Excerpts from Haveli by Zeenat Mahal

During the next week or so, The Broad decreed that Kunwar, Zafar, Mahnoor and I had to take Alpha Male sightseeing. I was a little impressed with his knowledge of the area, actually his knowledge about a lot of things. He was well read and well-travelled. I felt extremely jealous. He’d been to all the places I’d only read about—one more reason to incinerate him.

‘It’s a beautiful place to grow up in. So vast, with so much history and most of it linked to your family. What does it feel like, knowing you come from such a name? You’re practically royalty aren’t you? So the pressures must be great too.’

How many people would have thought to ask that? Or realized that? I refused to give him any grace marks though.