Parvati returned after a day’s backbreaking work to a house filled with smoke. Thick, cloudy plumes swallowed everything—the rolled-up mattresses, the clothes spilling from the warped bookshelf, the mango slices she had left to dry. Even the collapsing plastic chairs, the dented metal trunk, the old television Zainab Aapa had given her a year ago were barely visible.
Parvati held the pallu of her neon-green polyester saree to her face, and made her way to the kadai on the kerosene stove which was burning up onions, tomatoes and ginger-garlic paste. Cubed brinjal, turned brown, swam in a bowl of water and the floor was littered with vegetable scraps. Next to it, with her eyes closed and head resting against the blackened wall sat the witch, Radhika. Her husband’s wife.
“How can you be napping when the house is on fire?” she yelled, startling Radhika awake. “Have you no sense?”
Parvati poured water over the kadai and the hissing of the vessel matched the hiss in Radhika’s throat. She was trying not to retort, stroking her swollen belly, gulping down words that rose to her mouth like bile. But Parvati needed a fight to unload her day’s frustrations.
“You think I get these vegetables by fluttering my eyelashes? Do you know how expensive onions are? How would you, the Maharani of the house! You sit here all day while I scrub dishes till the skin peels off my hands”. She showed Radhika her hands, the palms worn raw, pruning still visible, an ashy grey around the nails in stark contrast to her rich, dark-brown skin tone.
“I don’t flutter my eyelashes at anyone. I cook and clean too when you go to work, you aren’t doing me a favour”. Radhika was yelling, but Parvati saw tears in her eyes, caught the quiver in her voice. “This is my husband’s house too”, she continued, “I’ll burn it if I want. This baby is eating me inside out, might as well die and take everyone along”.
Contrary to their intent, the words softened Parvati. A witch she may be, but Radhika’s pregnancy had been difficult, constant nausea even in her sixth month. Parvati remembered her own pregnancies. The first with her son Satish twelve years ago, followed by her second with Sagar, which had almost killed her. She’d fought for life, like she fought for everything else. Radhika didn’t have that spirit, and quite against her own will, Parvati began caring for her.
“Better watch your mouth”, Parvati said, calmer now as she chopped onions for the brinjal curry. “Or your baby will come out bitter like you.”
Radhika remained quiet and kneaded dough for chapatis as Parvati sautéed beside her. Two women, a picture of domesticity.
*
The house Parvati grew up in was always oily. The walls oozed grease, no amount of scrubbing with coconut fibres and ash could clean it. Inside it lived her father, a Gram Panchayat sweeper, who came home reeking of alcohol and empty pockets; her sick mother, two younger brothers, and Parvati. At twelve, she began cleaning homes. She washed people’s plates, their clothes, their footprints off the floors. The work was hard, the pay barely enough for a week’s worth of meals, yet it gave her confidence, and a fierce sense of independence. She could talk freely to people, laugh with abandon and snipe at anyone who dared to offend her.
When her mother caught tuberculosis, Parvati hid money and endured beatings from her drunk father, borrowed, and pawned to afford her treatment. Her mother died anyway leaving her to cook for them over a clay stove, take her brothers to school, clean up after their father. The men in the lanes noticed her—skin gleaming under the sun, the small gold pin in her nose, her hair perfumed with jasmine or kanakambaram. They tried to make eyes at her, get too close, and she scalded them with sharp words.
Until Manju, a construction worker with the roguish charms of a con artist. He was smitten by the slant of her grin, the tiny waist, her long braid. He called her Pataki. At first, she treated him with casual disdain, but he wormed his way into her heart through sheer persistence. He brought her flowers and hot chilli-bajjis, promised her things that were small but sounded miraculous to Parvati: a room she could call her own, a kitchen, new clothes, respect in the society. She knew it wasn’t love, just a way out and she took it.
When he asked her hand in marriage, Parvati’s father performed indignation. But, at the end of a bottle of cheap rum, the alliance was accepted. Relatives arranged a dowry of ten thousand rupees of which her father stole one thousand. They were married in the temple and the guests ate in the pandal outside. Sweat patches formed on her maroon blouse, the flowers in her hair wilted, the turmeric-rice stuck to her scalp in the afternoon heat. Manju’s friends danced in the dust like they weren’t going to live another day, he joined them. That night, he came to bed, breath heavy with alcohol. People celebrate with alcohol, she thought. Then he was drunk again the next week, and the week after that. She realized that he needed no occasion to drink, it was his nature. That she had collided right into the fate she thought she was running away from.
