She was only 13 when given away in marriage to a groom old enough to be her father. Pyari Devi* can’t quite remember the day she returned home one evening and saw two strangers sitting on the charpoy placed outside their house. She vaguely recalls her parents, both daily wage labourers, pointing out to one of them, the middle-aged man who wanted to marry her. After a hurriedly convened marriage, she was sent off the next day in the company of the two strangers to a strange place far away from her native Katihar. Three years later, Pyari ran away and returned home. The marriage was a sham. She was sold to an abusive man for a sum she is not aware of and made to work like a slave for his family. She is only 17 now but sports the sindoor (vermillion streak) on her forehead — the mark of a married woman — to keep men at bay. “I don’t want to be married again,” she says. Pyari smiles eagerly but breaks into tears when confronted with questions about her marriage. She sells vegetables, making ₹200 on a good day.

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