Kolkata Widows

They are frail but they are feisty - 50 widows of Vrindavan who arrived in Kolkata today to celebrate the Durga Pujas have a simple message for Hema Malini, the BJP MP from Mathura who recently said the widows of Vrindavan should go back to their own states, Bengal and Bihar. Their message - come to us in Vrindavan, sing "bhajans" with us, do "dars...

The Durga Pujas officially begin on October 10, but celebrations have already started on the streets of Kolkata. And participating in the festivity is a very unusual group of tourists.

Subhasini Mistry toiled for years as a manual labourer, a housemaid and a vegetable-seller. At 70, she can look back with satisfaction at a two-storeyed, whitewashed building, the realisation of her dream to build a hospital for the poor - all because she couldn't afford proper medical treatment for her husband and became a widow at 23.

They are frail but they are feisty - 50 widows of Vrindavan who arrived in Kolkata today to celebrate the Durga Pujas have a simple message for Hema Malini, the BJP MP from Mathura who recently said the widows of Vrindavan should go back to their own states, Bengal and Bihar. Their message - come to us in Vrindavan, sing "bhajans" with us, do "dars...

The Durga Pujas officially begin on October 10, but celebrations have already started on the streets of Kolkata. And participating in the festivity is a very unusual group of tourists.

Subhasini Mistry toiled for years as a manual labourer, a housemaid and a vegetable-seller. At 70, she can look back with satisfaction at a two-storeyed, whitewashed building, the realisation of her dream to build a hospital for the poor - all because she couldn't afford proper medical treatment for her husband and became a widow at 23.