...I tried my hand at fiction. Below is the result, it hasn't been titled yet:
She ate the piece of chicken as noiselessly as she could. She tenaciously went at the last bits of meat near where the bone bends as they wouldn’t come off easily. She washed it down with cold buttermilk before picking up the stainless steel cup that contained one round scoop of badam halwa. This was a lot more food than she had prepared herself for. She took large bites and swallowed quickly. The last few bites came close to being painful as she could feel the butter in the halwa clogging up her throat. But there was no time to deliberate those trivial discomforts and she searched with her fingers along the surface of the cup to make sure there were no difficult lumps remaining. She could have turned on the light - they wouldn’t be able to see her from the first floor - but she chose to be discreet now that she knew her way around the house rather well.
Five months ago, she had reluctantly left home, the warm familiarity of her sisters’ loud laughter and angry abuses to get on the bus and land here to look after the new-born baby. She had spit out her rage that evening in one long convulsive tirade against her parents and her sisters when it was decided that she would go take up the job of the ayah that their neighbor had informed them of. The five of them had sat mutely watching her burn herself out in her fury, as she cursed their neediness and their self-righteous selfishness that had made it necessary for her to go to the city to earn what to them would be her hefty salary.
As she quietly made her way to the kitchen sink to wash the dishes and remove all evidences of an insolent midnight feast, she looked around at the large living room, and the shadows left by the big bookshelf in the familiar, warm darkness. This was her main work zone during the day, where she spent most of her time feeding the baby and cleaning up after him and creating silly little games for him all by herself. She came back to her room in the corner beyond the dining area, where she ate her meals of roti, dal and vegetables sitting cross legged on the floor twice a day.
Decent folk, she thought, before getting on to the bed, but they need to know that a girl – she needs her chicken curry.
