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One Grain Amongst the Storm

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Category: Such is Life

25Jun
45 comments on “When False Dreams Come True”

When False Dreams Come True

Posted by umashankaron June 25, 2017March 13, 2022in Such is Life, Uncorked Angst45 Comments

Dear readers, the original title of this post was ‘Confusticated and Bebothered’. But I became jittery at the last minute, even though no detractors were skinned alive in the process of pilfering it from Dictionary.com’s daily offering, who in turn…

Read More When False Dreams Come True

22Apr
42 comments on “Hangmen of April”

Hangmen of April

Posted by umashankaron April 22, 2017July 27, 2026in Such is Life42 Comments

Come April and I am awash with phone calls from friends and colleagues about how they fared in the annual performance appraisals. Certain lesions of the past rendered unmentionable on this blog due to reasons of propriety, have bestowed the…

Read More Hangmen of April

20Mar
30 comments on “The Ark of Nostalgia”

The Ark of Nostalgia

Posted by umashankaron March 20, 2017March 20, 2017in Such is Life30 Comments

“I'm your phantom dance partner. I'm your shadow. I'm not anything more.” ~Haruki Murakami As if working for a bank weren’t traumatic enough, I am working for a subsidiary bank undergoing absorption in its parent. It is highly hypocritical of someone…

Read More The Ark of Nostalgia

01Mar
48 comments on “The Siege of the Bog”

The Siege of the Bog

Posted by umashankaron March 1, 2017July 30, 2026in Such is Life48 Comments

It happened when I was eight or nine. What revived the memory this past month was the hurried confession of Matt Renshaw, a rookie Australian batsman to his captain, as he scrambled for the loo from the middle of a…

Read More The Siege of the Bog

19Feb
54 comments on “Thus Spake My Father”

Thus Spake My Father

Posted by umashankaron February 19, 2017July 27, 2026in Such is Life54 Comments

As I look back at the life of my departed father, I realise how he had been a part of the transitional era that stood with a foot in the mysteries of the yore and the other into the increasingly…

Read More Thus Spake My Father

01Feb
41 comments on “Train to Nada Land”

Train to Nada Land

Posted by umashankaron February 1, 2017December 23, 2019in Such is Life41 Comments

Dear friend and patrons, by the time you read this post, I’d be rocking away to my old hometown in a still older train panting over the ancient tracks laid down by the British looking to save the Indians from…

Read More Train to Nada Land

21Jan
46 comments on “Why Did the Chicken Write a Blog?”

Why Did the Chicken Write a Blog?

Posted by umashankaron January 21, 2017December 23, 2019in Such is Life46 Comments

ARNAB GOSWAMI: Can you tell this, on this channel, right in front of all of us: why can’t the chicken write a blog? The nation wants to know. RAHUL GANDHI: The chicken has written the biggest blog since Independence and…

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14Jan
16 comments on “The Orb of Hereafter”

The Orb of Hereafter

Posted by umashankaron January 14, 2017August 30, 2019in Such is Life16 Comments

About a week shy of the onset of the New Year, I presumptuously augmented the copyright notice at my blog to 2017. Don’t mistake me, I have long stopped caring about the trolls looking forward to plagiarizing my mumbling —anyone…

Read More The Orb of Hereafter

25Dec
63 comments on “Goodbye, Cynthia Jobin”

Goodbye, Cynthia Jobin

Posted by umashankaron December 25, 2016July 27, 2026in Such is Life63 Comments

I cannot say Cynthia Jobin was lonely when I met her, surrounded as she was by a swarm of friends, eagerly awaiting the next instalment of priceless poetry on her blog, ‘Littleoldladywho.net’. I also cannot say I met Cynthia Jobin…

Read More Goodbye, Cynthia Jobin

16Dec
24 comments on “A Few Black Sheep and a Black Hole”

A Few Black Sheep and a Black Hole

Posted by umashankaron December 16, 2016December 18, 2016in Such is Life, Uncorked Angst24 Comments

If I was never really proud to be a banker, these are certainly not the times to have a change of heart when the entire species is steeped in disgrace around these tracts of the planet. In the apocalyptic times…

Read More A Few Black Sheep and a Black Hole

14Sep
49 comments on “Haruki Murakami’s Well”

Haruki Murakami’s Well

Posted by umashankaron September 14, 2016August 31, 2026in Such is Life, Uncorked Angst49 Comments

Recently, an old friend of mine who is also under the bondage of a bank, confessed to me that he had been contemplating digging a well in the backyard of his house. The gushing fool that I am, I broke…

Read More Haruki Murakami’s Well

18Aug
44 comments on “The Same Night”

The Same Night

Posted by umashankaron August 18, 2016July 30, 2026in Such is Life44 Comments

“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, from a poem I still regard as one of the finest I have…

Read More The Same Night

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Copyright © 2007 – 2026 U. S. Pandey

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Contents of this Blog cannot be copied, stored or reproduced without written consent.

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

This blog won the 2013 Indian Blogger Awards - Short Stories

Short Stories

The Rice Maker

Three Tamarind Trees

End of Dusk

The Monk in the Rain

Sam was Sad

Painter of Omens

A Wobbly-legged Boy

The Ghosts of Jamun Trees

Pebbles You May Like

In Pursuit of Oz

From the Diary of a Covid Positive Fugitive

Unwaiting for Godot

The Gunslinger Followeth

‘Oumuamua

Thus Spake My Father

Hangmen of April

Goodbye, Cynthia Jobin

Haruki Murakami’s Well

The Same Night

The Crusted Slice

Unnameable Things

Reading The Forgotten Waltz

The Siege of the Bog

Fungus on the Filter

She was a Sparrow

A Hole in My Pyjamas

The Slippery Slope

An Owl Reflects

The Last Salute

Zinfandel Moments

Ghostwalker

My son, must I stay?

Fra Lippo Lippi

While I be the Banker

The Poems

This Drop Come Home

Virus and Void

The Forgotten Barbecue

Years in the Ash

These Fingers

Afterwards

Lend Me the Assassin

The Winter of Tonight

A Leaf by the Nightfall

Book Reviews

The Garlic Ballads — Mo Yan

When Breath Becomes Air — Paul Kalanithi

Boats on Land — Janice Pariat

Red Sorghum — Mo Yan

The Casual Vacancy — J. K. Rowling

Aerogrammes — Tania Jame

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What Folks are Reading

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    Wisps of Washington — I
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    In Pursuit of Oz: The Blue Between
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    In Pursuit of Oz: All That Light in Sydney
  • In Pursuit of Oz: Finding Sydney
    In Pursuit of Oz: Finding Sydney
  • In Pursuit of Oz: Dragonflies on an Afternoon
    In Pursuit of Oz: Dragonflies on an Afternoon

Archives

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Interesting Literature

Weave a Web

Paol Soren

Cynthia Jobin

IndiaWilds

Harvesting Hecate

Making Memories (Inese MJ)

Derrick J Knight

A Corner of Cornwall

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