The kids came two years apart. Manju’s charm dwindled, as did his earnings, but his temper only increased both in intensity and frequency. When his wages were drunk or gambled away, he came for hers. The beatings would be more frequent if not for her fiery spirit. One time, she pulled the loose rod from a window and smacked him several times when he tried to force himself on her in a particularly inebriated state. He woke up with unexplained soreness and a couple of welts.
She worked in four homes by then, carrying Sagar on her hip, feeding him under the pallu of her sari. Still, she stayed with him, because in her world it was better to be owned by one man than to be desired by many.
Then, he brought Radhika home, in a fake gold necklace and bright saree; young, unsure, and unaware that her new husband already had a wife and two children. He’d met her at an orphanage during a renovation, she married him to escape her orphan life. Parvati understood that more than anything else. He married her because he could, because he was a man, he said. Parvati wanted to scream when he hung Radhika’s cloth bag on the nail protruding from the wall and placed the oil-stained newspaper packet of chilli-bajjis on the trunk; the same, lazy trick. More than a rival, Parvati saw another life sentence.
*
At first, they were in each other’s faces, unsure how to exist in the other’s orbit. They quarrelled less out of love for Manju than their proximity. Parvati had given up on him long before Radhika arrived. She knew his ways—the leering, the slurred compliments, the inappropriate touching, the nights he vanished to the places men went. She smelled those women on him, a mix of sweat, smoke, and cheap jasmine oil. It didn’t repulse her; only filled her with pity, for them because they had to endure him for the price of a meal. Radhika joined their ranks, Parvati pitied her most of all.
The children despised Radhika more because of their father’s transformation around her, than herself. He became almost human around her—bringing her flowers, urging her to eat, calling her Rani. He told the boys to lower the volume, to behave, while Parvati flipped chapatis for them over the stove. Radhika looked stricken when he pulled her close, eyes flickering towards Parvati, shame and apology in her face. Her consent, a part of her survival.
That changed too. Manju was back to his drinking, foul tempers and nights away. When Radhika got pregnant, it didn’t suit her; she had nausea, bloating, weight gain. Her skin broke out, her breath was always sour with bile. Manju, bloated and stinking of country liquor, found her repulsive. He’d lie beside her and complain of her weight, of her smell, oblivious to the rot in his own body.
That was when something changed in Parvati. Watching the girl suffer, she felt a reluctant sympathy rise in her. During her seventh month of pregnancy, Radhika was ravaged by a nasty fever. Parvati stayed home, losing wages to tend to her, wiping her forehead, making her ginger tea, letting her lick at the lime pickle to settle her stomach. The rain outside smelled of open drains and wet garbage. She slept intermittently, hearing the frogs croak and the crickets chirp through the night. Radhika’s fever broke just as the sun came up, when Parvati stirred awake from her nap, Radhika’s hand was on hers, eyes brimming with tears.
“No one has ever done this for me”, she sniffled. “Why did you take care of me?”
Parvati removed the damp cloth from her forehead, dipped it in the water, wiped Radhika’s face and chest. Without meeting her eye, she said, “Because no one did it for me and I know how that feels”.
When Radhika went into labour, Manju was nowhere to be found and the women knew that even if he were around, it wouldn’t matter. Parvati yelled for Satish to call for an autorickshaw, while she packed the bare essentials for the hospital—a nightie, toothbrush and toothpaste, a sliver of soap, a cotton towel. The rice on the stove burnt as they rushed out.
She shouted instructions to her children as she helped Radhika into the auto, “When your father’s back, tell him to come to the hospital. Eat the rice and rasam, don’t throw the burnt part, soak it in the rasam, I’ll eat it. Close the door, don’t watch TV for too long, finish your homework!”
