All the linked posts under this blog are an outcome of my observations about the things that often go unnoticed and the things that are often taken for granted.
What makes fear manifest itself in myriad mutations? The alarm in his mobile phone went off, disturbing the order that night had so laboriously built. He extended his arm, located the phone, felt the haptic key and used it to decide which side was to be kept up; and then as if by intuition, pressed... Continue Reading →
Today, 16th of May, marks the first death anniversary of my Grandmother. The below words are to her and to all the grandmothers in the world who make this world a better place to be alive in.
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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
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 --... Continue Reading →
This post is in response to a few questions asked by Nadine.
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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
Ramesh balanced himself on the scaffold - a temporary arrangement of sticks and ropes built around the naked and ugly building that he was to paint and transform into a beautiful house. The same building that he and a few others like him had worked on persistently and had erected in over a year. And... Continue Reading →
The room was reeking when he returned from the office, and the moment he unlatched the front door, the smell reached to him like a gust of wind. He retched, and though his ribs ached nothing came out from inside. He had never vomited in his life, not even when he was an unweaned child.... Continue Reading →
His stomach rumbled the third time in what could not have been more than ten minutes, convincing him that he'd finally have to get up and make his way to the toilet. The digital clock mounted on the wall displayed some numbers, but at his age and in his predicament, the numbers no longer made... Continue Reading →
The girl. If one were to capture a panoramic view from where she stood and saw the birds go about in their daily chores, three-fourths of the captured image would be filled up with tall multi-storeyed buildings, full of people, working inside them. The remaining quarter would show something that now resembles a hill. Atop... Continue Reading →
He disheveled everything she had neatly stacked up. He was running late for the office, yet again, and now searched for his ID card everywhere except where it actually was. He upended his backpack emptying all its contents atop the bed on her side. This sight filled inside of her with rage, more than the... Continue Reading →
I stared into my washing machine while the clothes were whirling inside it. What came out along with the washed clothes has been jotted down.
This blog took birth in the hospital and grew outside of it, much like us.
This is as much of a piece on Hope and Courage as it is on what the title suggests. But, I believe, that the only way to overcome anything is by moving towards something, a place, a person, or even a void if one firmly believes in it.
When faced with the situations demanding fortitude one must exhibit it, or pretend its possession. There isn't really anything else that remains at one's disposal in such situations.
This piece was born when I was scared. There was darkness all around and everything seemed daunting.
