Dr Laxmi Gautam, 60, is the first one dialled in cases of emergencies in Vrindavan, the holy town in Uttar Pradesh.

Hailed as the ‘Angel of Vrindavan’, Dr. Laxmi has been aiding orphans, widows, and the destitute in the city through her NGO ‘Kanak Dhara’, which started in 2013.

At the age of 10, Dr Laxmi observed how some women who came to meet her pundit (priest) father were bald, unkempt, always wore white, and did not wear any bangles.

As she later discovered, these were widows. Further probing led her to an understanding of the plight that many of the widows had to face.

They were deprived of fish, given stale rice to eat and not allowed to mingle with others or have any source of leisure.

Also known as ‘city of widows’, Vrindavan’s reality owes to young girls from West Bengal being married to much older men.

“The men pass away, leaving behind child widows. Vrindavan’s numerous ashrams become safe places for these widows looking to escape their life of shame back home,” Dr Laxmi explains.

As conversations with the locals revealed, the widows were not only deprived of dignity while they were alive but even after death.

“When no one came forward to claim the bodies, they would be chopped into pieces, put into a gunny bag and be thrown away,” she found out.

Under Kanak Dhara’s umbrella, Dr Laxmi has conducted the last rites of more than 1,000 homeless persons.

Right from their ambulance needs to the final dressing, she takes care of everything. She even reaches out to sadhus and the destitute whose families refuse to come forward.

When the pandemic was at its peak, she cooked and served hundreds of orphans lodging in Mathura for 72 days.

Kanak Dhara also assists in cases that involve young girls running away or being kidnapped from their homes.

When someone asked her at the time “Aren’t you afraid?”, she was quick to respond. “The dead don’t scare me. The acts of the living do.”