In a small Indian village, a young woman is forced into marrying a
middle-aged man, who is "well suited" and "respectable". As she
enters her new home, it also marks the onset of an unceasing grip
of the society on her identity.
After two years of marriage, the husband passes away, making our
protagonist a widow. She is now supposed to break her wedding
bangles, wear only simple white saris, and renounce all earthly
pleasures.
The wife finds peace in worship, though. So after having devoted
herself to her husband, she devotes herself to God. She travels to
Varanasi, a city housing thirty-eight thousand widows, in the hope
that she would attain Moksha.
However, soon after arriving in Varanasi, she is forced into
prostitution, the fate of a majority of young widows in the city. The
emotional mayhem she wanted to escape from catches up with her
again.
