Worthing Flash

Christmas was round the corner. Very few places in the city looked as glittering and promising as Park Street. Standing behind the window of the bedroom of her posh quarters, Shruti felt a lump in her throat. The old woman loved her, the wife of her only son, dearly. Yet, Shruti was not sure why she had been quite mean to the withered woman right from the first day she stepped in the inlaws’ as ‘a daughter' like the widow went out of her way to make her daughter-in-law believe. By the time Shruti was eighteen, she was already turning heads. Her mother, Dola would always tell her not to make the same mistake that she did due to her parents' insistence. Dola wanted to be a dancer but her marriage with Rudra dashed all her hopes. She had to be the “home maker” for the rest of her life. Shruti's birth a year after Dola’s marriage ensured that Dola's dream never materialised. One day, when Shruti was working behind the cash counter in a bank, Manoj, a dashing entre...