In the words of 60-year old Bhagwati Devi, whose family had even taken a financial hit to ensure her son stayed back home so she could attend the event with her daughter-in-law, “Today, we have shown it is possible for a saas andb ahu tocomeouttogether.We have shown our children, too, that another world is possible.” 

According to one of the oldest participants at the event, “Today, the sun has risen from another side of the mountain. With my bad knees, I can no longer walk to nearby villages when local festivals and melas happen. This movie theatre and the rest of the activities have shown me something I have never experienced before.” 

For a lot of women, playing games was something they had only seen their children experience so far

On 15 February 2020, 300 women from 7 villages in Uttarakhand took the day off – perhaps for the first time in years, and perhaps for the first time together as ‘saas’ and ‘bahu’.