The government hospital smelt of bleach and disease, the overworked nurses were bored and irritable, the staff curt. They wheeled Radhika, trailed by Parvati, into the waiting room full of people with broken hands and bleeding foreheads. She screamed and yelped in pain; Parvati held her hand, shushed her when her cries got too loud, rubbed her back, fanned her. The delivery itself was crowded with six medical interns watching and assisting the doctor. After an eight hour labour, they, Radhika and Parvati, for the labour felt shared, ushered in a baby girl. The nurse cleaned the baby and handed her to Parvati. The relief on Radhika’s face wasn’t just from the fact that the ordeal was over, but that Parvati was with her.
“You name her”, Radhika said, groggy.
A lump rose in Parvati’s throat as she counted the baby’s fingers and toes, traced the shape of her nose, and caressed her cheek. “Keerti”, she said.
And Radhika fell asleep, her newborn’s name on her lips and Parvati’s face in her eyes.
*
Baby Keerti became Parvati’s beacon. She had believed herself too worn by life to feel softness in her heart again. But the baby, with her milky breath and unblinking eyes cracked it open. Like light slipping through cracks, till darkness disappeared.
The child had her Dodaamma wrapped around her tiny, syrup-sticky fingers. Each evening, Parvati hurried through her work, to come back to Keerti’s gummy smile. The baby on her part squealed and extended her arms to her, and the weariness that was in Parvati’s bones dissolved, like jaggery melting in hot milk.
She brought home what little she could afford, a plastic rattle, fruits, candy. The baby cared for nothing apart from putting her face on Parvati’s chest and slipping into a dream world, drooling into the hollow of her throat. She cried when Parvati rose for work, so she began leaving before dawn, like a thief, to avoid her wails.
Radhika, too, began to fit into the household’s rhythm. Sagar was the first to warm to her. He adored his little sister and the kind Chikkamma. Soon, but grudgingly, Satish followed suit. Radhika, who had studied till the eighth standard, helped them with their homework, reading to them, correcting them. In return, they taught her words from their lessons, stories about planets and rivers, things that were new to her.
When Parvati received her Diwali bonus, thousand rupees more than last year, she decided to take them all to the movies. The old, single-screen theatre had a scratched screen, seats smelling of sweat, rancid oil and urine. They bought Gandhi-class tickets, carried raw mangoes laced with salt and chilli, and, after much pleading from the boys, bought popcorn stained yellow with turmeric that deposited under their nails.
The men whistled, tossed coins when the heroine appeared, and danced to the item song. The boys danced in their seats. Radhika laughed so hard her eyes watered. Parvati watched them—Radhika, the children, baby Keerti sucking her fist—and felt a stillness in her soul, a weird form of belonging. On the auto ride home, they sang the film’s songs, with cracking voices. Radhika watched Parvati, her unguarded laughter, the deep lines at the corner of her mouth. Something stirred inside her, it made her both happy and uncomfortable.
After the delivery, Parvati remained curt on the surface, but her gestures betrayed her. She saved Radhika the last mango slice before the boys devoured them, tucked tamarind candy into her palm without a word, and made her chapatis when she sat down to eat. Radhika became aware of the flutter in her belly when Parvati brushed past her in the kitchen, the way her throat caught when Parvati smiled, rare as the monsoon sun.
That night, after they returned, Parvati changed out of her magenta saree, the fabric damp with sweat. Radhika, restless and unable to sleep, lingered by the half-open door and through the crack, she saw Parvati’s smooth back, the line of her spine gleaming in the low light. Radhika’s breath hitched; an ancient, shameful and pure feeling rose in her. She wanted to touch something, she didn’t know what, or whom.
Parvati, sensing eyes on her, turned. Their gazes met just for a moment, but it was enough. Parvati’s chest tightened; she pulled her saree over her shoulder and shut the door with finality. They didn’t speak of it the next morning or again. The household went about its routine, but something else intruded—a forbidden desire in Radhika, a deep shame in Parvati.
*
The ration shop wasn’t open yet, but a long line wound around the street by the time Parvati and Radhika arrived, baby Keerti on Radhika’s hip. The sun hadn’t risen still, but the heat of bodies, ration cards in one hand, folded cloth bags in the other, pressed together with a sickening smell of sweat, beedi smoke, old flowers and morning dew. Women in saris chattered, men argued about who came first. Parvati’s friend Annie waved them over to the spot she was holding, making the others grumble.
