The heat is baking the Northern Planes, Frankly, I am least worried, Father's beyond all heat waves, Mother has receded into her ribs. The summers bring the mangoes too, They now grow on puny trees, Long gone are the…
Category: Such is Life
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, planted to the earth and capable of withstanding human weight. From the…
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…
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…
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 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…
For My Eyes Only
We've been old mates, glasses and I! And when I was visited upon by the first installment of friendship, fancy dealerships were not in vogue. The optometrist, who pronounced my fate in terms of twin minus fours, also scribbled the…
Ghostwalker
Standing on the untilled land, The wind sliding past my hairless pate, I proffer water with trembling hands And light the lamp of a withered fate. They said your soul will wail and wander On the breath and the…
My son, must I stay?
“I fear yours is no living soul. How could it make this distant flight? You came: the maple woods were green. You went: the pass was black with night." ~Du Fu / Vikram Seth The hamartia that ruled my father’s life was…
