German traveller came to India in 1978; today she cares for 2,500 abandoned cows

In 1978, a 20-year-old Friederike Irina Bruning arrived in India from Berlin as a tourist. She had finished her education in Germany and was travelling, but India was not simply another stop on her journey. She was looking for something she could not quite define at the time. Her search eventually took her to Radha Kund in Mathura, where she was looking for a guru. More than four decades later, the German woman would be known as ‘Sudevi Mataji’ and would receive the Padma Shri for social work after spending years caring for sick, injured and abandoned cows.But the story did not begin with a gaushala. It began with a young traveller, a spiritual search and a decision to stay.From Berlin to India at 20According to the official website of Radha Surabhi Gaushala's (Bruning's gaushala), she was born in Berlin in 1958 and grew up in a Christian family.