A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

The words of the heartless woman drifted in my mind. I was irritated by her, but there was excitement too. This was not the frustration of no water in the municipal pump or power cut on the hottest night. Wasn’t this a kind of leisure dressed up as agitation?

In his ear, PT Sir’s wife says, “Fine, then. Can you bring a half kilo of tomatoes? There is that market just outside your station.” A spouse always has ideas about how you should spend your time. Couldn’t he have enjoyed thirty minutes to himself, to drink a cup of tea and sit on the platform?

“Leave our houses alone,” she screamed. “Where will we live?” Until then I had naively believed another home would materialize, but in my mother’s transformation I saw the truth: We had nowhere to go.

My head feels drawn to the earth, incapable of raising itself. So that is who he was, Purnendu. I listen to Uma madam’s scolding in this posture of shame, until the posture is all I am.

he is not knowing how to stop me. I am looking that good. I am feeling that confident. So what if some man is trying to put a barrier in front of me?