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'After I prayed before Rajmata, I felt a sense of peace'

Ramesh Menon in Gwalior

Vimlabai, who is confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk after an accident, is inconsolable. She got her son Kallicharan to wheel her to the gates of the the Raj Vilas Palace where Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia's body lay covered with wreaths. But the police would not let her in as there were thousands trying to push their way through. They said she would get hurt and pleaded with her to go back.

"I have seen her before. She was not like an ordinary Rajmata. I was as important to her as anyone else despite my poverty. She once gave me a blanket during winter," she remembers with tears swimming in her eyes.

Kallicharan was ready to dump the wheelchair on the roadside and carry his mother on his back, but he just could not negoitate the teeming crowds.

They were not the only ones. There were so many commoners who just could not get in. Manish, a businessman, said he had no regrets as he has offered his respects soon after her body was brought to Gwalior from New Delhi. "After I stood and prayed before Rajmata, I felt a sense of peace," he said.

The anguished mourners were pleading with harassed securitymen to let them in to have a last darshan of the Rajmata who many equated with a saint. The police were having a tough time keeping the crowds at bay as there was just no space to let them in.

Moreover, preparations for the last journey had already started within the palace. But the crowds would not leave. They stood there in the warm morning sun clutching marigold flower garlands. Some were so poor they could just manage to get a few flowers.

There were very old men and women who needed to be supported by considerate mourners from being crushed by the constantly growing crowds. One of them, Ram Swaroop who was in his late seventies, said it was difficult to get a darshan, but he would not be able to rest if he had not come all the way from Datia, 80 kms away from Gwalior.

There were scores of people like him who had travelled far to pay their last respects. Some had come from Maharashtra. Some from Rajasthan.

Within the palace there were touching scenes as family members were consoled by friends and relatives. Her son Madhavrao stood silently looking at the serenity on his mother's face, while Karan Singh, the former maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir (whose son is married to Madhavrao's daughter), sat on a chair looking at the floor.

Elsewhere, senior police officers from Uttar Pradesh had arrived as an advance party before their Chief Minister Rajnath Singh arrived. They were giving instructions to a hotel on what their chief minister liked to eat and how his rotis should be wellmade and soft.

Outside the palace gates were over 40 blind children awaiting their turn. They would not be able to move around in the procession and so chose to come here. A kind security official called in other policemen and ensured that each child could get in to pay their last respects.

ALSO READ:
Thousands pay homage to Rajmata
Rajmata was tender, yet tough: Vajpayee
Vijayaraje Scindia dies
She had the courage to stand by her decisions, right or wrong: J K Jain
She wept for the poor: Kushabhau Thakre

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