Young Corpse's Tale
As the auto rattled along the dusty road, the afternoon sun bore down relentlessly, casting long shadows over the land. My gaze drifted to the side, where a shamshan ghat came into view. We were moving quickly, but not so fast that I didn’t catch sight of her—a body laid out in front of the entrance, dressed in the striking red of a bride. Even from a distance, she seemed so small, so still, surrounded by a handful of silent figures who I could only assume were her family. I barely had time to take in the scene, yet the image of her—a woman shrouded in crimson, lying motionless under the harsh midday sun—seared itself into my mind. The auto bounced on the uneven road, the driver muttering something about the heat, but my thoughts remained frozen in that brief glimpse of sorrow. Who was she? A new bride, or a wife who had walked the path of marriage, now dressed in the colors of a wedding one last time? It was the custom, after all, to send a married woman off in the same way she had on...