A BURNING ISSUE: Can the written word move one to action? Difficult to tell, though it is often writ that the pen is mightier than the sword. But, by and large, the printed word is indeed capable of moving one to thought and Sita’s Curse, by Seema Sirohi, does at least compel its readers to contemplate an age-old evil that refuses to die out.

Dowry, an ugly five-letter word, often raises its head, silently and insidiously, at many a wedding on Indian shores. As is the wont, the demands are made, not directly…but indirectly…and often, after the daughter of one house has become the daughter-in-law of another. ‘Our son wants to start a new business…. We would like the newly weds to move into a new house.’ Sita’s Curse takes a look at the lives of six women who were blighted and even destroyed by the scourge of dowry. As the cases reveal, it is a problem that transcends the boundaries of caste, class, creed and country. Sirohi draws on three years of personally conducted research to chronicle facts and events, in a painful real-life drama.

The style is straightforward…and yet, intensely moving. Its appeal lies tragically in the fate of the unfortunate women whose marriages turned into travesties and often led to their death. While an Archana Nanda survives a traumatic marriage into the NRI Ambati family, Tikka Preet is driven to suicide while Shashi Bala succumbs to severe burns.

Sirohi’s stark descriptions shake our sensibilities. Take a look at her portrayal of Jyoti’s plight. The young woman has been locked up by her husband in a room, ‘so small she could stretch and touch the walls’, in a second floor prison: ‘The door opened and she got a glimpse of the fading sun. She tried to store its brightness inside, to fill herself with ten seconds worth of sunlight so she could slowly let it out of her later, particle by particle. She could make sunlight last, she had to. It could be three or four days before Vinay would remember to come and feed her.’

The narration also depicts the trauma experienced by the families of the victims, their attempts to secure justice, often after life has been lost and, the resistance of a male-dominated establishment and society to give them their due.

All the women who read the book, will agree that dowry is a social evil that has survived too long. Hopefully, all the thinking and truly educated men who stop to consider its tragic effects, will be moved to action as well. It’s time these fires died out!