In the morning when I went to the workshop, I saw Manju and her mother. I met Manju in the hospital, she works as a sweeper in the same hospital where my mum was admitted a few months back. When the girls from Sambhali came to visit mum and when Meera stayed with mum to look after her at night, the sweepers from the hospital were quite surprised of the "Untouchables" mingling with the Rajput family as if we were not Rajputs or they were not Harijans. The staff at the hospital asked who the NGO participants were etc. When Manju got to know about us, she came to visit us with her mother and 2 children, she was in deep sorrow.

She is married for 8 years now; she has 2 children, the younger one 4 year old and the older one 8 years old. Manju lives with both the boys at her in-laws home, her husband does not live with the 3 of them for 1 year, instead he lives with another woman, 15 years old or so, he also has a child with her.

Manju has many economical problems and above all not having a husband and now the in-laws want to kick her out of the house. She can only live in that house if she paid some rent for water, electricity and room, she is poor. She has no money to even send her kids to school, we found the kids sponsors to go to school. Her in-laws have been insulting her every now and then; they don’t let her use the kitchen, toilet or any other facility from their home. She has a small room 8 x10 feet, this is where she baths, sleeps, cooks and uses neighbor’s toilet.

After got physically abused by her in-laws and being at the police station at night, where nothing worked to help her.

The following morning she came over to Sambhali with chest ache, head ache, bruises and moving teeth looking for us to support her and her 2 children who were now no longer allowed to live in that room. Her husband without divorcing her lives some where else with the new “wife” and the child. When we went to Manju’s in-laws they said they have no longer relation with their son so they have no longer connection with their daughter-in-law Manju and her children. So we all at Sambhali took swear that we will help her get her rights and we all at Sambhali stood up next to her.

We went to the police station and did everything legally, we also took police after requesting a lot with us to drop Manju at her home (in-laws). Police joined us for security reasons, after a lot of talking, hassle and bustle we managed to let her stay in that room. Now we are looking for a lawyer who could help us fight for Manju and get her to live in that house with her 2 children. The in-laws have now taken a new step and they want to sell the house, they said the reason of selling the house is also for some “depths”. She is happy that she has hopes from us and now she is not alone to fight for her right. We were in the newspaper the next day.