A Month In India
On the morning of 5th September 1987, as I was going through the card-catalogue of Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh, a friend (also a student of world religions) informed me that a young Rajasthani woman had committed Suttee in India. A day before, an eighteen-year old woman named Roop Kanwar had immolated herself on the pyre of her dead husband. The ritual was witnessed by thousands of townspeople. Stunned and speechless, my lead laden legs felt cemented to the ground. At that frozen moment the seed of a book was planted in my mind. But the seed stayed dormant for decades. The incident continued to sear like a wound at the back of my mind. Yet I was not emotionally ready to write about it. All these years I trawled...
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