Online education and other stories

By Tanushree Bose

A collection of short stories which are about the various aspects of life ,as in India of today.It speaks of diverse characters such as the house maid,a young schoolteach

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers
• Release date: Apr 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9789362616876

Book preview

The Maid

Laxmi lives in the shack at the dead end corner of our lane. Her dwelling cuts off the road from the hinterland beyond. She lives with her husband, an occasional mother and her three children.

Why an occasional mother?

Occasional because she flits in and out of her daughter’s household.

So after a week with her daughter she will disappear; maybe to a relative’s, may be to her native place (that is village) for quite a few weeks at a stretch. Then she will reappear, thin dark face lit up with a red betel nut- stained toothy smile.

Laxmi is the sole bread winner of the family. She cleans and washes dishes, clothes, swabs floors in seven or eight households in the neighbourhood. Her two daughters also help her in these part time endeavours. Both attend the school run by the state government which lies at a distance of 6 kms from here. They catch a bus early in the morning and return home by mid-day. Sometimes by dusk –fall.

People in the neighbourhood have often conjectured (and rightly so) that the mid-day meal