Nestled in the lap of the ceaselessly gurgling Krishna, idyllic tranquillity of the ancient village of Amaravati is shattered one morning by a murder most foul and unnatural. Or the murder of a trader most foul and unnatural, as the…
Author: umashankar
I am just a watcher then. Sometimes I watch life, sometimes I watch death; many times I watch in between...
The Ghosts of Jamun Trees
Before he died, Karamuva was the best tree climber of the village and the clusters surrounding it. He loved to clamber up anything green with stalks and leaves that could bear his weight. From the foot of a tree, he could race to the canopy within seconds.
Truth Alone Triumphs
There was this ordinary man who having found an ordinary job found himself an ordinary girl who became his wife. Man’s parents were miffed as they had queued up several astrologically perfect girls for him to choose from. The man…
Going Blind
O Scorpio-cat When you have gone My eyes will turn To lumps of stone ~Vikram Seth Not that he was cooking often, yet a man must have a morsel to live. Usually, he would just warm up a bun or…
The Evening That Killed (Part-II)
(Read the Part -I Here) Never trust the rains. Not when you have lost a ton of outdoor fun as a child to twisting torrents. Nor if your classmate’s skull was squished like a melon under a passing truck when…
The Evening That Killed (Part-I)
There hangs a small painting, silent and unnoticed by most, on a wall of my house. It is a lonely work of art, facing a quiet space in the narrow passage leading to the door. It was a present from…
Nor Sleep Nor Dream
I slept dreamless on a Sunday noon. Marooned on an isle of lifelessness, spurned by the mattress, night after night, battling slumber's flight, it came as a boon. Life sits heavily on the chest; The incest with the inhaler brings…
The Sour Flute
(Is fair work rewarded often? Du Fu was a great Chinese poet who lived from 712 to 770 AD. He was doomed to a sad and deprived life as he failed in his many attempts to qualify the official civil…
The Giggling Gladiator (Part II)
(Read the 'Part I' here) If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, Nalini came right from Uranus. She was a female form hacked out of the purest permafrost. Everything about her was cold, sharp and angular, the…
The Giggling Gladiator (Part I)
Chhotu is the secret police. Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti. Period. For the incredulous, yes it still exists. Of course, it has a different name. Dare me not to come clean. If I expose him here, he will be soon found floating…
Zinfandel Moments
The mind is a muddle of Zinfandel. Unlike Coleridge however, no rhymes pour forth. I become an extension of the furniture I am wedged in. So, I can’t tell you about my crush who kissed the neighbourhood clown behind the…
To The Living
You want me to spread my heart on the bed, It’s both broke and cold; I watch my feet as I move ahead, There are cadavers on the floor. What is this they won’t let me peel? A sheet, a…
