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One Grain Amongst the Storm

A Mélange of memoirs, fiction, short stories, verses, book reviews and uncorked angst.

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Author: umashankar

I am just a watcher then. Sometimes I watch life, sometimes I watch death; many times I watch in between...
27Feb
27 comments on “The Joke is on Me!”

The Joke is on Me!

Posted by umashankaron February 27, 2011March 4, 2012in Photography, Such is Life27 Comments

The lady in the house has imposed a curfew on splurging. “No Dream Home, no Cream Machines!” She says. And the law is wrought in iron. You all know how wide open to interpretation a dream home is. It may…

Read More The Joke is on Me!

15Feb
19 comments on “Rest in Peace, Aarushi.”

Rest in Peace, Aarushi.

Posted by umashankaron February 15, 2011August 21, 2013in Uncorked Angst19 Comments

Dear Aarushi, This is a letter from a father of twin daughters that you will never read. Now I am not the only one to have daughters but I am obviously better suited to relate to the emotional whirlwind that…

Read More Rest in Peace, Aarushi.

13Jan
11 comments on “How to Hold an EVIL Camera!”

How to Hold an EVIL Camera!

Posted by umashankaron January 13, 2011August 26, 2011in Photography11 Comments

Lets face it then, I am an ugly man. How ugly, you ask? Quiet. To make the matters worse I took a fancy to photographing people. Now, imagine yourself being photographed by a baboon that looks like a man! I’m…

Read More How to Hold an EVIL Camera!

02Jan
4 comments on “2010 in Review (Courtesy WordPress)”

2010 in Review (Courtesy WordPress)

Posted by umashankaron January 2, 2011May 22, 2012in Uncorked Angst4 Comments

I am not sure what is tougher: being a banker, being a branch head (with depleted human resources), being a middle level manager of a public sector enterprise in India, being a housewife in an Indian middle class home –as…

Read More 2010 in Review (Courtesy WordPress)

13Dec
5 comments on “My Journey to an Android Phone”

My Journey to an Android Phone

Posted by umashankaron December 13, 2010February 23, 2017in Uncorked Angst5 Comments

My first mobile phone was a Motorola C350 purchased in 2003 after furious bouts of research aided by the redoubtable Google, not to mention the brain-storming sessions with wife. It was a cute, imminently pocketable handset with a colour screen…

Read More My Journey to an Android Phone

24Nov
8 comments on “Empty Stomachs and 'Symbols of Change'”

Empty Stomachs and 'Symbols of Change'

Posted by umashankaron November 24, 2010August 14, 2011in Photography8 Comments

‘Superpower dreams cannot be sustained on empty stomachs.’ - Rahul Bajaj, when asked whether India is about to become a superpower.   If you don’t become a superpower on stomachs empty as dry wells, you don’t become a Pharaoh or…

Read More Empty Stomachs and 'Symbols of Change'

06Nov
4 comments on “Of Nikon D7000, Films and Still Photography”

Of Nikon D7000, Films and Still Photography

Posted by umashankaron November 6, 2010August 14, 2011in Photography4 Comments

Veils are off D7000, Nikon’s new baby which has supposedly put D90, the first ever DSLR to record HD video, behind the blinkers. Nikon appears to have run out of two digit D-X0 figures forcing them to fall back on…

Read More Of Nikon D7000, Films and Still Photography

25Oct
9 comments on “Who Switched to Nikon Now?”

Who Switched to Nikon Now?

Posted by umashankaron October 25, 2010August 14, 2011in Photography9 Comments

Creative chemicals are on high tides and they may just about break all embankments. For I can rarely envision my next post so close to the previous one and here I am hammering out the keyboard as if there’ll be…

Read More Who Switched to Nikon Now?

23Oct
14 comments on “Death of Deterrence”

Death of Deterrence

Posted by umashankaron October 23, 2010March 15, 2012in Uncorked Angst14 Comments

'Think of how many you don't even know about'. Bill Bradford, to the jury that sent him to the death row, holding him guilty of double rape and murder. The chilling message was not lost on the investigators of Los…

Read More Death of Deterrence

15Jul
4 comments on “State Bank of Indore: Caught in the Act”

State Bank of Indore: Caught in the Act

Posted by umashankaron July 15, 2010May 22, 2012in Uncorked Angst4 Comments

The nation today was exposed to the information from nothing less than the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, or, as they say, straight from the horse's mouth: "SBI is facing a situation where most of its branches and those of…

Read More State Bank of Indore: Caught in the Act

11Jul
12 comments on “Fra Lippo Lippi”

Fra Lippo Lippi

Posted by umashankaron July 11, 2010September 10, 2017in Photography, Such is Life12 Comments

Yesternight, I was caught red-handed drooling at the Nikon photographic lens section of B&H Photo Video online store by the Moral Police, a.k.a., the wife. A chill befell freezing everything alive wherein the unasked questions hung in the mid air…

Read More Fra Lippo Lippi

19Jun
7 comments on “Admin's Hubris”

Admin's Hubris

Posted by umashankaron June 19, 2010August 14, 2011in Photography7 Comments

“Flaming (also known as bashing) is hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users” -Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Recently, one of the myriads of non-descript crevices I keep drifting in on the net, 'officially' charged me with 'flaming' for a rather…

Read More Admin's Hubris

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Winner of ‘Literature & Personal – Short Stories’ IBA 2013

This blog won the 2013 Indian Blogger Awards - Short Stories

Short Stories

The Man Thing

The Vegetable Rice Chef

Three Tamarind Trees

The Bungalow by the Tracks

End of Dusk

The Monk in the Rain

Sam was Sad

Painter of Omens

A Wobbly-legged Boy

The Ghosts of Jamun Trees

Another Day like This

Going Blind

The Evening That Killed

The Giggling Gladiator

Ghazals in English

Lend Me the Assassin

Molten Moons

Afterwards

Wet Charcoal

The Icicled Bosom

Years in the Ash

A Leaf by the Nightfall

Pebbles You May Like

Luna's Story

‘Oumuamua

Thus Spake My Father

Hangmen of April

Goodbye, Cynthia Jobin

Haruki Murakami’s Well

The Same Night

The Nightfall of Blogging

The Crusted Slice

Silence of the Scrolls

Unnameable Things

Reading The Forgotten Waltz

Writing is So Long

Fungus on the Filter

Flames and Ashes

A Hole in My Pyjamas

The Slippery Slope

An Owl Reflects

The Last Salute

Truth Alone Triumphs

Zinfandel Moments

Ghostwalker

My son, must I stay?

Fra Lippo Lippi

While I be the Banker

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