A Life Less Lived

A year after hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons and after battling a terminal infection for three months, Gudiya, who briefly defied a panchayat ruling, breathed her last at Delhi’s Army Hospital. Gudiya became a victim of fate when first husband, Sapper Mohd Arif, was declared a deserter during Kargil. Three years later, Gudiya was married off to Taufeeq. In ’04, after finding that Arif was a PoW in Pakistan, diplomatic efforts brought him home. Gudiya then hit the headlines as a public—and televised—debate raged on which marriage remained valid. And then a panchayat decided that Arif was her husband. She finally relented. Her second child was a still-born. Though the first child is Taufeeq’s, Arif is bent on keeping him, saying "he will remind me of Gudiya".