OPINION Am I allowed in? By Dr. Shalini Yadav I love writing. Over time my writing revolved around being a mother, a daughter, a wife, in my roles of a woman. I’d never imagined that there will come a day when I would be writing from the outside in. As someone who falls in an hitherto unexplored category…a widow. I found that all occasions in the world for celebrating womanhood leave this one category of woman out. Every such celebration brings into startling focus in a widow’s mind the question… Am I allowed in? What am I supposed to do? Where do I fit in with this huge multitude with a significant part of whose life I can no longer identify? Whose ongoing stories of love, companionship, shared responsibilities I can empathise but not identify with anymore. It’s no longer a world I inhabit. No longer the path I walk. Who am I? Where do I belong? Because like it or not, a widow is a pariah, even to the women’s world. Even today. Subtly, but surely. It wasn’t until I was bereaved th