TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY ANURADHA DOSAD

The men of the house drink milk.

Because they are men.

Her job is to carefully deliver the lukewarm glass of milk to them. She smells the fragrant glass of milk every day while delivering it. The aroma of frothing milk maddens her.

One day when mother and grandmother are not at home, she quickly opens the room and starts pouring milk from the milk pot and as she brings the glass to her lips to take a sip, the doors of the room burst open with a bang. The glass that reaches her lips slips from her hand and falls on the milk pot. The earthen pot breaks into two pieces. The pink milk spreads all over on the dung- smeared raw floor on the floor of the room. Seeing her stunned mother who comes near, she tremblingly expresses remorse and speaks as if apologizing-

“I, I…”

“Bitch, you were drinking the milk!”

“Yes…”

“Couldn’t you have just asked for it?”

“I asked, but you never gave me.”

“And what if I didn’t give it to you? Who do you think you are, so powerful that I would let you drink oil from the stick?”

“Mother, can I ask you something?” Her voice, drenched in tears, turned insolent.

“Ask!”

“When I was born, did milk come into your breasts?”

“Yes… very well. But… but what do you mean by that?”

“Even then, did you give my share of milk to the men of the house to drink?”

Also, read In The Month of Baishakh by Tamali Roy, Translated from The Bengali by Amanita Sen and published in The Antonym:

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