According to a survey by a social worker, there are more than 9,000 widows in Brindaban and most of them either survive on charity or pension from the government.

Dharan Mandrayar, a California-based Indian director, made a movie "White Rainbow" on the different kind of widow abuse - social ostracism, abandonment by children, rape by in-laws, and financial and sexual exploitation by priests - that is still experienced.

"Many Indians shrug off widow abuse. It's been like this for centuries as the accepted way of life. The husband is called a god and the minute a woman loses her god, she becomes a zero," Mohini Giri, a leading Indian activist for widows' rights, was quoted as saying.

In India, widow-remarriage is still a far cry as depicted in recently released "Baabul" starring Rani, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Hema Malini and John Abraham.

Films advocating widow remarriage are not new. BR Films, one of the prestigious banners in Bollywood, had tried it in "Ek Hi Raasta" some five decades ago. Similarly, Dharmendra and Meena Kumari starrer "Phool Aur Patthar" and "Subah Ka Tara" by V. Shantaram stressed on the same issue.

Such films have been trying to raise the collective conscience of the society but it is an uphill task. Old customs and belief are still deeply rooted. Another survey conducted by India's national census in 2001 reported that there were more than 34 million widows in the country.

However, many Bollywood filmmakers have refrained themselves from portraying widows reality because Hindi cinema's delineation of the woman had always fitted in with the middle-class mindset and morality. It was the centuries-old concept of woman as goddess, which was reflected with all its glorious obfuscations in most Bollywood films.