Sumel, India - In the state of Rajasthan, famed for brightly turbaned men and women who draw a veil across the face whenever a stranger approaches, the old ways die hard.
Years of drought have made it difficult to eke out a living from livestock or crops, so villagers along the edge of India's Thar Desert decided that one way to bring back a more prosperous time was to reintroduce sati: a widow's immolation on her husband's funeral pyre.
They recalled a legend that one sati victim -- Godavri Devi -- prophesied that her act would sweeten the village well water; that seven generations of the "tyrant" village chief will suffer from stammering; and that 100 years later, there will be another sati at the same spot.
On March 20 this year was the 100th anniversary. All the Sumel villagers needed was a woman to burn to death.
And they found one in Basanti Devi Vaishnav -- the great-granddaughter of Godavri Devi.
But for the intervention of police, Basanti would now be a pile of ashes. Having lived to tell the tale, however, her story reveals how barbaric practices and customs still have a hold in this nation of more than one billion people, and women's rights are often non-existent despite the country's recent years of economic boom and modernisation.
Sati is outlawed in India. But several forces keep the idea alive, including a resurgence of right-wing Hindu culture that has gained traction in Rajasthan with the election of a Maharani Hindu nationalist to the post of chief minister of the state last year.
In addition, widows in India face outcast status with many banished from family homes and herded into special villages. In Mathura town of northern Uttar Pradesh state, charitable temple trusts give them rice worth two rupees (less than a cent) for a full day of singing devotional songs.
And in remote pockets of Rajasthan, they are expected to kill themselves after their husband's die -- as a symbol of undying chastity.
"But Basanti's case is unique. Her husband is alive," says Kavita Srivastav, who has worked with Rajasthani women for over two decades as part of the People's Union for Civil Liberty. "Still the villagers wanted her to commit sati -- just because it was the 100th year of her great-grandmother's sati."
-- Thousands of villagers push for sati --
On the centenary day, more than 20,000 people descended on Sumel village in Pali district and goaded the 50-year-old mother of three to make her ancestor's prophecy come true.
The crowd beat drums and shouted slogans of "Long Live Sati! Hail the Sati!" as Basanti, dressed in a saffron sari and holding an earthen lamp, walked towards the temple to burn herself.
"I have done nothing. Please forgive me. I am not a sati," she tells AFP in an interview recalling the day, all the time covering her head with the corner of her sari -- a show of respect by Hindu women.
"I don't even live in Sumel. I had only gone there to offer prayers at the temple so that our tea shop starts doing good business," she says, describing how the emotion of the people and the occasion had overwhelmed her.
"Rumours were floating. Everybody was saying there would be a sati. Some said a virgin would be a sati. Some said a woman with two toes would be sati. At night, I went to the temple to pray. The next day I was preparing to leave when a woman said that I should offer prayers in Godavri Devi's house.
"I went inside the dark room but then I got possessed. I don't know what happened next but I found myself dressed in a saffron sari and holding a lamp. I began walking down the village lane. Drums were being beaten. I swear I have no role in this," she says, breaking down.
Police halted the procession in the face of angry villagers hurling stones.
"This was nothing but a well-thought out plan by Basanti Devi, her husband and relatives to make money," additional director general of police Ajit Singh tells AFP.
"They thought that the 100th anniversary of their ancestor's Sati was coming and that it would be a good opportunity to make some money," he says.
Police arrested Basanti and her husband under the anti-sati law, and will give her version of events when she later stands trial.
-- 18 years since the last known sati --
But Srivastav says it is emblematic of old ideas making a comeback.
"The villagers would have burnt her. They were hungry for action. This is what happened with Roop Kanwar. The incident has revived the ideology of sati after 18 years. It's not a good sign," says Srivastav.
Though women's rights activists say there have been 42 cases of sati in modern India, only one came to public light in 1987 when Roop Kanwar burned on a pyre in Deorala district, also in Rajasthan -- watched and hailed by thousands.
It sparked an international furore as people gaped in horror at a modern nation's astonishing traditions.
Thirty-six people were arrested for related charges sauch as abetting the sati, including a man who is now a minister in the Hindu nationalist government of Rajasthan.
"The Sumel incident shows that the Sati ideology is alive and kicking. It shows how little has changed for the rural women of India," Srivastav says.
Nearly seventy percent of India lives in villages and almost half of the population is female. At the receiving end of a patriarchal society, these women have little choice on how to lead their lives.
They cook, till the fields, nurse their children, produce as many children as their men want and often get beaten up. A survey once said that one in every five women in India had been beaten up by her husband at least once.
Basanti and her husband, who were arrested under the Sati Prevention Act, are now free on bail. Sitting in her small hut on a blistering May morning, Basanti is a nervous wreck.
"The villagers did it all. My husband is alive and yet they wanted me to become a sati. They said he would die soon. In fact, there was a rumour that he had died. People also told me that the spirit was speaking through my body and telling the villagers to go away. But no one listened and they kept pushing me towards the temple. The next thing I remember is that I was in a police jeep, racing along the highway," she says.
Coconut shells, incense sticks, a pair of abandoned slippers and hundreds of stones lie scattered in a parched field around the tiny temple nestled in the foothills of a small hill range in Pali.
A midmorning gust sweeps through the arid fields kicking up clouds of dust. For miles, there is nothing but vast desolation -- apart from the white temple.
Though the site is abandoned now, Basanti says people may be back again next year.
"People miscalculated the date ... The 100th anniversary is actually next year," she says with a ghostly stare.