Short Story: The Gift by Ashwini Shenoy

In this short story, Ashwini Shenoy captures the story of a young girl struggling to follow rituals and traditions, for the fear of causing irreversible damage.

Eight-year-old Mira laughed with giddy happiness as she rose towards the sky. Chapped feet kissed the parched soil as gaunt men on four sides walked in practised sync, placing one foot in front of the other. As the sun glared down at them with unforgiving eyes they continued carrying the burdensome palki or palanquin on their bony shoulders where an angry hump would appear the next day.

The wooden structure intricately carved a hundred years ago by their ancestors, was laden with flowers and leaves made by women from rags and clay. No one in the group of a two hundred and fifty present could remember the last time they had used real flowers for anything. Such was life now in their little village. A village, that was first set up on the banks of river Mayuri centuries before mankind claimed its spot at the apex of the food chain. Centuries before the rivers and wells dried up, rain refused to appear, leaving the land and its people parched, cursed.