From worldly love to divine devotion

Ratnavalli the wife of Rambola Dubey, was fortunate to have the undivided attention and adulation of her husband. Once while she was away at her parents’ place, Rambola could not bear her absence. He braved the stormy weather to meet her. With no boats available, he partly swam and partly sailed on a floating corpse to cross the Sarju river. Reaching very late at night, and nobody answering the door, he found a rope and climbed it to reach Ratnavalli’s room. He thought she would be pleasantly surprised and pleased, but she was shocked and angry on knowing the details and extremities of his ordeals. She chided him saying, if only he was half as devoted to God as he was to her body of flesh and blood, he would be redeemed. Heartbroken by her reaction Rambola decided to renounce grihastha jeevan (householder’s life) and left his wife for good. 

Saraswati Bai was the wife of Shrinivasa Nayak – a very wealthy jeweller and money lender, known for his miserliness. She was a pious and generous woman who tried in vain to influence him to loosen his purse strings. He felt spending or giving away money was a mark of disrespect to Goddess Lakshmi and refused to acknowledge the role of daan-dakshina as an integral part of dharma.  

One day a poor Brahmin came to Shrinivasa’s shop seeking monetary aid for performing his son’s Upanayana (thread ceremony). He was asked to come back after six months. The Brahmin did as told, with a lot of hope. Shrinivasa demeaned him by giving a few worn out coins. The Brahmin went begging. When he reached Sarswati Bai’s house. Badly wanting to help the poor man, she decided to give him her diamond studded nose-ring that was given by her parents. Co-incidentally this man took this nose-ring to Shrinivasa’s shop to sell it. He was angry on recognising his wife’s ornament and stormed home to confront her. Terrified at facing him and the consequences, she thought of ending her life. Praying to and asking Lord Krishna for forgiveness, she reached for a small container of poison, only to find her nose-ring in it. This miracle transformed Shrinivasa Nayak.

Rambola was Tulsidas who went on to script Ramcharitramanas and Hanuman Chalisa besides many other spiritual gems. ShrinivasaNayak composed around 475,000 devotional songs as Purandara Dasa and came to be known as the father of Carnatic music. The wives of these two literary saints were instrumental in their attaining heights of faith, fame and redemption.