LIVES IN THE BALANCE

Why do "dowry deaths" persist?

- MANVIR SINGH

On September 21, 2021, my mother sent a message to my extended family’s WhatsApp group: “Neeti had a heart attack and suddenly passed away—too tragic!” Neeti was a daughter of her sister, and someone I’d known all my life. But my cousin and I inhabited different worlds. I was born and raised in suburban New Jersey; she was a lifelong Delhiite. To me, Neeti and her identical twin, Preeti, exuded an urban glamour. At weddings, they sported chic, oversized sunglasses and matching, pastel-colored Punjabi-style outfits. Their faces looked a lot like my mom’s: long, with prominent cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. Where Preeti was garrulous and expressive, though, Neeti was quieter, more guarded, more likely to keep her struggles to herself.

Could she really have had a heart attack? We all found that strange. Neeti was known in the family as a fitness freak. At the age of forty, the mother of two, she taught yoga and regularly spent time in the gym. When the Hindi-language television channel ABP News reported her death, it chose to represent her with clips of her working out—jump-squatting, doing pushups with her hands balanced on dumbbells.