Two Little Lives and a Thousand Dreams: Young Widow Anjanaben’s Story of Strength

In Motikhervan, where the fields are edged by early sunlight, Gamit Anjanaben begins each day with the quiet urgency of a mother determined to keep her children’s laughter alive. She is just twenty-three, a widow far too young, raising a son and daughter who are both under five. Her husband’s sudden death left her rootless. When her in-laws closed their doors, Anjanaben gathered her children and returned to her parents’ home, seeking shelter and a second chance.

Six people now share the old family house. The rooms echo with young voices, and the weight of survival is lightened by the gentle hands of Anjanaben’s parents, who help mind the children when she works in the fields or tends to the animals. She has learned to farm, rear cattle, and keep the house going. Each day is a lesson in adaptation—cooking with gas on a connection in her own name, fetching water from a nearby source, managing without a toilet, and dreaming of a space that is truly hers.

Anjanaben has skills beyond the land. She weaves Mahendi on palms during weddings, dreams of opening a grocery shop, and can stitch and sew. Still, the basics are hard to come by. She has taken a loan to buy a cow, hoping animal husbandry will create a steadier income, but the cow remains at her in-laws’ home, and every month she juggles repayments with the small sum earned from milk. There is always another need before there can be savings.

Inheritance paperwork lingers. She knows, now, how to gather the documents and try to secure rights to land, so that her children will have a foundation for their future. She wishes for a home of her own, preferably at her in-laws’ place, where her children’s names might one day appear on school records and property titles. The absence of a widow pension makes things harder. She has applied, but support has yet to arrive. Sometimes relatives bring a little help, and hope flickers in each new application for a government scheme or a chance to buy another animal.

There are days when her dreams seem fragile—material assistance for a tea or breakfast lorry, a grocery shop, electricity, a toilet, a safe home for her children. And yet Anjanaben endures, carrying forward with the strength that only young mothers seem to find, making do with what she has, and refusing to let her children inherit the weight of uncertainty.

At Single Mother Foundation, we stand beside women like Anjanaben, whose stories are shaped by resilience and hope. We believe change begins face to face, with access to rights, livelihood, and dignity passing from one woman to another. Every story we share is a step toward a world where single mothers can build, earn, and inherit in their own name. If you want to help women like Anjanaben, reach out to connect@singlemotherfoundation.org.

Brought to you by Nishant Joshi, who believes voices like Anjanaben’s keep hope alive in every corner where it is needed most.