Haimanti — Rabindranath Tagore

Taught at college level across India, this gem of a short story originally written in Bengali in 1914, lays bare the heart of matrimonial relations in a significant part of nineteenth and twentieth century as well as an uncertain proportion of twenty-first century India. This piece from Tagore will give you more insight into traditional Indian concepts of arrange marriage and joint family than can be attained by merely spending a lifetime in India. If you stay till the end, make sure to compare the final paragraph of the story with the first three and you will see why for the vulture of metaphor it is an endless circle of feeding where beginning follows the end …