Me and my brother have no idea what hit her. We didn’t see it, we only heard it. Her last cry. She helped us cross the road. We thought she was behind us when we reached the median. We thought we were tottering along in front of her. She always told us that the road … Read more
“Action generally begins when you have to, not when you want to,” Jigneshbhai said sipping his coffee. “It starts when you must, not when you should.” Swami and I thought that we were more determined than that. Swami for one was sure that he was and, therefore, didn’t agree with Jigneshbhai at first, as usual. … Read more
The morning sun reached the centre of the sky. Even in full brightness, Lakhinath Kaman looked like a ghost. He sat with a straight back on his second-hand two-wheeler. No beeps on his phone. Not a single phone call. No one thought of calling him. The only calls he received in the past week were … Read more
At 6.04 am, the alarm went off. “Mummy,” he howled from under the blanket. There was no response. He pulled the blanket doubly over his face so that the sound of the alarm doesn’t disturb him. It kept ringing. “Mummy…. Mummy,” he yelled again at the top of his voice after a minute. He turned … Read more
The other day over coffee, Jigneshbhai told Swami “Decide and automate your investments so that you don’t give yourself a chance to change your mind.” Swami revolted. “But there are always unforeseen circumstances due to which I want to change my mind,” he said. Jigneshbhai smiled and said, “Leave some space to foresee the unforeseen, … Read more
In Varanasi, Pappu Pandey gazed at his dear friend Lalu Mishra’s dead body on the pyre. He stood next to Lalu’s son Pratap waiting for proceedings to begin. He was at a makeshift crematorium ghat next to the main one at Manikarnika. It was for people who had passed away due to the lethal pandemic … Read more
Do you like stories about life, death, and human behaviour with a twist? Welcome to Kaleidoscope – short stories of many hues – which will haunt you, tingle your spine, provoke thought and, often, bring a smile. What if a patient in coma can hear everything around her? Why does an old man find an … Read more
It was a place where time stopped. The beauty was overwhelming. Rohan couldn’t get his eyes off the scene. He saw his father get the camera out and click a picture. “Tavleen would have loved being here,” Mr Rana said. “If only…she were here,” he sighed. “It is a spell-binding scene of nature,” Rohan agreed … Read more
Swami woke up the following day counting his blessings and realised that the tally did add to something that was not insubstantial by any means. “We have each other for company first,” he told Jigneshbhai and me. “And I have a boss like Raichand who gave me a week of leave on his own,” he … Read more