Short Story: They Danced Jhumur that Christmas Night

[Selma Carvalho]

By Nilankur Das

She always remembered the last time she celebrated Christmas, as if the memory itself refused to dissolve into the blur of other nights, as if the cold air of Jharkhand had been preserved in her chest, ready to rise each December when in Goa the Mendonca family draped lights over their balcony and set out cakes heavy with rum and nuts, and she found herself not in the tiled kitchen scrubbing brass or carrying trays but on that hillock far away, with the banyan tree looming and the chapel glowing under the moon, and she felt at once the warmth of belonging and the sharp sting of loss, and perhaps it was foolish to think one could separate them, for memory insists on carrying both, refusing to let joy march without grief at its side.

They Danced Jhumur that Christmas Night — Joao-Roque Literary Journal est. 2017

They Danced Jhumur that Christmas Night — Joao-Roque Literary Journal es... By Nilankur Das She always remembered the last time she celebrated Christmas, as if the memory itself refused t...

Joao-Roque Literary Journal est. 2017 Goa literary review Selma carvalho

Selma Carvalho

Author of "Sisterhood of Swans" and "Notes on a Marriage" both published by Speaking Tiger, India.