking on a 13-year pilgrimage
carrying his blind mother, has now touched the heart of neighbour
Nepal, where people are likening him to an epic character hailed as
the perfect son.
"Indian Shravan Kumar on pilgrimage in Nepal," Nepal's
Maoist-controlled official media said on Sunday, carrying a front-page
photograph of the native of Wargi village in Madhya Pradesh. The man
has been on a foot pilgrimage to Hindu shrines for 13 years, carrying
his 83-year-old blind mother Kirti Devi on his shoulders.
The frail 36-year-old, wearing the saffron dhoti favoured by Hindu
pilgrims, his torso bare and his long hair tied on the top of his
head, has become an object of admiration and awe in Nepal's Janakpur
town in southern Dhanusha district where he has arrived to offer
worship at the famed Ram and Janaki temple.
Towns people, especially women, are flocking to see the Indian, who
carries a bamboo pole on his shoulder from which are slung two wicker
baskets.
In one of them, sits his mother Kirti Devi, clad in white and
garlanded by people. In the other, to balance her weight, are the
meagre possessions of the pair, topped by a photograph of his father
Ram Shripal, who died when he was only 10.
His real name is Kailash Giri. But moved by his filial devotion,
people call him the Shravan Kumar of modern times.
According to the epic Ramayan, Shravan Kumar was a devoted son who
carried his blind parents on his shoulders and tended to them
selflessly. He was killed by the mighty King Dasharath on a dark
stormy night when he had gone to fetch water for his thirsty parents
and the king shot him with his arrow, mistaking him to be a deer.
"It is now 13 years, two months and eight days that I have been
travelling with my mother," the wayfarer told the state-run
Gorkhapatra daily.
The seeds of the journey were sown when Giri, an eight-year-old, fell
from a tree and broke his hand.
He says it was healed due to his mother incessantly praying for his
recovery. As she pledged to the gods that she would offer her thanks
at a holy shrine, Giri, when he became an adult, began carrying her to
shrines all over India to make her wish come true.
Though the mother and son are penniless, wherever they go, villagers
offer them food and shelter. Women come to touch the blind mother, in
the hope that their sons would be as filial as hers.
After visiting the Ram and Janaki temple in Nepal, Giri will head for
Sitamarhi in Bihar across the border to visit the Janaki temple there.
The journey of love and piety, the devoted son told the daily, would
end after reaching the Dwarka temple in Gujarat.
Besides making his mother's wish come true, the son, who remained a
bachelor to look after her, has another mission.
He wants to send out the message that parents are a son's gods and
should be served to the best of one's ability.
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