procure some salt. Ramlal, Sri Ramakrishna's nephew, who was legally her guardian, left her in utter neglect. It is said that he even positively contributed to her sufferings. The temple authorities had set apart a monthly pension of ten rupees to the Master which used to be paid to the Mother. But Ramlal, for reasons of his own, is supposed to have interfered and got it stopped. He even effected a partition, and assigning the Master's cottage to her, rid himself of all responsibilities. The other members of the family like Sivaram and Lakshmi-Didi were of no help to her, as they stayed at Calcutta with their uncle Ramlal who was the officiating priest at Dakshineswar. She had therefore to live alone in that hut. To add to the misery that neglect and loneliness caused, she became the butt of criticism of the village die-hards who vilified her as a 'merry widow' because she put on a red bordered cloth which custom strictly prohibited for widows. In the midst of, these depressing influences, there were two factors that sustained "her. One was the sympathy and support she got from Prasannamayi, an aged lady of the Laha family and a friend of Sri Ramakrishna when he was the boy Gadadhar of Kamarpukur. The other was the vision of the Great Master which she got now and then in difficult situations and the mood of spiritual exaltation in which she lived.
This state of affairs did not, however, continue for long. Her mother Shyamasundari Devi came to know of it, and through her son Prasanna Kumar, she remonstrated with Ramlal for the neglect of her daughter and also informed Golap-Ma of it. Golap-Ma at once took up the matter seriously, carried on a vigorous propaganda among the disciples of the Master, raised some funds, and invited the Holy Mother in the name of all the devotees of the Master to come to Calcutta and stay there. After some hesitation, arising from fear of public opinion attributing impropriety to a young widow staying amidst strangers, she finally arrived in Calcutta in April 1888 to the great joy of all the disciples and devotees.
It has to be pointed out that in the early days, several of the lay disciples attached no more importance to the Holy Mother than as the 'Wife of the Guru'. One is said to have actually remarked: "I know Sri Ramakrishna, but I know nothing of his wife." But hearing much from Yogin-Ma, Golap-Ma and Swami Yogananda about the highly exalted states of the Mother at Vrindaban, most of them veered round in their estimate of the Mother, and fully