The Fate of Shop Keeper's WifeT (standard:non fiction, 2151 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: May 21 2014	Views/Reads: 2744/1945	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The shop keeper's wife, a handicapped woman after working lifelong for her husband at their street corner shop dies from husband's neglect.

The Fate of Shop Keeper's Wife 

Subba Rao 

Before the school opens in the morning and again during the 

lunch break, the students from the high school gather under a large 

Plumeria tree with red and white flowers emitting sweet fragrance stood 

diagonally across the school gate  at the corner of the cross roads. At 

each corner was a small shop, a wooden kiosk standing on four legs. 

All the four shops competed for business in selling sodas, biscuits, 

snacks and bananas. They also sold sundry items like soaps, oils, 

beauty products and medications for simple ailments. Cigarettes of all 

brands were exhibited in a special glass showcase behind the counter. 

The school building was a rental property of a wealthy 

physician who lived in a large gated mansion on an elevated ground 

behind the school.  Every day morning, the physician and his young 

doctor son left for their clinic few miles away in their chauffeur 

driven silver colored car. In the morning the Physician's chauffeur, a 

grey haired man in khaki uniform rode his bike to the foot of the steep 

hill and then pushed his old bicycle with great effort to reach the 

large metal gate that led to the doctor's mansion. Juggernaut waiting 

for the bell to ring for the start of the school, watched the chauffeur 

every morning pushing his old bicycle to the top of the road. On 

occasions, the doctor, a chubby fair skin bald head man and his tall 

slender son with a long nose stood outside their mansion gate waiting 

for their chauffeur if he were to be late for the duty.  Juggernaut 

wondered why the doctor's son doesn't drive his father to the clinic. 

On the opposite side of the street were red tiled-roof houses 

built on terraces with steep concrete steps built in between as a walk- 

way to the houses on either side. On the top of the hill was a large 

multi storied yellow building.  Juggernaut always wondered about people 

living in that house since they have to walk a long way on steep steps 

to reach their home. At the road level, a small sign board on the wall 

of one of the houses read Type Writing and Stenography Taught Here. The 

instructor was a middle aged man in glasses. He always wore white shirt 

and white trousers.  In the afternoons when the school was dismissed 

Juggernaut coming out of the school yard always crisscrossed the 

stenography instructor struggling to climb the steps to his house.  He 

was a habitual drinker and got drunk on the way home from the work. 

Sometimes his wife or his son used to come out to help him walk to 


Click here to read the rest of this story (311 more lines)