Short Story: A Day in Netaji Nagar by Soumitri Debroy

Soumitri Debroy shares a poignant tale of a mother and daughter, capturing their day-to-day life of chaos and confusion.

When curiosity got the better of her, Keya at once slipped out of her half-tattered chaarpaai, which stood on three legs and a discarded metal pipe for the fourth leg, and picked up the dark-tinged glass bottle someone had left on their modestly cemented crimson porch where she had been resting. She limped her way back into their newly finished ‘pucca’ house and slowly opened the bottle after making sure her mother was engrossed in her chores. She first held the bottle under her right eye, squinted to look inside it, and then brought it near her nose and took one deep whiff, and then another. She wondered if it was some nasty medicine ─ was it in fact for her left leg which had been injured by that stray piece of iron? The stitches sure did hurt and itch an awful lot, but she was willing to bear the pain rather than swallow this atrocious concoction.