For 13 Yrs, 36-Yr-Old Carries Blind Mum On Shoulder To Pilgrimages

 

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 Nepal, where people are likening him to an epic character hailed as the perfect son.

“Indian Shravan Kumar is on pilgrimage in Nepal,” Nepal’s Maoist-controlled official media said on Sunday, carrying a front-page photograph of the native of MP’s Wargi village. Shravan 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. Locals, 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 Indian 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,” Giri told the 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 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.