“There’s no oil left at home”, Annie said. “If he says he’s run out again, I don’t know what I’ll do”. Annie’s husband had abandoned her and her two little children. She worked with Parvati at Zainab Aapa’s house.
“These bastards hoard everything and sell it outside”, Parvati said, wiping spit off Keerti’s face.
Radhika nodded, adjusting the dupatta over her chest, worried, uncomfortable. Four hours later, they heard the clang of the metal shutter half-rolled up, and the clerk emerged, waving the register. “Only two kilos per card! Don’t make a fuss,” he yelled.
The crowd pushed forward. Someone’s elbow hit Radhika’s arm. She winced, nearly losing her balance as Keerti started crying. “Careful!” Parvati hissed, steadying her. “Hold her close.”
But the men weren’t even trying to be careful, they jeered and brushed too close. A young one, his shirt unbuttoned halfway, snickered, “If you want your turn sooner, you can come inside.”
Radhika flushed, her eyes lowering. “Dirty pigs!”, Annie muttered under her breath.
Parvati’s skin burned with rage, “Ay, watch your mouth,” she said, stepping between Radhika and the man. Her voice came out louder than she’d meant.The man sneered and reached for Radhika’s waist to pinch her, “Don’t act like some saint, sister”, he winked. “I know all women want it”.
Before she could think, Parvati’s hand flew out and slapped his face. Hard. “You try that again, asshole”, she said, her voice trembling but firm, fire in her eyes, “and I’ll beat you so bad with my chappal, your own mother won’t recognize you”.
She spat in his direction. People scolded the man and pushed him out of the queue. They couldn’t walk away even though they wanted to. She grabbed Radhika’s wrist and pulled her closer, holding her tight until their turn came. By the time they left, arms laden with a bag of rice, flour and oil each, Parvati trembled with anger remembering Radhika’s face.
That night, the house was quieter than usual. Manju was away and they could guess for what. The children slept early, their bellies full of rice, sambar and appala. Parvati lay on her side, drifting in and out of consciousness, patting a sleeping Keerti, her back to Radhika who lay beside her. They didn’t usually sleep together, but Radhika said she needed air. The overhead fan swirled the smell of vegetable oil and smoke.
A little while later, Parvati felt Radhika’s hand on her bare waist, under the folds of her saree. A soft touch at first, then firmer, like an unspoken plea. Parvati froze.
Radhika moved closer, “No one has ever protected me before”, she whispered.
Parvati could feel her breath on her neck, warm and uneven. Her first instinct was to recoil, to slap the hand away, to say, What the hell are you doing? But confusion and recognition rooted her to the spot. Radhika began snuggling up to her, spooning her. A thousand thoughts erupted—shock and shame, anger and bewilderment.
She pulled away abruptly, sitting upright, not looking at Radhika. Her hand still caressed Keerti’s foot. “Don’t”, she said in a low voice. “No, Radhika”.
Radhika curled into herself like a worm, wanting to become so small, she’d be invisible. Parvati felt sorry for her, almost wanting to comfort her. She’d spent decades surviving men’s filth, now this poor broken girl wanted tenderness from her?
“I’m sorry”, Radhika mumbled, and it came out muffled as if she were smothering herself. “I’m sorry”.
Parvati didn’t answer. Her heart thudded in her chest, her breath got strained. She wanted to scream, to pray, to run. Instead, she lay a little away from her, nowhere else to go, her eyes open in the dark room, faintly illuminated by the street light, till the fan’s rhythm became unbearable.
*
In the days that followed, Parvati avoided her. She spoke only when necessary about meals, Keerti, chores. She left for work earlier, returned later. When Radhika entered a room, she found a reason to leave. Every time she saw Radhika with the baby, a blend of tenderness, pity and guilt twisted inside. The memory of that night burned like a dirty secret.
Radhika cornered her after two weeks, “If you have something to say to me, say it. Scold me, slap me even, but don’t torture me with your silence”. She was pleading for something, anything, but Parvati only made to leave.
“Please! I can’t do anything about who I am, but I’m sorry for what it made me do. You haven’t looked at me in days, haven’t said a word that’s not necessary. I have no one else, no one to talk to, no one to listen to. Don’t make me an orphan again”.
