Recently, an old friend of mine who also is under the bondage of a commercial bank, confessed to me he has been contemplating digging a well in the backyard of his house. The gushing fool that I am, I broke into an impromptu lecture about the deteriorating quality of underground water in the cities, advising […]
August 18, 2016
The Same Night
“The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same.” ~Pablo Neruda I was young when I first read those lines by Pablo Neruda, from a poem that I still hold as one of the best I have ever read in my life, and probably ever will, I had […]
July 10, 2016
A Byte of Moonshine
Clouds germinate on the zephyrs from wet hills The heart leaps windward with the kite of moonshine. I count my blessings over the timeline of Facebook Waiting in the tunnels for a byte of moonshine. You have dug out ghosts from the debris of centuries The upper crust of yore lose the right of […]
July 3, 2016
Open Your Eyes, Muslims!
The problem of Muslims is poverty, not infidels. The tentacles of penury that keep charging the vortex further are primarily fed by unbridled procreation, generation after generation, stretching the flimsy rubber of resources further and further, till life is in tatters for units after units of the society. It eventually leads to poor or no […]
June 27, 2016
A Dewdrop Ghazal
The mirror is in youth, the jasmine in bloom, Smoky is the kohl like the moon in a dewdrop. Someone chiselled a solitaire on the finger of my beloved, I will dance with her shadow on the rims of a dewdrop. A pack of wolves ravaged a blossom last darkness, The ocean of law has […]
June 5, 2016
The Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan
“Those who can really represent China are digging dirt and paving roads with their bare hands.” ~Mo Yan But can they? Sidestepping the polemic surrounding the Nobel citation of Mo Yan, and the seeming incompatibility of the Chinese tongue with English hoes and spades, I prefer to take the stance of the reader who is […]
June 3, 2016
Nightfall of Blogging
As the nightfall of blogging closes in on me, I am more inclined to exhaling in private than gasping online, more willing to navigate through the bushes and backwaters than honking in the perpetual crescendo of the world wide web. The Internet of Things has taken over, but I am the prodigal come home to […]
May 14, 2016
With the Cicadas
The evening is long with shadows of the afternoon chopped and spent at the edges of green black leaves of pubescent jackfruit trees. With the cicadas I pause and creek. With the cicadas I smile and shrink. A blackbird took flight sideways in the ballooning miles of dirt, White blood dripped from the petiole […]
April 16, 2016
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Somewhere in the pages of his unforgettable autobiography, Paul Kalanithi alludes to the concept of areté, the ability achieved through a confluence of human faculties at their peak, to describe neurosurgery’s unforgiving call to perfection. Neurosurgery, where a scalpel’s journey a millimetre up or down, or to the right or left, in the labyrinths of […]
March 1, 2016
Three Tamarind Trees -Part II
*The beginning It was half past six in the morning as I trod the bridge over the moat to the looming entrance. My heart matched the pitter-patter of my hastening steps. Unlike the stolid façade I had come upon in my midday visits, the fort stood brooding in the soft morning light. A group of […]
February 24, 2016
Three Tamarind Trees -Part I
I swear I will tell you each word of the story as he had whispered in my ears. I first met him at Sadar Bazar in Agra. I had just purchased a paperback called Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and was sipping a cup of tea at a footpath stall. There was little of note […]
February 7, 2016
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Copyright © 2007 – 2016 U. S. Pandey
Contents of this Blog cannot be copied, stored or reproduced without written consent.Winner of ‘Literature & Personal – Short Stories’ IBA 2013
Sun on the Dewdrops
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umashankar: It is more of an accidental book blurb, Karthik. I...
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T F Carthick: I could so relate to this one. Indeed social media...
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September 14, 2016
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