In 1938 India an 8 year old girl, who barely even remembers her wedding and has little comprehension of her marriage, has just been widowed. Required by ancient Hindu laws to now leave society, she is brought to a dilapidated widow house or ashram where, according to custom, her hair will be shorn, her clothes exchanged for white robes and the rest of her life, until her death, will be spent in renunciation. But the feisty, precocious, disbelieving Chuyia soon turns the house upside down with her rebellious spark. She begins to have a profound effect on the other women who live there, in particular the devout Shakuntala and the beautiful Kalyani, who has been forced into prostitution by the domineering head widow, Madhumati. It is Chuyia who leads Kalyani to meet the alluring law student and Gandhi nationalist Narayan, with whom Kalyani falls in love, despite the taboos. What happens next--an attempt at escape fueled by passion and bravery--will change Chuyia forever and bring both tragedy and an unexpected ray of hope to the widow house.