The year is 1850. The campaign by British imperialists and Hindu reformers to abolish suttee, the practice of widow-burning, is beginning to bear fruit, but the lot of a Hindu widow of the upper classes is still unenviable. Shyla, left a widow at 18 when her husband died of cholera, faced the unconcealed hatred of her in-laws who confiscated her jewelry and pretty clothes and left her on a diet of bland mush, as garlic, onions, spices and all forms of flesh were held to excite lust, an inappropriate feeling in a widow. Remarriage was completely out of the question, but there was another solution, one whispered in legend. . .
A bribe to a household servant out of the few coins she had managed to set aside and hide ensured that Shyla would be able to leave the house. Clutching the few coins she had left, all of her worldly wealth and her intended sacrifice, Shyla sought the Temple of Divine Manhood.
The Temple reveals itself to those who seek it with a correct intention. It appeared before Shyla, who entered it with determination. Time to change her future.
Shyla laid the few coins she had left, the entirety of her fortune, before the god. She felt strength surge through every muscle of her body as she grew in height and weight. A healthy, fit young man stood before the god.
Shyla thanked the god and left the temple. He was now a penniless young man of no family and little knowledge of how to live as a man, but it had to be better than being a widow!