New Delhi, April 18 -- What is a wife to her husband? How should she describe him? Maybe he is her "home person"; but he is the one who leaves every day, while she stays at home. Is he her "yajamana" then, her owner, and she a servant with a degree?

Banu Mushtaq's short story collection Heart Lamp opens with this scorching exercise in definitions. Zeenat, a recently married woman, tries to find the right word to describe her new life with a man in a town where she has no friends. When the newlyweds are invited to the home of an older couple, Zeenat finds a companion in the woman of the house, Shaista. They drink tea and lament the struggle to educate daughters in a culture that reserves its money for sons.

During this same afternoon, th...