AN 85-YEAR-OLD woman from Jharkhand will break her threedecade-long ‘maun vrat’ (vow of silence) after her dream comes true on January 22 with the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Saraswati Devi started her vow on the day the disputed Babri structure was demolished in 1992, promising to break it only when the Ram temple was inaugurated, her family claimed. The Dhanbad resident left for the temple town in Uttar Pradesh aboard a train on Monday night to witness the inauguration of the temple. Devi, who is popularly known as ‘Mauni Mata’ in Ayodhya, used to communicate with family members through sign language but wrote down complicated sentences. Though she took a break from ‘maun vrat’ and spoke for an hour at noon every day till 2020, she went completely silent the day the foundation for the temple was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

 

“The day Babri structure was demolished on December 6, 1992, my mother took a vow to observe silence till the Ram Mandir was constructed in Ayodhya. She has been jubilant ever since the date of consecration of the temple was announced,” 55-year-old Hare Ram Agarwal, Devi’s youngest child, told PTI. “She left for Ayodhya on Monday night aboard Ganga-Sutlej Express from Dhanbad Railway Station. She will break her silence on January 22,” Hare Ram, a resident of Bhowra in Baghmara block, said He said Devi has been invited by disciples of Mahant Nritya Gopal Das to participate in the Ram temple inauguration event. Amother of eight children, including four daughters, Devi devoted herlife to Lord Ram after the death of her husband Devkinandan Agarwal in 1986, spending most of her time in pilgrimages, family members said. Deviiscurrentlylivingwith her second-eldest son Nand Lal Agarwal, an official with Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL),anarmofCoalIndia, at Dhaiya in Dhanbad. Nand Lal’s wife Innu Agarwal (53) said that a few months after her marriage, she saw her mother-in-law embracing the vow of silence in devotion to Lord Ram. “Mostly, we understood her sign language. But she used to write down complicated sentences onapiece ofpaper,”InnuAgarwal said.

 

“After the demolition of Babri structure, my motherin-law visited Ayodhya and took a pledge of ‘maun vrat’ till Ram Mandir was constructed. She usedto remain silentfor 23 hours a day, taking an hour-long break only at noon.The rest ofthe time, she communicated with us throughpenandpaper,” she said.“However, when the foundation of the Ram Mandir was laid in 2020 by PM Modi, she went for a 24- hour‘maunvrat’and pledged to speak only after the temple was inaugurated,” Innu said. In 2001, Devi did ‘tapasya’ (penance) for seven months at Chitrakoot in Madhya Pradesh where Lord Ramisbelievedtohavespent a majorpart of hisexile, Innu claimed. “Besides, she also went on pilgr images across the country,” she said. According to InnuAgarwal,hermother-inlaw wakes up around 4 am every morning and undertakes‘sadhana’ (meditation) foraroundsix tosevenhours in the morning.