These fasts are where gender in Hindu practice is most visible and most argued about. Karva Chauth in the north, Vat Savitri in the west, Hartalika Teej across the Hindi belt: a woman fasts, in the strictest form without water, for her husband's long life, and there is no reciprocal rite of any weight. Indian feminist writing has been pointing at the asymmetry since the 1970s. Two things complicate the criticism, and both are worth stating. The first is that Hindi cinema and the wedding industry have made Karva Chauth far bigger and more glamorous than it historically was in most communities — this is a growing practice, not a surviving one. The second is that a great many women who keep it describe it as a day of their own, spent with the women of the family and the neighbourhood, and resent being described as coerced. A visible minority of couples now fast together, which the priests will happily accommodate.