'How I convinced my widowed mom to marry again'

Yuvraj Shele, 23, who got his 41-year-old widowed mother, Ratna, remarried in a small village in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district in January, hasn’t yet understood what the fuss is all about.Journalists from all over India — TV, print, online — are requesting interviews. Suddenly, everyone around Shinganapur, his tiny village, knows about him.There is also a buzz in Kolhapur, a city historically known for its erstwhile ruler Shahu Maharaj’s progressive ideas, about the boy who has kept the rich tradition alive. “It feels strange when people ask me how I managed to do this, and I wonder what have I done? I have just ensured that my mother got her happiness back,” Shele says over a phone call from Shinganapur. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r It’s possibly this ‘what’s-the-big-deal’ attitude that helped Shele achieve something that would have been discouraged and violently opposed even in an upper-middle-class urban family.What also probably worked was Shele’s singular focus on restoring the smile on his mom’s face — the smile that was erased so cruelly in May last year when his father met with an accident.Shele’s father, Narayan, 48, was returning from work when he was grievously injured in a road accident. After spending two months in a hospital in coma, which nearly dried up all the family’s savings, he passed away in July 2022.A deep bondShele was 22 then. Suddenly, the responsibility of being the family’s breadwinner fell on him, forcing him to discontinue studies and take up a job. But while quitting college hurt, what caused him more pain was to see how bereft his mom was in his father’s absence.He remembers his mom and dad being a happy couple. “My father and mother shared a deep bond. I have seen her happy and cheerful around him. Their idea of romance was something as simple as sharing everything with each other over a cup of tea. I could clearly see that my mother missed that,” says Shele. medium97638949Once the funeral and other rituals were done with, and life was just him and his mother, it struck Shele that she was just 40 and would have to spend the rest of her life alone. “The scenes of my mother being made to break her bangles, replacing her bright, colourful sarees with plain, dull ones and wiping off her sindoor shattered me,” he says.Although the Maharashtra government has asked all gram sabhas to ban rituals associated with widowhood and more than 7,500 villages have passed resolutions in this regard, the ground reality is very different.“I too had read in the papers about the government’s appeal, but people are very heartless and brutal when it comes to accepting a widow in their family or neighbourhood,” says Shele.If Ratna as much as stepped out of her house, neighbours would shut their doors and windows. Children going to school were asked to not go past the Shele house, lest they saw her face and invited bad luck. “These were the same people my mother was friends with. But widowhood changed everything around her,” says Shele. medium97639048While his job as an office boy at a private pathology lab and his training to be a lavani (folk dance) dancer provided Shele some distraction, Ratna would spend the whole day in the house, mostly sitting in a corner. “My father was dead, but my mother wasn’t living either,” he says.The first festival after his father’s death was Ganesh Chaturthi. It used to be one of the family’s favourite festivals. “My father used to enjoy getting the idol home and my mother would take charge of all decorations and preparing prasad. I decided to continue the tradition, but soon realised how different everything was. None of our neighbours came home for darshan and mom was not allowed to perform aarti. She was not even allowed to place the prasad before the idol,” Shele recalls.This is when Shele decided he will have to do something to change his mom’s life. medium97653026Love and companionshipWith his curtailed education, Shele is not big on poems or the concept of romantic love. But he was deeply aware of his mom’s need for companionship. “I’m not saying that people who are not married are not happy, but after my father passed away, I could see mom was lonely,” he says.Shele decided he will start looking at the possibility of getting her remarried. Even as a thought hanging over his head in a bubble, it was brave. Shinganapur, or any village nearby, had not had a widow remarry.Reactions of relatives he broached the subject with were predictable. Some laughed him off. Others got upset. People would hang up the phone on him or walk off in a huff. medium97638987A close friend of Shele was the only person sympathetic. Ratna herself was appalled by the thought of remarriage. “Every time I brought it up with her, it led to a fight. I can’t remember how many nights I spent sitting outside the house on the steps after we had fought,” he says.Ratna’s argument was simple — it was Shele’s age to get married, not her. She would also dismiss the idea with “what will people say?” This would really get him worked up. “Why should we care about the people who don’t care about us?”Shele’s resolve was strengthened when a neighbour, whose wife passed away, remarried within months. “If a widower can remarry, why can’t a widow. Why should my mother be condemned to a life of unhappiness?” he thought.After months of attempting, and some very effective emotional blackmail, Shele got Ratna to accept the idea of remarriage. All this while when he was talking to his relatives and arguing frequently with his mother, Shele had done his homework and zeroed in on a potential match.Maruti Vhatkar, 45, a relative, had separated from his wife some years ago. He was one of a few relatives who were supportive of both Ratna and Shele. “He supported us during our tough times. He is a decent human being and I felt he would keep my mother happy,” says Shele. medium97639009Shele now leaned heavily on his maternal aunts, his mother’s sisters, to convince his mother about Vhatkar. The aunts, from initially being sceptical about the whole idea of remarriage, had now fully brought into the project. It took them over a month, but they finally secured a ‘yes’ from Ratna.Shele then approached Vhatkar, who, understandably, seemed apprehensive. While remarriage was no problem for him — it never is for men — marrying a widow was another thing altogether. He would have to convince his family. It was going to be a tall order. Vhatkar, however, seemed to take heart from the fact that Ratna had agreed to the match.From here on, things moved fast. As Vhatkar spoke with his family, the word spread in the village. Surprisingly, the reactions all around were positive. The last step was a meeting between Ratna and Vhatkar, which went well too.The wedding on January 12 was a simple affair effused with warmth and a sense of righteousness. The haldi ceremony took place in the afternoon followed by the wedding in the evening. “Our neighbours, relatives from my mother’s side, and my friends were present. Everyone participated whole-heartedly. It was strange, but for the first time after he left us, I felt my father’s presence too,” says Shele.Happily marriedBeyond securing a new life for her, Ratna is thankful to her son for setting a healthy precedent in Shinganapur. “I wish every woman has a son like Yuvraj. I also wish every widow is allowed a life of dignity and happiness,” says Ratna.Kolhapur being the land of Shahu Maharaj, who was among the pioneers of women’s emancipation movement in Maharashtra, Ratna said she is happy Shele has imbibed the same values. “I could not be a prouder mom,” she says.For Shele, it is mission accomplished. He saw his mother smiling like she used to when she stepped out with Maruti for their first temple visit. “I knew then that she is happy in her new life.”Photos: Courtesy Yuvraj Shele