Ba slipped the gold bangles from my wrists.
Could she use the same path to liberate herself?.
The quiet strength of satyagraha may liberate her country.
She learns about a new leader of the people, a man named Gandhi, who starts a political movement and practices satyagraha- non-violent protest against the colonists as well as the caste system.
India is suffering from a severe drought, and farmers are unable to pay taxes to the British.
For the first time, despite her confinement, Leela opens her eyes to the changing world around her.
When her schoolteacher hears of her fate, she offers Leela lessons at home.
Leela is considered unlucky now, and will have to stay confined to her house for a year-keep corner-in preparation for a life of mourning for a boy she barely knew.
She\'s now expected to behave like a proper widow: shaving her head and trading her jewel-toned saris for rough, earth-colored ones.
Leela\'s whole life changes, though, when her husband dies.
Why should she? Her future has been planned since her engagement at two and marriage at nine.
She doesn\'t care for school and barely marks the growing unrest between the British colonists and her own countrymen.
Pretty as a peacock, twelve-year-old Leela had been spoiled all her life.
What if my good fortune comes back? It doesn\'t.
When your husband dies it\'s over.
They are signs of a woman\'s good fortune.
A widow can\'t wear bangles, she said.
The gold ones were plain so I didn\'t mind taking them off, but I loved wearing my milk-glass bangles and the lakkh bracelets.
Ba slipped the gold bangles from my wrists
