The City Of Widows

Bereaved then cast out of their family homes, thousands of ostracised WIDOWS IN INDIA are forced to beg or become sex workers to survive. Many TRAVEL TO VRINDAVAN’S holy ashrams seeking food and shelter. what they find is safety and sisterhood…

- Andrea Thompson

When she first visited India in 2010, photographer Sara Hylton was shocked to discover women – young and old – dressed in white, begging on the streets. ‘When I looked into these women’s faces, I saw my own mother and felt compelled to explore them through my lens. They seemed so beautiful, and yet so ostracised, existing on the outskirts of society.’

Sara learned that each of these women was a widow who, on the day of her husband’s death, had given up wearing colour to signify a life of devotion to her late spouse and to God. Due to the cultural tradition of marrying off teenage girls to men in their forties and older, it’s not unusual to find women in their twenties destined to live for decades under the shadow of widowhood, alone. The treatment of widows in parts of India is a topic that the government and many parts of society would rather ignore.