Lata Patil at her new house in August 2016. Pics courtesy/Widows of Vidarbha, Oxford University Press

In Yavatmal's Ajanti Village, 630 km from Mumbai, Vandana Rathod is yet to come to terms with why her husband, who had tattooed her name on his chest and proclaimed his love for her, decided not to let her in on his troubles. It was the morning of August 22, 2013, when Ganesh, a farmer, left home on the pretext of spraying pesticides in his field. When he returned home at 7 pm, he complained of dizziness, Rathod recalls. Before she could sense of what was happening, Ganesh was gone. Vandana would later learn that he had consumed the pesticide he had intended to use in his fields.