Fiction: Usha struggles to honour her husband’s last wish, shuttling between India and America

She was twenty-five, in Delhi, awaiting marriage. In those days, the future for a BA in “Home Science” was straight and narrow – generous wedding followed by uneventful married life. Aside from her short dalliance with the boy – she cannot but think of him as a boy now – college had been pleasant. Quiet classes, lazy afternoons, cheerful banter and endless cups of tea in the canteen. And debates. Yes, the debates, an amusing conceit – young boys and girls holding forth on literature, art, philosophy and religion, striding about college corridors as intellectual giants, a copy of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy tucked under the arm – Cliff Notes into Kant, Hegel and Marx that enabled one to casually mention both the Categorical Imperative and the owl of Minerva when answering questions on stage. There always were questions, and the answers impressed even themselves. All those arguments, built atop each other. They had all made sense then – they were cogent and carefully constructed, and everything was sequitur. Sequitur. They used that word a lot in those debates. It had a pleasant Latin ring. It sounded mathematical, scientific and frightfully erudite. It was satisfying to respond to your opponent...

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