All Parvati could do was put a hand on her shoulder, sympathetic. She still couldn’t muster words and stepped away, wiping her forehead with her pallu.
Avoidance didn’t quiet her mind, so she did the only thing she knew to do—seek Zainab Aapa’s counsel. Zainab was a retired school headmistress who lived with her husband and two grown sons. It was she who gave Parvati her first job when Parvati was desperate for anything that could make her some money. Parvati had changed employers over the decade, but she never left Zainab Aapa’s house. There, she met Annie, who was the closest thing she had to a friend.
Zainab Aapa on her part took care of the two not exactly like family, but the way she cared for the stray cats who visited her. She got them other jobs, collected donations for their children, gave them new clothes and bonus on Eid, provided breakfast and tea when they came every morning.
When Annie’s husband left, she took the woman in for a while. When Manju beat Parvati, she took her to the hospital, stood over her as she swallowed pills. A surrogate mother.
“Here comes Madam Parvati”, Zainab Aapa announced, jovial. An otherwise talkative Parvati only smiled and the older woman noticed. “Did something happen again?”, she asked.
“No, no, Aapa”, Parvati said. “I was just… just… thinking of something else”.
She debated how to bring up the topic. Then, while sweeping the house, she put the broom down and said, “Zainab Aapa… I… on TV the other day… in the movie, they showed as if a woman could like another woman… in that way. Is that possible?”.
“Wow, what kind of movies are you watching, Parvati?”, Zainab Aapa asked, laughing.
“Not in my house, somewhere else”, she responded, quickly.
Zainab Aapa, peeling garlic, considered her for a moment. She was a practicing muslim woman, always in salwars with a dupatta over her head, well respected in her neighbourhood.
Parvati, not exactly waiting for a response, stood staring into the distance. Then Zainab Aapa said, “There are all kinds of things in this world, Parvati. We can’t always understand everything…”
“But… isn’t it a sin? Won’t you go to hell for something like that?”, Parvati asked.
Zainab Aapa rubbed the skin off a garlic clove with her thumb and looked at her again, a curious expression on her face. “Maybe for some people… but only God can decide what’s sin…”. She was saying this as much to herself as Parvati.
After a pause, “People call love between hindu-muslim a sin. For some, leaving a husband is a sin. Some even say one’s born a woman due to a sin in a previous life”. She chuckled, wiping her hands on a napkin.
Parvati stared at her calloused hands, “I don’t understand it, Aapa. I think it’s bad too”.
“When you get to my age, you realise that half the things in life don’t have an answer”, Zainab Aapa said, chopping the peeled ginger now. “You don’t need to understand everything, being okay with uncertainty is also life”.
“How do you live in a society like that?”, Parvati asked, lost in thought.
Parvati thought of Radhika’s face at the ration shop, the same face turned toward her in the dark, seeking warmth.
“Eh, society is mad”, Zainab Aapa waved a hand. “They have an opinion about everything. In my case just a dupatta over my head wasn’t enough, or my working after marriage was bad… they’ll say anything”.
“Now, also?”, Parvati tilted her head.
“Now they have new things to gossip about”, she said and the two women laughed, Parvati resumed sweeping. Zainab Aapa added, “The only thing I care about is whether something brings kindness or cruelty.”
Parvati let out a slow breath she’d been holding.
That night she came home and found Radhika feeding Keerti pureed rice and dal. Their eyes met, Radhika looked away first. Parvati didn’t say anything, just set down the bag of vegetables. The world hadn’t changed, but she felt lighter and for now that would do.
*
The rain hammered on their tin roof, bringing in the familiar smell. Inside, the walls were damp, rasam boiled on the stove. Satish was bunking school and had become a new source of stress for Parvati. She’d been called by his class teacher. Parvati slapped him a couple of times in front of her, so he was sulking in a corner; Sagar watched TV, their sister in his lap.
Manju came home drunk. His shirt stained with betel juice, his breath nauseating. He pushed his kids aside, flopped in front of the TV and changed the channel to one in which a woman was performing a scintillating dance number. He slapped his knees and laughed, leered at her, licked his lips when the camera panned up her bare thighs and ample cleavage.
