‘That’s how it is, when your husband is gone, you have nothing.’

Lakshmamma sighs. Smita knows this. A woman has no property of her own, everything belongs to her husband. When she marries, she gives him everything. And when she loses him, she ceases to exist. Lakshmamma has nothing, except a piece of jewellery she managed to hide inside her sari, which her parents had given her when she married. She remembers that magnificent day, she tells Smita, when she was decked in fine jewellery and taken by her family to the temple for her wedding, amid wild celebrations. She had entered the estate of marriage in fine style and left it destitute. She would have preferred her husband to leave her, she says, to renounce her. At least then, she would not have been a pariah in the eyes of society. Her close family might even have shown her some compassion. But now, she met with nothing but scorn and hostility. She would have preferred to be born as a cow, at least then she would have some respect. Smita doesn’t dare tell her that she has chosen to leave her own husband, abandoning her village and all she knows. At that moment, listening to Lakshmamma, she wonders whether she has made a terrible mistake. The young widow admits that she thought about killing herself, but had finally decided against the idea, fearing that her in-laws would then kill her two sons straightaway, to keep their inheritance – this happened sometimes. Instead, she had chosen exile in Vrindavan, with her sons. People say there are thousands of women seeking refuge there in charitable ashrams or ‘widow houses’, or living on the streets. For a bowl of rice or soup, they will sing prayers to Krishna in the temples, and earn enough to subsist. One meagre meal per day – they are allowed nothing more.

Smita listens to the widow and says nothing. She is barely older than Smita herself. When she asks how old she is, Lakshmamma says she doesn’t know, but she thinks she cannot be more than thirty. Her features are youthful, Smita tells herself. Her eyes are bright, but they express such infinite sorrow, the sadness of a thousand years.