When Nirmal Chandel’s husband died all of a sudden of a heart attack two years after their marriage, there was grief but also, overwhelmingly, claustrophobia.

Back in 1989 young widows in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh where she lived faced even more restrictions: No going out even to visit parents; no singing, dancing or participating in any celebration; no bright-coloured clothes, bangles or dressing in a way that would bring attention to herself; not even non-vegetarian food, considered ‘heating’ and likely to create inappropriate desires in a woman condemned to a sexless existence.

A dull, colourless life stretched out for the 24-year-old.

She endured the deprivation and quietly followed the Rules for Widows. Then a year later her parents came to take her home for a short break. Somebody had already told Chandel about a non-profit in Solan district. When she made discreet enquiries, the organization, Social Uplift through Rural Action, or Sutra, said the 10th grade pass could get a job as an accountant. It would pay her ₹350 but included free board and lodging. She jumped at it.

Away from home for the first time in life, Chandel looked around. Widows, those who had never married, those abandoned by their husbands, those whose husbands had been jailed, everywhere there were single women. And each had more or less the same story.

Blamed for their husband’s misfortune and tolerated without any rights, they were consigned to a life of drudgery. If young, they worried about the education of their children. Exploitation, even sexual exploitation, was common. If older, they agonized about who would take care of them in their old age. And young and old alike shared a common concern about a roof of their own. They were living on the goodwill of their families—a goodwill........

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