Women’s Web is saying Goodbye! Please make sure you read this important notification.
Many a times, we live with people who don't exist. In this story of longings, loneliness and silences three women tell one story. Read on!
Sundays are my days. I always cook the Sunday lunch. It has been my speciality for the past six years. Nani is proud of my cooking as well as my hair, which is long and black. She never forgets to add that I have inherited her culinary skills and that her coconut oil massages every Saturday made my hair the crowning glory it is today. My skin tone is dark and Nani named me Krishna because Lord Krishna was dark in complexion. I might be dark-skinned which is looked down upon, but I still have the ticket to be charming like her Lord. It’s been ten years since she started living with us in Lucknow. She moved here after Dad expired in a car accident. I was twenty. Nanaji expired even before I was born.
“Oh! Yes Nani, it will make me fairer and I will find a better qualified groom.”
But it had an abrupt end when the whole village found out that she fell in love with a young British boy who served under the British Raj as a clerk.
Nothing that had any association with that woman had any entry in our house. He did not allow your mother to go for walks with her friends.
Nani lived all her life trying to be better than the other woman whom she had only heard about.
When I was seventeen, I had a huge crush on a new boy who came to our class. By that time I was convinced about the other girl. I completely believed that he will fall for some other girl.
I could not breathe or talk for months. I lived in a daze. The only saving grace was the Tanpura, Maa taught me to play when I was a child.
First published here
Proud Indian. Senior Writer at Women's Web. Columnist. Book Reviewer. Street Theatre - Aatish. Dreamer. Workaholic. read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Dear Women’s Web Community Member,
You may have wondered at our being on the quieter side during the last couple of months. Thank you for your patience, and we wanted to come back to you with a detailed note on what’s been happening at our end of things.
When we first began Women’s Web, as a blog from one woman’s desk along with a few like-minded souls, little could we have imagined the heights that it would soar to. Over the years, Women’s Web has published over 20000 stories (almost all by women), empowered countless women with the ideas, community and resources to chase their dreams, employed hundreds of women in core and project-based roles, and in the process, emerged as the OG women’s community in India. It has also inspired many others to build communities of a similar nature, all enabling women (and other-underrepresented groups) in their own ways.
Please enter your email address