The Investor: Short Story

When Chandrakant Parulekar turned fifty-three, his boss of ten years laid him off.  The boss said the store wasn’t doing well and needed to cut costs. Chandrakant regretted tolerating this profligate boss for so long. He liked the father more. The late father had been the original smart businessman. Chandrakant had learnt everything from him. … Read more

Secret in the Mountains: Short Story

Binita, 16, squatted by the open doorway of her family’s modest village home, pretending to grind spices with a pestle. Her eyes, however, were fixed on the jagged peaks of the Himalayas, visible in the distance between the rooftops. The late afternoon sun painted the snow-capped giants in hues of orange and purple. Her younger … Read more

The Umbrella Repair Shop

It started raining just as I stepped out. A proper, old-fashioned rain — the kind that doesn’t drizzle politely but declares its arrival like a marching band. I ran for shelter under a nearby shop’s awning, only to realize it was a small, weathered umbrella repair shop. The irony wasn’t lost on me. A man … Read more

The Sleeper Train

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

The Hairdresser’s Chair

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

The Lost Kingdom: Short Story

“Tribhuvansinhji Bapu, my husband’s great grandfather was no ordinary man. During his time, the Raja of Domli got a 9-gun salute from the British wherever he went. Domli was no insignificant state, we had our own Coat of Arms,” she told Nikhil when he called her that morning. Despite his travels over the past so … Read more

Ranjit’s Newsletter

Loading