A 60-year-old Odisha woman who has been begging outside the Jagannath temple in Phulbani, in the Kandhamal district of Odisha, for the past 20 years contributed one lakh rupees to the same temple on Friday. A widow named Tula Behera gave Sunasir Mohapatra and other members of the Phulbani Jagannath Temple Management Committee the money she had been saving over the years.
“I owe Jagannath, the Lord of the Universe, my life and my ability to survive. I’m on the home stretch of my life. I didn’t know what I would do with the money, so I gave it all to God, she replied.
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Behera, a Cuttack native, has been living in Phulbani since he fell in love with Prafulla Behera. She worked at menial occupations for a few decades after Behera passed away a few years after their marriage, until starvation took a toll on her health and she was forced to beg to survive.
She had a post office account where she used to put the alms money. She made the decision to give the money to the temple after learning from the post office that her savings had reached one lakh rupees.
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Sunasir Mohapatra, the president of the Temple Management Committee, claimed that he was hesitant to accept the money when Tula approached him. On the auspicious day of Dhanu Sankranti, the committee gave in to her insistence, he added.
