Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: NDTV.com
Date: February 08, 2009
URL: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090082931
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.
