[...] pulling her head scarf tight across her mouth and biting into the yellow fabric [...]

"As those around her squabbled, Mamta cooked over a stove fueled by cow dung, swept the courtyard with a tree branch and scrubbed the open-air latrine.

The daughter of a family in a nearby village, she had been forced to quit school before the sixth grade and was lent to an ailing aunt to do household chores.

She has conformed to her new family and accepted her place. Posing for a family portrait, she squatted low to make sure her head was below those of her mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law and any man.

Asked her views on the family debate, she deferred to Ramjee or said little, pulling her head scarf tight across her mouth and biting into the yellow fabric."

"Fertility rates fall, but global population explosion goes on" (Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2012)




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