A Widow should be long suffering until death, self restrained and chaste. A virtuous wife who remains chaste when her husband has died goes to heaven. A women who is unfaithful to her husband is reborn in the womb of a jackal. The Laws of Manu, Chapter 5 verse 156-161, Dharamshastras (Sacred Hindu texts) Set in 1938 Colonial India, against Mahatma Gandhi's rise to power, the story begins when eight-year-old Chuyia is widowed and sent to a home where Hindu widows must live in penitence. Chuyia's feisty presence affects the lives of the other residents, including a young widow, who falls for a Gandhian idealist.