In Print!

I am so excited to announce that I have contributed to the title “Narratives on Women’s Issues in India: Domestic Violence”, published by the International Human Rights Art Festival. I am extremely grateful to the publishers, who invited me to write on such a sensitive topic, and provided me the opportunity to see my name listed along with eight of the most talented literary minds of the country.

Here is a little except from my piece ‘On Comfort’:

“Ten-year-old Shivani had wept profusely at her father’s demise. His sudden stroke late at night took everyone by surprise. Rajani was now not a wife, and was unprepared to not be one. Holding her child’s shoulder near the newly garlanded photograph of her husband, she angled her head sideways to match the tilt of the frame. It was new, gifted by a grieving relative she hadn’t met before.

They must have been rich; the un-scraped price sticker assured the quality of wood and silver and its assembly in a foreign nation. She leaned closer to the wall for a long inhalation. Sandal and incense. Was it from the Puja? Or did Rajani need to doubt the veracity of claims stuck on to the back of her late husband’s head? She had seen a similar frame at one of the hawker-shops outside the community temple.

Her mother-in-law lamented at his passing. She lamented as a mother on hearing the news. She lamented as the matriarch in her comments on their lack of an heir. She lamented as a manager in rationing out her son’s earnings between herself and his wife. For the comfort Rajani had, her mother-in-law commented, one must always pay a price.”

You can find the book here. This also marks my first time being listed on Amazon as an author (proud moment :D).