Twenty-two years had gone by making a life in a big, unknown city with a stranger. Being a mother, a homemaker, building a new home every two years. The jackfruit and guava trees; girly conversations full of laughter by the pukur; Mrs. Sanyal’s piercing look through her glasses; Manav Kaka’s sesame laddoos and ghoogni; Rajesh Khanna wooing Sharmila Tagore, all had faded into the grind and loneliness of the city life.
Category: Life
Facing emptiness by the river and the sea
The year was marked by deep emotional and physical emptiness, amidst reflections on life, family, and the futility of existence. Longing for liberation was countered by obligations and unresolved desires.
It was an August night
ask me what I want, what would make me happy, and I will blabber some incoherent, existential gibberish. That my arrogant, incorrigible self refuses to make peace with life’s banal existence. Yet that is what I have been doing over the years. Slowly, gradually, unconsciously, consciously, I have been accepting everything and falling into the abyss. What never ceases is the constant longing for the unknown. A restlessness for the intangible. The desire to feel alive.
Happy Anniversary!
Daaarling! Father musters his romantic self and tries to wake up his half-asleep wife. He tentatively places his palms around her face, and says with a big silly smile, Happy Anniversary! In response, Maa half opens her eyes, conjures a scowl, removes his hands away, and turns to the other side, clearly sending the message…
I am doing well. How about you?
Hey! Long time! How are you doing? Hi! Good to see you my friend! How am I doing, you ask? Ummm… let’s see. I usually wake up around seven to seven thirty in the morning. I would like to wake up earlier, do some exercise, take care of my body and mind. Have a healthy…
A fable of the past
I was standing with my father in front of the building in which we were moving in. A four storied building in a residential colony in South Delhi, with one apartment on each floor. We were moving onto the 4th floor. The labors were unloading our belongings from a small truck. A pair of cots,…
When someone will take me home
I do not understand what is this guy’s problem. For quite a while now, he has been continuously staring at me from a distance. He gets down on his knees, then lies flat on the sand, sometimes he comes in front of me, sometimes on the side, and sometimes he goes out of sight, I…
Her space by the window
She was quietly sitting at the window, looking outside impassively. Her back resting along the wall, legs stretched out. The mild afternoon sunlight created patterns of the windowpanes on her face. The window was her favorite part of the house, where she could just be with herself, watching the trees and birds, listening to the…
The Rickshaw boy
It was a chilly January night. All passengers had kept their windows closed while darkness enveloped the inside of the bus and the world speeding by outside. Nothing was visible except for the intermittent flashes of headlights revealing the silhouette of the trees lining the road. For Arun, the six-hour ride to university on the…
A glass of scotch and the violin
A relaxing and sumptuous dinner is what Vikram and Sandhya needed at the Restaurant after a long day of sightseeing in Shimla. The four km hike to the Glen forest had tired Sandhya. She had sprained her ankle on the way back and now didn’t wish to walk even to her room. She was quietly…
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