The cost of loving a Dalit man — nobody touched her corpse
She turned the rule book on its head to be with the man she loved in a village, where like other parts of rural Rajasthan, caste divide runs deep. And in illness and subsequent death, her lover was practically the only person who stood by her side – from nursing her as she slowly wasted away to lighting her funeral pyre when the entire village shunned her.
This is the story of Sohni Devi, a 44-year-old Jat widow who chose to live with Narayan Balai, a widower, a Dalit and 10 years her junior.
The two lived together for more than five years in Bhilwara’s Suwana village till tuberculosis cut Devi’s life short on February 4. The village elders pronounced that nobody would touch her body.
“There were some who said the municipal vehicle used for ferrying animal carcasses be called,” said a villager.
A call to the police, too, was of little help. “I couldn’t have forced the villagers to participate in the funeral,” said a cop.
Later, an ambulance took Devi’s body to the cremation site where her last rites were performed by Balai with just another friend in attendance.
Balai and Devi first met when she needed help with building the house in 2007.
Her illness may have rendered her immobile in her last days but Balai says Devi was a spirited woman, not cowed down by ones who questioned their living arrangement.
As he wistfully stares at the abode the two had shared, Balai says, “I wished she had stayed with me, always.”
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