The Young Tenant
These events happened in the ’90s in Barabanki, before the advent of cellular phones and the spreading of the Internet. Our tenant passed away due to malaria. His bride, Susheela, a few months younger than me, pleaded with my stepmother to let her keep the portion. Neither her in-laws nor her parents were offering her abode. She was asked to get ‘mundan,’ i.e., head shave to live in our house. I remember being attracted to her big eyes and shiny hair at first. When her husband was alive,...