Short Story: Daughters’ Revenge by Priya Hajela

Priya Hajela’s short story narrates the tale of a daughter and her fight to protect her sisters in a powerful narrative that is eye-opening for the reader.

Life had become easy for Devi. Ever since she had been taken on as a special maid to Princess Prabhavati, she didn’t have to work as hard and was paid one silver coin every so often. The only trouble was that she couldn’t go home anytime she wanted. But she was glad for this. It was best if she didn’t go home, at least for a while.  

Devi had four sisters, two older than her, and two younger. She was seventeen and her oldest sister was twenty-three and married. The second one was twenty and also married and then the math had broken down. In her parents’ quest for a son, they had the three younger ones only a year apart, seventeen, sixteen, and fifteen, after which her mother had said enough and taken to her bed. She had died soon after.