Parvati put the food in front of him, more out of habit than any real concern for his nutrition. He took a morsel in his hand, stuffed it into his drooling mouth and spat it out. “No fucking salt again! You bitches think I toil to come back home and eat this dog food?”
Before Parvati could say anything, he hurled the plate across the floor. Hot food splattered everywhere and Keerti started to cry. Radhika flinched and ran for the child, while Parvati coolly tasted the food.
“You are drunk again. The food is perfectly fine”, she said.
He looked at her, eyes red. “You shut your mouth. Always talking like you’re some queen.”
“I’m the one keeping this house together,” she shot back.“
What did you say? What did you say?”, he came towards her, “Your wings are taking you too far, I’ll chop them off! Don’t forget who’s man of this house, you slut.”
Everyone went rigid, but Parvati stood there, defiant. “You? The man of this house?”, she snickered. “Don’t make me laugh! You are just a wound that oozes its pus on the rest of us”. She spat out.
The silence that followed was deafening. Manju’s body shook with rage and alcohol. Though he was unsteady, he swung his arm and struck her so hard, her lip split open and blood covered her mouth. Parvati fell to the ground. He held her by her hair and slapped her again, finding a strength she didn’t think him capable of, raining down blows on her frail body. The boys cried as they tried to stop their father, “Appa, stop it! Stop it, Appa!”.
Parvati’s screams could be heard on the streets, but no one came to her rescue. His abuses filled the air. Slut, Bitch, Cunt, Whore.
Radhika handed the baby to Sagar and ran between them. He struck her too, she blocked him, punched his chest and pushed him away with all her might. “Stop it! STOP IT! You’ll kill her… YOU’LL KILL HER!”, she screamed in a voice no one recognised as hers. So feral, that he broke out of his stupor. Then, he dropped onto the floor, muttering curses under his breath. His breath laboured, he sat there sweating, until he passed out.
Parvati curled up and cried, Radhika comforted her. “It’s over, it’s over. I won’t let him hurt you again. You’re all I have”, she said. Outside, the rain relented; inside, a wordless kinship bound them tight.
*
The days that followed were slow and strange. Manju barely spoke, he went out each morning and returned later, thinner, coughing. His skin had taken on a jaundiced tint. Parvati noticed his hands trembled when he lifted a glass. By the time the doctor said cirrhosis, it was too late. His liver was gone.They knew he would die. And he did. On a Tuesday afternoon, in the same bed Radhika had given birth at the government hospital. Parvati sat beside him, not crying, only watching the rise and fall of his chest fade like the last ripple in a drying pond. When he stopped breathing, she closed his eyes with practiced tenderness. The neighbours came tut-tuting, Annie was there serving water, Zainab Aapa read a prayer, and pressed money into Parvati’s hand.
That night, after Satish, barely fourteen, had lit his body on fire, they slept together in the room arranged next to each other like matchsticks of different lengths. When the sound of the kids’ sleeping breaths grew more rhythmic, Radhika, lying next to Parvati with Keerti between them said, “We’re both widows now”.
Parvati gave out a short, audible huff, and said, “We were widows long before he died.”
Radhika turned to her in the dark and said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Parvati didn’t reply. The truth was, she didn’t know what she’d do without Radhika either. Somewhere between pity and forgiveness, between rage and fatigue, they had become each other’s refuge, hemmed together by life, and the grief it came with.
As the months went by, life resumed its stubborn rhythm. Parvati went back to work, Radhika began sewing blouses. The children grew, Keerti learned to walk, and the two women continued sharing the same room, the same chores, the same companionship.
Sometimes at night, Radhika reaches out to hold Parvati’s hand. Parvati doesn’t pull away. She lies there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the fan. Survivors of a storm, on their way into God knew how many. The world moved as usual, but inside those walls, two widows existed, with, as close as they could get to the thing called grace.
Ayesha Siddiqa Khan is a writer from Bangalore. She’s a Content and Marketing Consultant with experience across both India and USA. She has been published in independent journals like Prata (creative nonfiction) and Lothlorien (Poetry). Her story has been shortlisted for the 2026 Deodar Prize. Her writing usually grapples with identity, politics, family and relationships. She’s currently editing her debut novel, a family saga.