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
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
It had been almost six months now that Kirthana had been bedridden. It had been six months since her husband Karthik had been her caregiver. “Another silent day, another silent night. What a useless life!” the thirty something Karthik said to himself. Kirthana tried to move her left hand and leg but her best efforts … 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
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
The strange thing about my new neighbourhood is that the screaming happens every day. Or more precisely, every night. It starts just before midnight and goes on way past it. Sometimes it goes on for two hours or more. With every passing minute, the screams just keep getting louder. They start with a loud scream … Read more
When everyone had left, Disha secretly checked the wallet she had given to her son again. She counted the money, and reconfirmed that the amount was two hundred rupees lesser than what she had given him. She dabbled around in the drawer of the wardrobe. She found a few pencils, crayons, and some paper. There … Read more
“Doctors treat the disease in the body. Nurses administer the treatment to the body and mind. But when nothing works, it is the Ayah that keeps body, mind and soul together.” As I walked in for my first day at medical college, I read this quote as I entered the premises. The grave of a … Read more