Cloud-covered Stars: Patriarchy in a Bangali Household

The lower middle class in Bengal is a community the likes of which I can draw no comparison. There is a kind of psychic violence to life that is impossible to describe; it must be witnessed. The precarity of life is harrowing, and the disappointments--educationally, politically, environmentally and otherwise--pile up so high, that they can become simply overwhelming. The educational system is riddled with injustice, hypocrisy and spite, and the degrees garnered at considerable family expense, outnumber opportunities ten to one. Suicide around exam times is common, and the very classification of “middle-class” is also somewhat deceiving; for many the distinction pertains only to living in a brick-built structure (a pakabari) owned or rented, and being of an upper caste.