SOURCE: THE PRINT

Sanjana Thakur, a 26-year-old writer from Mumbai won the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story “Aishwarya Rai”. She will receive a cash prize of £5,000.

Taking its name from the Bollywood actor, “Aishwarya Rai” reimagines the traditional adoption story: a young woman, Avni, chooses between possible mothers housed in a local shelter. The first mother is too clean; the second, who looks like the real-life Aishwarya Rai, is too pretty. In her small Mumbai apartment with too-thin walls and a too-small balcony, Avni watches the laundry turn in her machine, dreams of stepping into white limousines, and tries out different mothers from the shelter. One of them must be just right…

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