The Pearls of Catharsis Times Issue 04, July 2017 | Page 68

probably collected tenant taxes from their ancestors. There are also people
who have settled newly in the city after getting a job; they have large lands in
the country and they receive a big parcel of mangoes every summer.
However it must be noted that when I talk about people getting a job and
settling in the city, I am talking about men who migrate along with their
families. The women accompany them as their wives. They mostly move to
the city, years after their husbands who have already been settled. So their
acquaintance with the city is even lesser.
She is still afraid of finding a new address or stepping out of the household in
general as she has been used to in case of her elderly women folks back
home. But the fast city life compels her to step out of the house. In the
absence of her husband for the major part of the day, she has to take charge.
If not for herself, at least for the sake of her child,-who needs to be taken to
the tutors, and piano lessons. She cannot grow up to be like her, who is not
confident about expressing herself, who cannot read more than the headlines
of the English newspapers. She certainly doesn’t want her daughter to be in
that position and in that respect she tries to do her best. She doesn’t like the
city life, but she certainly loves the
respect that living in a city earns her
among her relatives. She even tries to
dress like her neighbours. She knows
that the woman, who lives next door,
has been brought up in the city so she
knows imitating her fashion sense is
worth it. However, sometimes she
must have gone dress shopping with
this woman, and probably couldn’t
convince herself to pay such prices for
garments, even if it was one of those
air conditioned well decorated
showrooms with young dolled up sales
girls. Thus, she tries to sew clothes
which are almost as fashionable as her
ARTWORK BY ANKITA MANDAL