Punia Devi, now 37, was widowed even before she could see the face of her husband. It was 1997 and Shivkailash Chaudhary, a resident of Laxmanpur-Bathe, had just returned to his village after his marriage at Kera village in Aurangabad district. As was the tradition, the bride and the groom were not allowed to see each other’s face during the wedding ceremony. Punia could not see the face of her husband even after his death.
Related Articles
‘Dhamaal 4’ and the problem with laughing at the margins
Indian comedy is capable of laughter-filled entertainment that does not depend, like in ‘Dhamaal 4’, on body-shaming, misogyny or the caricaturing of labouring and...
Who owns a woman’s story? Rumours, reputation and resistance in ‘Maa Behen’
Maa Behen (Mother-Sister) are everyday North Indian words that serve a double function – the most sacred of kin relations and simultaneously the category...
When Jotirao Phule came to Dayanand Saraswati’s rescue
Inviting Dayanand to Pune and helping him expand his footprint in Maharashtra was a pragmatic move on the part of Ranade and other Brahmin...
Vijay Varma plays his part in Nagraj Manjule’s realistic portrait of 1960s-70s Bombay
‘Matka King’ is a confident, character-first swing by a director in the process of expanding his range. It celebrates the intoxicating dream of upward...
Bastar’s aspirational Adivasi schoolchildren have few viable futures
This contradiction lies beneath the language of ‘mainstreaming’. State institutions encourage young people to become disciplined, aspirational, and future-oriented, even while the opportunities available...