Short Story: The Distance We Were Taught

Nalin Verma shares a poignant story of childhood companions who are separated as their innocence is gradually policed by social codes of caste, gender, and propriety. 

Lakshman watched the doli, palanquin, carrying Urmila till it crossed the dense groves and disappeared beyond the horizons of Madanpur.

The women, numb-eyed, guided sulking Urmila—wrapped in yellow sari embellished with tiny twinkling silver stars and a pink shawl, ghunghat veiling her face—in the doli. The kahars, carriers, lifted it and moved rhythmically through the zigzag path furrowing through the green wheat and yellow mustard fields.

He was neither sad nor ebullient. Stoic and expressionless, Lakshman was just a part of the motley assemblage which bade farewell to Urmila for Sasural that would be her new home for the rest of her life. Four carriers—two each with sticks bedecked with small copper bells—had lifted the wooden enclosure before the sun peeped out from the haze of mist. Her mother wailed, aunts sulked, and male elders were sullen faced.