Image from Moksha - Fazal Sheikh, Online Edition.
Menka (‘Celestial nymph’)
Image from Moksha - Fazal Sheikh, Online Edition.
![Asha Rajak (‘Hope’)
Life has taught me that women are the enemies of other women. My husband and I were happy at first, but when I couldn’t give him a child he began to beat me. Then he took another wife, and we all lived together in the same house. A few months later I found out I was pregnant. This made the other wife very jealous. We carried on like this for two years until my husband fell sick and died. By this time I was pregnant again and had a second baby boy, which only made the other wife even more jealous. One afternoon she crept into the room where I was asleep with the baby and set fire to the bed. […] it was too late and my son burned to death. My brothers-in-law beat the woman and threw her out of the house […] I suffered fifty-percent burns all over my body and my mother had to sell all her land to pay the hospital fees. […] I was left with these hands that still do not open.
My husband appears in my dreams and tells me I should have stayed with my son. He wants us to be together. But my son never appears in my dreams […] Mostly I dream about Krishna. He tells me to chant to him and to worship him and he will give me moksha.
Text and Image from Moksha - Fazal Sheikh, Online Edition.](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/huiyan/2534164333/1/tumblr_le9ns1nXP11qzw8zm)
Asha Rajak (‘Hope’)
Life has taught me that women are the enemies of other women. My husband and I were happy at first, but when I couldn’t give him a child he began to beat me. Then he took another wife, and we all lived together in the same house. A few months later I found out I was pregnant. This made the other wife very jealous. We carried on like this for two years until my husband fell sick and died. By this time I was pregnant again and had a second baby boy, which only made the other wife even more jealous. One afternoon she crept into the room where I was asleep with the baby and set fire to the bed. […] it was too late and my son burned to death. My brothers-in-law beat the woman and threw her out of the house […] I suffered fifty-percent burns all over my body and my mother had to sell all her land to pay the hospital fees. […] I was left with these hands that still do not open.
My husband appears in my dreams and tells me I should have stayed with my son. He wants us to be together. But my son never appears in my dreams […] Mostly I dream about Krishna. He tells me to chant to him and to worship him and he will give me moksha.
Text and Image from Moksha - Fazal Sheikh, Online Edition.
Image from Moksha - Fazal Sheikh, Online Edition.
![Neela Dey (‘Sapphire’)
I was lucky in my marriage. My husband and his mother always treated me with kindness. […] But after my husband died, my elder son informed me that I could live anywhere I wanted - in fact he was telling me to leave the house.
In Vrindavan we are so determined in our devotion that everything else in the world is dead to us. We ourselves are dead and living with Krishna.
Text and Image from Moksha - Fazal Sheikh, Online Edition.](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/huiyan/2533905160/1/tumblr_le9mv1jBl31qzw8zm)
Neela Dey (‘Sapphire’)
I was lucky in my marriage. My husband and his mother always treated me with kindness. […] But after my husband died, my elder son informed me that I could live anywhere I wanted - in fact he was telling me to leave the house.
In Vrindavan we are so determined in our devotion that everything else in the world is dead to us. We ourselves are dead and living with Krishna.
Text and Image from Moksha - Fazal Sheikh, Online Edition.
