Imphal: Boinu was about 21 when she fell in love and decided to get married. It seemed a better option than living with indifferent relatives who gave her shelter after the death of her divorced parents–an alcoholic father and a sick mother.
A lanky girl with a solemn face and raspy voice, Boinu (she uses one name) lived on India’s far, eastern edge, in the town of Churachandpur, where the plains meet the hills in one of India’s most diverse and conflict-ridden states, Manipur.
A year later, her husband had brought home another woman, and a distressed Boinu returned to her relatives. She spent the next many weeks in her room, bursting into tears every now and then, and seldom eating or talking to anyone. When some friends offered her a syringe packed with heroin, she took it.
“It’s not like I had anything else working out for me,” she said. “Soon, I was injecting heroin four times a day.” Each injection, done among friends who did the same, usually meant about three grams, or “shots”, of the drug, each Rs 100–money she got from her relatives.
