My flight to Amritsar landed at 12:30 pm.With admirable optimism and accurate mathematics, I assumed I would reach the hotel by 1. And I did—as efficiently as a person with one backpack and no checked-in baggage can. What I hadn’t accounted for was the small but mighty detail printed clearly on my booking:Check-in: 3:00 pm. … Read more
When Swami walked into the café last Sunday, he wasn’t looking at us. He was staring at his wrist. “Sixty-eight,” he muttered. “No, now seventy-two. How can it change so fast?” Jigneshbhai didn’t even look up from his coffee. “What’s changing?” “My heart rate!” Swami exclaimed, tapping his brand-new smartwatch. “It keeps going up and … Read more
A few days back, I travelled overnight by train after a very long time. Trains were commonplace while in college but now seemed like a new world that I hadn’t visited for years. I found my mind restless during the journey as the bogies reverberated on the tracks. As it got close to midnight on … Read more
There is this quintessential image of a writer trying to write at his desk but unable to. A pile of crumpled paper that he keeps throwing into the bin, every now and then, when his writing frustrates him. In today’s digital world, there is no such visible pile. But in my experience, there’s still a … Read more
Swami was fidgeting even before we entered the terminal. The line to get inside stretched across the lobby, people shifting from one foot to another, waiting for security to let them in. “This is ridiculous!” Swami muttered, pulling out his phone to check the time. “Half my day will go standing here. I should have … Read more
There’s a small barber shop near the corner of my street. In fact, a few have popped up over the past couple of years. They had mostly shut down after COVID, and even I had got into the habit of calling for a haircut at home. But, of late, I started revisiting the new ones, … Read more
When I entered the café a bit late last week, I saw Swami was staring at his phone like it held the secrets of the universe. I peeped in and raised my eyebrows towards Jigneshbhai wondering what the tension was about. One missed call. From an unknown number. “Jigneshbhai!” Swami said, panic in his voice. … Read more
When I feel as if I am under-appreciated and under-read or I am pining for whatever external validation I might be seeking today for the work that I do as a writer, I think of the Voyager. It was a NASA mission whose explicit objective was to photograph objects in the outer solar system. And … Read more
Swami looked restless even before we sat down at the café. His phone screen was glowing with multiple tabs open. I recognized the familiar pattern — Swami was in the middle of a health scare. “Jigneshbhai!” he said in a hushed, urgent voice. “Last night I had this dull ache in my shoulder. I googled … Read more