DeThree years ago, Jayanti Mondal lost her husband, son and cattle to the super-cyclone in Orissa. She survived by clinging on to a fallen tree. Her life had been shattered again, and this time there seems to be nothing she can hold on to for support.

Like the other survivors of the cyclone, Jayanti received compensation for the death of her family members. With Rs 1.5 lakh in the bank, she tried to begin life anew in Bagadhi village in the Ersama block of Jagatsinghpur district. The compensation may have helped her get back on her feet, but it did not mitigate Jayanti's grief or end her loneliness. Then Swapan Samal came into her life with the promise of a life-long companionship. They got married and Samal persuaded her to take a bank loan against her fixed deposit. Soon after she gave him the money, he deserted her, returning richer to his first wife and children. Jayanti, deep in debt and six months pregnant, sits hunched in front of her thatched hut, sobbing, "I am ruined."

SARASWATI ROUT, Gholpada Her husband ran off with the loan she took against her Rs 3.5 lakh deposit. She has complained to the police.

It is a familiar situation for many of the widowed survivors in Ersama. Grief-stricken, lonely and helpless, unable to forget the horror of that October 1999 night when nature battered their lives, they sought companions who would help them out of their nightmares. Instead, they attracted men whose romantic sensibilities leaned towards the commercial.

In a largely conservative and poor Orissa, widow remarriage is not a common occurrence. Yet in the aftermath of the cyclone, there was a flurry of marriages in Ersama-the region that took the worst pounding and took 8,000 lives. Death had left filial voids that needed to be filled. And many devastated people-widows, widowers, orphans-rushed into unholy matrimony. "Disasters affect insights and this results in serious impairment of judgmental faculties," explains Dr Gopal Chandra Kar, principal and head of the department of psychiatry, SCB Medical College, Cuttack.

Some marriages have worked. Rula Maity of Padampur, who lost her husband and children in the supercyclone, and Bhagirathi, who lost his wife, are happily married today. "But a majority of these marriages were certainly not made in heaven," says Debabrata Patro of Action Aid, one of the few NGOs that have stayed behind to help in the region's reconstruction.

For every successful marriage, there are half a dozen that have ended in betrayal and separation. "It is as if the women survivors are being victimised twice over," laments Sibabrata Kar of Sneha Abhijan, an NGO initiative that seeks to provide psycho-social help to victims of the supercyclone. The high toll (10,000 deaths across the state), ironically, brought hefty compensations. A woman in Sankha village who lost nine members of her family was awarded Rs 6.75 lakh, a prodigious fund in a perennially poor region. It wasn't surprising that there was soon a line of suitors outside her door. It wasn't surprising either that she chose wrongly.

SANDHYA DAS, Kendumatha Took a loan against her bank deposit and gave her much-married second husband Rs 50,000. He has since returned to his other wives.

By conservative estimates, at least Rs 65 crore in compensation money has been pumped into the region. The women traditionally left all financial dealings to their husbands, concerning themselves only with household expenses. The rash of marriages was also, therefore, the panicky reaction of women left with the task of managing accounts worth lakhs of rupees. Saraswati Rout of Gholpada, for instance, got Rs 3.5 lakh on the deaths of her husband and four children. She spent many sleepless nights wondering what to do with the money. She was relieved when Laxmidhar Khatua promised marriage and started living with her. She realised her folly only when, convinced by her companion's financial savvy, she took out a loan against her deposit. She has seen neither him nor her money since.

To her credit, Saraswati has hit back by registering a complaint of fraud against Khatua with the Ersama police. "More than financially, he pauperised me emotionally," she says. The episode has left deep wounds, with her son from her first husband blaming her for the loss of the money. The two frequently quarrel over the issue.

Other tales are just as depressing. After Manju Das, 27, of Baghadi village lost her husband in the calamity, her neighbour Basudeb Mondal proposed marriage. Today, Manju shares her second husband's home with his first wife and a loan taken against her deposit has gone into repaying his debts. She has taken another loan of Rs 40,000 to invest in his prawn business.

After Sandhya Das of Kendumatha married Ananta Mondal-who had been married a few times-she gave him the Rs 50,000 that she borrowed. Though the reticent Sandhya says little, her neighbours say Ananta has gone back to his other wives with gifts bought out of Sandhya's largesse.

Such chicanery has left women facing daunting debts. Since banks were adjusting the interest on deposits against the loan repayments, interest income has almost dried up. For the banks, it was sound business, with the fixed deposits serving as collateral. But for the women, the money brought nothing but sorrow and heartbreak.

MANJU DAS, Baghadi Married to and living with her neighbour and his first wife. Paid his dues and took a loan of Rs 40,000 to invest in his prawn business.

This might have been easily avoided. But with the focus firmly on brick-and-mortar reconstruction, trauma care and counselling of the victims were generally ignored. "The social aspect of the rehabilitation has not found as much favour as it should have," admits Saroj Kumar Jha of the United Nations Development Programme engaged in disaster mitigation in the region.

The results are evident. A study undertaken last year by the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Bangalore, on the mental health of the women who survived the cyclone in Ersama found that 15 per cent of those diagnosed with post-trauma stress were heading for major depressive disorders.

The authorities apparently believed that their task ended with physical reconstruction and granting compensation. That the banks would give out loans and the beneficiaries could be cheated was never considered. No one even thought of instructing banks to exercise caution in giving out loans against the compensation deposits.

In the absence of such measures, the women of Ersama are paying dearly. There are horror stories to be heard from every village of the vast region on the coastline. A 60-year-old man of Dahibar has got himself a 14-year-old wife. Two orphaned sisters with fat bank balances have been married off to a father and his son in Jhatibari. And distant relations of orphaned Dolon Bera of Siali are planning to marry her off, together with her bank deposit, to the man who greases their palms the most. Born of such ulterior intentions, there is little doubt that a majority of marriages in Ersama are being made in hell.