Shweta Narayan's "Nira and I" (short story, fantasy, free): Fighting deeply entrenched social taboos

I'm not sure how readers outside India will react to it. It's thinly allegorical about certain social taboos in India. Literal reading is likely to be less rewarding.

Indian readers will find it sticks to safe forms of discourse on the subject, avoiding the really hot & controversial issue of "king" actively encouraging & perpetuating the taboos.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 16 March 2009.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site. [via Free SF Reader]