We recently published Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar’s stunning “The Alley Huddle.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) The sensory details here, Sara, are beyond stunning! You transport the reader to this alley and into these lives so effectively and so powerful, it’s hard to come out of the story and realize “oh, yes, that’s not where I am right now.” What details were the most important for you to include to give this piece that feeling?
You would most likely be disappointed by my answer. For me, every detail here from the type of curry the men consume to the shape the flames assume is essential. The piece wouldn’t be complete if anything was omitted. I started with the fires that dot the alleys in the months of frigid December and January, and then like most of my work, it turned out to be a contrast between the lives of men and women. Can’t help myself.

2) And in those details, of course, the dichotomy of the men’s experience compared to the women’s! Oh, that contrast! Do you think the men are aware (the wives obviously are!) of that contrast? Or would they care?
The men have to be aware because no magic hands or genies perform the chores that make their lives comfortable every day. In my opinion, they don’t want to think or care about it because that is how they have been raised–to maintain their status as the heads of the households and take women for granted. That’s their way of life. That’s what their fathers and grandfathers have done. In their minds, they are not doing anything wrong.