Runaways
Running away: an act that defies religious, caste, community, and family norms of sociality, sexuality
and marriage. Runaways: the new social category of persons that represents new youth rebels, their
search for self and individual identities, a social category of persons who are often not treated as
persons.
Now a regular feature of rural life, girls and boys run away to be together, to be married, to be
companions. And, in this act, they trigger consequences unanticipated by them and their families
and manifesting in full bloom the inbuilt caste hostilities, intolerance and lack of sensitivity of Indian
society.