Love At First Laugh – Concluded

It has been eight years since Ronit had last seen Akshita. He is sitting in front of his Laptop, his eyes fixed on a particular photo from a series of photos of all the girls named Akshita. He hovers upon her profile picture but something prevents him from clicking on it. Entering her profile would...

Love At First Laugh – Two

A few days after they had met near her PG, things had begun to change. The air of inhibition that had shrouded his natural behaviour so far had finally begun to subside. He no longer had to be careful about his hair, or if his shirt was tucked in or not, or about if there...

Love At First Laugh – One

The first time when Ronit and Akshita had met each other alone she had asked him to wait at some distance from her PG. Hers was a ladies' PG and the caretaker of the PG, Sunita, had a reputation of being a tattletale to the girls' parents. Sunita had ruined many relationships, even the nascent...

Of Sounds That Stay – Part Two

In her village, across the street where Sri used to live, lived Mr Naresh. Till she was thirteen, she had thought that his name was ‘Seth Ji’ for everyone around her used to call him that. It was only when a few Christian Nuns had begun to come to her village, to teach students like...

Of Sounds that Stay — Part One

Sri's house was always full of sounds. Its little dimensions and the fact that she lived alone only accentuated these sounds, giving them a theatrical touch. Everything in the house somehow managed to get in touch with some other thing and resulted in a noise. Legs of her bed screeched when they skidded over the...

An Imitative Act…

From the sixth floor of his office, Saksham sees people, dragging themselves towards their office. Most of them dawdling, as if reluctant to enter the place. They seem to have forgotten the time when they had laboured to be given a chance to work there -- revision of the concepts, shortlisting of the resume, calls...

Of Compromises and Love…

Shubhadra had always found the summers strange. It seemed to change everyone around her. Her father left for his office before his usual fixed time, and her mother together with her grandmother finished their morning chores by 9 A.M. and that gave them all the more time to monitor her actions and point out all...

Of Dreams and Love…

The clock in the hall room sprung to life, its speaker chimed four times, and then turned silent again, leaving the house tranquil. Arun was already up, struggling with his breaths. The post-monsoon season aggravated his sinusitis, and so he kept switching between the sides. Restive, he sat atop the bed for some time, adjusted...

Of Lights, Life, and A Little Loneliness…

The sun grappled with the clouds all day long. Tired, it went to the bed a bit early than the usual days. By the evening, the clouds had enshrouded the sky, convincing Shama that it'd rain, but it didn't. From her room on the seventh floor of a nine-floor apartment, Shama sees lights everywhere --...

The Absence Of Light…

The table lamps stood at an awkward angle to each other and together with the paraphernalia -- the books that he had read, the book he was currently reading, the book he had decided never to flip any more page of, the kindle, the empty pen stand, a Rubik's cube that had jammed for not...

Of Birth, Death, and Life…

Why, by the end, does everything turn into a source of pain? Arham is known by his colleagues as someone who dwells in the past. In his defence, he always asks them "well, who doesn't?" While everyone else is talking either about the future or their 'could have been' versions, he prefers to think of...

That Feeling Called Love…

The last time he had let anyone touch him, Tanishq was 27 and had nothing on his body. And after the session of the passionate lovemaking was over, it had begun to rain outside, and it had continued to rain like that for some time. He was sitting on his bed, wiping the sweat off...

Of An Ant And A Man

The inept Ant began the ascent. On a day when a man's hopes shatter the way a leaf plummets down the ground and cracks up, Pran gawped at the ant trying to crawl up the room's shabby wall. The ant tried to climb up the wall but it slipped. It tried again and the result...

In Conversation With Nadine – Part 2

This post is in response to a few questions asked by Nadine.

In conversation with Nadine…

This article is in response to the Mystery Blogger Award and the questions asked by Nadine.

Of Men And Their Ways – Continued…

He always woke up before the sun shone, and it had been that way for as long as he can recall now. His wife, when she was alive, used to bicker with him for his early morning alarms. "In the morning the sound of your alarms going off, and during the day your mother with...

Of Men And Their Ways…

At dawn, when all the boys with whom he used to play cricket in the ground are still asleep, Balu is woken up by his senile father. The sixth child in his father's brigade, as the old man used to call his children together, Balu was the youngest. His two elder sisters were married and...

Of A Voice and Faded Songs…

It was a Sunday, and it was a melancholic voice that woke Samaksh up from his slumber. 'The kind of voice that he would have otherwise only tolerated if he were drunk' he told Pradhaan -- his colleague -- when they later met at the workplace. 'Who sings such songs in the morning, yaar?' he...

Of Sour Relationships and Dirty Tables…

There was something overwhelmingly disappointing about the movement of the sun that day, or perhaps it was the movement of the clouds, enshrouding the sun like a mother protecting her son from evil eyes. He stayed atop his bed, struggling with his breaths, taking turns between his sides, and this continued for long, for almost...

Of Making Babies and Driving Trains…

The coaches in the Indian passenger trains, despite all the discomfort they offer to its passengers, provide them with the facility to stop the train at their will. An act of reparation for something wrong that the train or the railway management has nothing to do with, for a predicament that has been created by...