Fiction: Lahiri Bari is a house of many secrets and contested legacies of injustice, love, and pain

Aradhana could hear raised voices in the next room, and she immediately knew it was about what she had said to her aunt, Nandini Pishi. She slipped out of bed and crept barefoot to press her ear to the door that led into her father’s room. She couldn’t quite understand what they were saying because her father’s voice was low and angry, and Nandini Pishi never raised her voice, even when vexed about the horrible things Aradhana did. Aradhana couldn’t see the glass of water sailing at the door to which she had her ears glued, and the sound of it crashing made her leap away in fright.

“Never! You will never tell her the truth! I forbid you!” Her father was furious, as he often was. Aradhana scampered back to the soft, pink blanket on her bed, which Nandini Pishi said was made with her mother’s sarees, so it meant her mother was holding her tight every night. A large black-and-white photograph of her mother hung over the bed, the face ever serene, no matter what Aradhana had done. Aradhana prayed to it every night before sleeping, offering the same prayer they had taught her in school, because that was the...

Read more