Short Story: July 1947 by Neha Sharma

In this story, Neha Sharma shares a tender moment between a newly married couple and how they form a beautiful bond of love and respect with each other slowly.

The beams of the ceiling seem lower, almost closing in on her, as Kamala lay down on the charpai. The bare brick walls of the windowless room left no free air to breathe in. 

“I will be married tomorrow,” she murmured. Memories of all of her 15 years of life came rushing back: waking up to the temple bells, churning butter with her mother, and catching up with the peacocks to dance in the rain. She would lose it all. She would soon be a proper married woman who nods in disdain when she sees girls snickering.

“What else can a girl ask for than a match made at the right age,” she would often remind herself. It was a phrase she had overheard so many times that it felt more like jargon than anything else. What else than a roof over your head? Two square meals in a day? “What else, really?” she would reiterate like an incantation.