The Noida Sisters: Anomie à deux

In Noida, a suburb of New Delhi, two sisters have been rescued after seven months of self-imprisonment in which neither left the house, even to get food. Both had doctorates. The elder of the two, Anuradha, 43, died shortly after being taken to the hospital:

"Anuradha's mouth was bleeding. She was shifted to the ICU but in spite of all efforts we were not able to resuscitate here. And, she breathed her last at 8:05 am," Dr Amit, Chief Medical Officer of Kailash Hospital where the sisters were admitted, said.

The immediate cause of the death of Anuradha (43) was a cardiac arrest, the hospital said. "Due to malnutrition there was a multi-organ failure. This led to the cardiac arrest. A post-mortem will be conducted," V V Joshi, hospital spokesperson, said.

"The condition of the younger sister Sonali (41) is stable but she is suffering from depression," he said.

. . . Anuradha and Sonali had apparently become disturbed after their father and mother passed away some years back and their younger brother left them. In the interim period, their pet dog also died after which they got into a state of depression, police said.

The papers are calling them the Noida Sisters, which is preferable to using their actual surname both for reasons of privacy and because Noida is short for "New Okhla Industrial Development Authority," which sounds like the sort of place I would set a fable of urban alienation, if I were a novelist of no great subtlety.