An excerpt from Shankha Ghosh’s Partition novella, ‘The Rows of Areca Nut Trees’

By Shankha Ghosh
It was Dwadashi, the Twelfth Day of Durga Puja. Today Neelu and others would leave. Since morning, he was lying down quietly in the attic. Something so terrible had happened yesterday and still no one could figure it out. People were silent in the house.